Country music pioneer Alice Randall digs into the genre’s roots in “My Black Country”

Director Ken Burns’ film “Country music” – an eight-part, 16-hour 2019 documentary about the origins and history of country music – inevitably includes details about Black contributions to what singer Kris Kristofferson calls “white man’s soul music.” Viewers learn that the banjo (one of the main instruments of country music) is of African origin; Black blues guitarist Gus Cannon taught Johnny Cash how to play; Louis Armstrong played on the song “Blue Yodel #9” that put country legend Jimmy Rodgers on the map and so on. How first black woman to write a No. 1 country hit, Alice Randall, award-winning novelist and longtime songwriter, served as the talking head of Country Music. Now, in a new cultural memoir, she continues her role as a black artist in the genre, “My Black Country: A Journey Through Country Music’s Black Past, Present and Future“

How did a Motown-raised, Harvard-educated black woman turn out to be a Nashville country music songwriter?

I used to be born in Detroit in May 1959, the same 12 months as Motown Records, in the same place. My family knew the Gordy family. Just like other people find out about teachers and policemen, I knew as just a little girl that being a song publisher and starting a record label was a business, and being a songwriter was a career because I knew songwriters.

I made my first cut two years after moving to Nashville, before I signed with Sony/ATV Tree. It was “Mindless Night” by the forester sisters B-side of single #1. I had “Girls also ride horses” (Judy Rodman), which is in the top ten, and I had “Many residences” (by Moe Bandy), which made the Top 40. I used to be successful. But I also desired to make a foray into black musical country-westerns; to higher explore the relationship between movies and country music in black spaces. To do that, I needed extra money than a big publisher could offer me. Trying to interrupt into Hollywood wasn’t something I could have done alone.

Hollywood has released only a few black westerns: “The Harder They Fall,” “Django Unchained,” “Posse.” What was your experience in Hollywood like?

My first project that I actually desired to take to Hollywood was picked up by Quincy Jones and Oprah Winfrey’s company: “Mother Dixie,” which got here with a complete album of country songs. In the book I say that it’s, in a way, my best artistic achievement – even though it was never published. … The demos are truly amazing. That’s one in all the next things I would like to do on the agenda is to release it. We are reconsidering the possibility of bringing the original script to Hollywood. World is changing. (Director) Reggie Hudlin just contacted me and said, “Do you have the script for ‘Mother Dixie’?!” (laughter)

What did you’re thinking that of “Cowboy Carter”?

I feel “Cowboy Carter” is a remarkable achievement. When it involves popular and country music, it is a high bar for each genres. The precedent can be for Ray Charles to desert “Modern sounds in country and western music” in 1963, which played a vital role in the country music space and the history of popular music recording. I feel potentially this moment overshadows it because the music has turn out to be more complex.

It’s a really wealthy album. In some ways that are not just hyperbole, “Cowboy Carter” is like Shakespeare. It’s full of content – deep, flexible text that may reflect many individuals. It’s fun on the surface, but it surely rewards the deepest commitment. In that sense, it’s like Shakespeare to me.

As a rustic music scholar, what are your favorite songs?

“16 wagons– I feel – talking to “Sixteen tons”, a piece song (Tennesse Ernie Ford). He is in conversation with “Strawberry Wine” (Deana Carter), about loss and innocence. He’s talking to my very ownXXX and OOO (American)” (recorded by Trisha Yearwood), about the balance between love and money. It’s also elegiac. It is in conversation with (Christian hymn) “Will this circle remain unbroken“about death. But it’s its own, extraordinary, original work.

I also think “Texas Hold’Em” is a dance tune where you shake your ass, much like the song (Billy Ray Cyrus) “A sore, broken heart“or (Brooks & Dunn’s)”Boot Scootin’ Boogie” in country music, but it’s actually a very deep song. The thing is, life is not a game of cards. I think country music has four basic themes: Life is hard; God is real; road, family and alcohol are significant compensations; and the past is better than the present. But in the Black Country, “the past is best than the present” is the earlier part of your childhood, when you were protected by your parents or at an earlier stage of a relationship. But honky-tonk, the road and family are all in “Texas Hold ‘Em.”

In “My Black Country” I speak about the importance of “These Boots Are Made for Walking” (Nancy Sinatra) as a link to the country world. That’s exactly in my book – after which Beyoncé sampled “These Boots Are Made for Walkin'” (in her song “Yes Yes“)! I Think Too (Beyoncé’s rendition of the Beatles classic)Blackbird” may be very essential since it gives an embodied lesson on what it takes to take the pop-folk song that’s Paul McCartney and switch it into a rustic song by adding black voices, black gospel aesthetics and sounds. But he also points to the Stoney Edwards song “Kos (hold your head high)” from 1976. I do not think it is a coincidence. Stoney Edwards is a black artist.

