It appears country music has made its return to the mainstream of pop culture, and Black creators are at the forefront of its resurgence.
Pharrell Williams’ collaboration with Louis Vuitton and their cowboy-inspired collection, Tracy Chapman’s duet with Luke Combs at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards, and, of course, Beyonce’s “Cowboy Carter” are all recent examples of the rising phenomenon.
However, some country music “purists” are not happy with African Americans returning to the genre. That’s right – returning. Black people are the architects of country music.
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The banjo – which is also known as the banjar, bangie, banjer and banza – is one of the fundamentals of country music and was fashioned in the first part of the 17th century by African slaves transported to America across the West Indies.
And according to an article on blackhistory.com, Joel Sweeney, a white blackface minstrel performer and the earliest documented white banjo player, is responsible for popularizing the banjo.
But he learned how to play it from slaves on a Virginia plantation, then standardized its construction, created a lesson book, and sold it.
In a March 29 story in Forbes by Marcus Collins, he called it “cultural appropriation.” Unfortunately, there are some who would try to ignore that the art form stems from those Black American and African influences.
Take actor John Schneider of “Tyler Perry’s The Have and Have Nots” and “The Dukes of Hazzard,” for example.
When asked by the conservative network “One American News” his feelings on “leftist” musicians like Beyoncé venturing into different genres, Schneider said, “They’ve got to make their mark, just like a dog in a dog walk park. You know, every dog has to mark every tree, right? So that’s what’s going on here.”
Recently, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in collaboration with Warner Music Nashville released an expanded version of the box set “From Where I Stand: The Black Experience in Country Music.”
Originally released in 1998, From Where I Stand spans a century of music and traces the many ways Black Americans have created, contributed to, and been influenced by country music.
Today, it returns as an expanded box set, an online experience, and an all-star concert celebration.
Rissi Palmer, Miko Marks, and Cleve Francis are popular country music artists of African American descent, and Michael Gray is the vice president and historian at the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Palmer, Marks, and Francis are also some of the performers on the From Where I Stand collection. In fact, Francis was instrumental in its inception. He is an internationally travelled country music artist and a cardiologist by profession.
Hailing from the state of Louisiana, Francis is also a self-taught musician, and he was discovered after he started his medical practice. He was then signed to Capitol Records, and he spent from 1992 to 1995 on the label.
Francis remembered, “As the president of the Black Country Music Association that I formed when I was in Nashville, I went over to the Country Music Hall of Fame and said, ‘You know, there’s a part missing out of our history.’”
When he first arrived at the museum, Francis said he was told that not many Black people visited the Country Music Hall of Fame, and he replied, “Why would they? There’s nothing here – there’s [iconic Black country music artist] Charlie Pride – that’s it.”
“People kept asking me, ‘How did you get into country music,’” he continued. “I was like, ‘What an odd question – I mean how did we get out of it?’”
Gray, who is not of African origins, said, “Black Americans have been creating country music since the very beginning – day one – no question about it. There wouldn’t be country music without the contributions of African Americans.”
He stated that in the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum there is a section going back to the 1920s, before country music was commercialized, which illustrates this fact.
“Country music has a very complicated relationship with race,” said Gray. “The conversation is nothing new, but it gets amplified in cycles every so often, and right now we’re having a huge moment with [Beyonce’s] ‘Cowboy Carter.’”
Born of parents from Georgia and raised in Eureka, MO, Palmer remembered listening to country music at her great-grandmother’s house in Summerville, GA.
“Something about the way the music sounded and everything – it just felt very kin to me and right with my soul,” said Palmer.” “When I first got started [in country music] I wasn’t sure that a Black woman could do country music because I’d never seen it.”
Palmer released her hit song “Country Girl” in 2007, which was praised by Billboard Magazine.
Now in addition to being a country artist, Palmer is a special correspondent with Country Music Television (CMT), and she is also the host of her own radio show called “Color Me Country.” The show highlights the past, present, and future of artists of color in country music.
Marks of Flint, Michigan was fed country music by her grandmother along with gospel and blues, but she said country is what she gravitated towards.
Marks added that coming from the Midwest, she grew up in multicultural environments, where most people were on the same economic level, and they intermingled with one another. “Everything wasn’t so racialized,” she said.
However, when she entered country music, the differences between black and white were made resoundingly clear. “Somebody said, ‘Hey, do you want to do an album in Nashville?” I was like, “Yeah, if it’s good it’s gonna go,” said Marks.
She continued, “Little did I know, the industry is not like that. I had a rude awakening. I thought if the talent is there — there’s no way they’re stopping me. I didn’t know about all the little undertones – the politics of it. I was heartbroken. This ain’t the world I lived in.”
All three agree the racial biases surrounding country music do not come only from white people but Black folks as well.
Palmer summed it up best: “It’s not just a white issue – it’s also a Black issue,” she said.
“In addition to white people giving us opportunities to be a part of the industry – it’s also on us, as a people, to… stake our claim in this… and from the very beginning of it, and then also to support and come out and be a part of this because this is a part of our culture as well,” she concluded.
But then Palmer emphasized, “We’re proud Black people [and country music artists] and want to have Black people in the audience and there with us.”
She also said the media can play a big part in helping with the reclamation of country music for Black people.
“Thank you [this author] for doing this,” said Palmer.
For more information on “From Where I Stand: The Black Experience in Country Music,” visit https://www.countrymusichalloffame.org/fwis.