On “My Black Country” you support DeFord Bailey, Lil Hardin, Charley Pride, Herb Jeffries and Lesley “Eslie” Riddle (aka Esley Riddle) as the Mount Rushmore of black country music. What was their fundamental contribution?

I’m considering DeFord Bailey father of black country music. He is the godfather of all country music. He was the first superstar of the Grand Ole Opry. He helped launch the careers of Acuff-Rose and Bill Monroe, not to say the profession of Charley Pride. And he (was) the first black member of the Grand Ole Opry. He was an incredible harmonica player. He was a political artist in a way that folks often don’t recognize. In 1927, he’ll play the first notes we hear after we first hear the words “Grand Ole Opry”. And he’s a third-generation black hillbilly musician. He doesn’t appear out of nowhere; comes from his own Black family and becomes country music’s first superstar.

Lil Hardin Armstrong she is the mother of the Black Country to me. He will play on the first country single (Jimmie Rodgers) “Blue Yodel #9”, which sold tens of millions of copies. She will play every bar of this song and be completely erased from the history of this song from the day it was recorded in 1930 in Los Angeles because she was a black woman. Three geniuses played on this album: Louis Armstrong, Lil Hardin and Jimmie Rodgers. The files included the name of just one person.

Charley’s pride he’s the first black country artist to be recognized as a superstar by a majority of a rustic in the world. DeFord Bailey was a superstar, but he wasn’t 100% recognized as such. Charley Pride can be (Country Music Awards) Artist of the Year 1971and once I got here to Nashville in 1983, he had already topped the country charts 29 times.

Jeffries coat of arms, “The Brown Buckaroo” – People should know that in the Nineteen Thirties and Forties, a black man starred in, produced and directed black country and western movies. At one point he was so famous that Herbie Hancock was allegedly named “Herbie” after Herb Jeffries. He shot “Brown Buckaroo” movies on a Black-owned ranch in California. He was a real-life Marcus Garvey in the Black Country world. He did business with other black people; he hired them and is a monument to the real nineteenth century Black cowboys he portrayed in his movies.

Traditionally, it is alleged that the mother of country (music) is the Carter family… Eslie Riddle is a particularly essential musician who taught the Carter family songs and guitar techniques. He is the foundation of country music that has been erased, pushed to the side, (and, I consider, had much of his mental property stolen from him).

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Is Nashville Resisting Black Country Artists?

I call it cultural redlining. I feel there are layers to it. Music Row and radio are small town; small towns are smaller for women, but even smaller for black girls. …Until Beyoncé, no black woman had achieved this (level of success in country music). Cultural redlining is intersectional and focuses specifically on the exclusion of Black women from these spaces.

Historically, all women, even Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn, have struggled on country radio. Cultural redlining shouldn’t be nearly radio play, as songs can now be published outside of radio. It is (who is taken into account worthy) an investment in the first place. It’s the putting together of a team – marketing, promotion, clothing, publishing deals – that enables someone to grow as an artist. It’s the belief that it may well occur.

One thing that is so interesting that changes that is the Beyoncé moment. I’ve been here 41 years; we have heard, “Bring me a black woman who sings well enough, is attractive enough, disciplined enough, has the right songs, and I’ll make her a star.” The consequence of this was that each one these women who got here weren’t suitable in a way, which in my opinion was not the case. Two black women who must have had primary songs an extended time ago are Rissi Palmer and Rhiannon Giddens. They are each extraordinary singers, great songwriters, beautiful by traditional American standards. They lacked nothing. For me they were culturally crossed out.

Beyoncé avoided cultural constraints. She stormed the citadel herself and proved it may very well be done.

What impact will “Cowboy Carter” have on the country music industry?

Only time will tell. But there may be a difference between zero and one. If something has never been done, many individuals will think it’s inconceivable. Once you do that, you’re much closer to being “again.” This will allow black artists, especially black female artists, to proceed to do that and think that they’ll do it. They also see the large black audiences which have all the time existed turn out to be visible in latest ways. This large audience of white, Asian, indigenous and black people listens to “Cowboy Carter” and makes their presence felt across social media. This is a worldwide event. It’s obvious to anyone looking that folks throughout the world are willing to listen to country music sung by a black woman.

Do they wish to hearken to Beyoncé but not anyone else? We already know that folks are downloading (album highlights black country singers) Linda Martell, Brittney Spencer and (and) Tanner Adell; they see Beyoncé’s reflection. I feel Beyoncé’s album began a worldwide conversation. I predict that the summer of Black Country will come and all of America will realize how rooted in black genius the best country is.

Miles Marshall Lewis (@MMLunlimited) is a Harlem-based author and cultural critic whose work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, GQ, Rolling Stone, and plenty of other magazines. Lewis is currently completing a cultural biography of comedian Dave Chappelle, a sequel to “Promise You’ll Sing About Me: The Power and Poetry of Kendrick Lamar.”“