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My Black country a journey through country music's Black past, present and future

"It was at the age of three, sitting in the front seat of her father's car, that Alice Randall began to write her first country song: "Daddy, don't go in that B-A-R." To Randall, country music is a beating heart, shared communally with her family alive and gone, and the orig...

Full description

Main Author: Randall, Alice, 1959- (Author)
Format: Books Print Book
Language: English
Published: New York : Black Privilege Publishing/Atria, 2024.
Edition: First Black Privilege Publishing/Atria Books hardcover edition.
Subjects:
Country music > History and criticism.
African Americans > Music > History and criticism.
African American country musicians > United States.
Country musicians > United States.
Table of Contents:
  • Prelude: Back to the studio
  • 1. What is Black country?
  • Portrait of a Black man playing an early American banjo
  • The birth of Black country
  • 2. In a Motown cherry tree: learning to write hillbilly songs
  • The Supremes sing country at the Copacabana
  • Florence Joplin, erased foremother of Black country
  • 3. D.C. daze: small towns (are smaller for girls)
  • Saved by Lil Hardin and The Johnny Cash Show
  • Close encounters with trippy hippy country
  • Domestic politics
  • Seeking the safety of foreign soil in a small southern town called D.C.
  • Dixie gothic
  • Roberta Flack and audacious Black country love
  • Swamp Dogg, essential Black country eccentricity
  • 1976 bicentennial year Black country
  • 4. Encountering: the first family of Black country and other allies
  • 5. Scaling music row citadel: screaming like a banshee in Belle Meade
  • Dressing for success at the uniquely quiet Bluebird CafeĢ
  • Charley Pride at a black-tie banquet in a Nashville ballroom
  • Making a power move at the weenie roast
  • In the Ryman with Roy Orbison and a chicken dressed up like Johnny Cash
  • The Fairfield Four, Black gospel at the Ryman, and hallelujah, my first cut!
  • Kossi Gardner, unheralded Black country genius with funeral-organ roots
  • Unpacking Opryland (theme park, hotel, stage) cultural war zone
  • Midsummer's first hit, the last days of DeFord Bailey, and other victories
  • 6. Big dreams: big hits, big mistakes
  • Quincy Jones and The Cosmic Colored Cowboy
  • The capital of Black country, Los Angeles
  • The mayor of Black country, Ray Charles
  • Los Angeles Black gospel, a taproot of Black country
  • Herb Jeffries, the bronze buckaroo, rides, sings, and films apple valley
  • 7. The second-best gift my bad mama gave me: Mother Dixie
  • The Wooten Brothers, the greatest Black country brother band of all time
  • Maya Angelou's country cameos
  • The Thing Called Love: a white country movie with Black country denouements
  • XXX's and OOO's
  • Unexpected consequences
  • 8. Revived the rails: cowboys, Pullman porters, and soiled doves
  • California Zephyr, running with Lil from Bettie
  • Iowa: more trains, planes, and automobiles
  • Redemption remembered in the Black Northwest
  • Vindication, plain but not simple
  • The Pointers, the Panthers, the Barbary Coast
  • The Cost Starlight, riding a spine of the Pacific, to the City of Angels
  • A train whose name should be changed
  • Nat Love, cowboy, porter, memoirist
  • The original singing cowboys were Black
  • Fresh horses
  • Kansas City, Charley Pride, and baseball
  • Lil, the territory bands, and letting go
  • 9. The archive and the academy: creating a new country canon
  • Lil Nas X enters the academy
  • Rissi Palmer enters the archive
  • Rhiannon Giddens, creator and curator
  • Allison Russell writes a cornerstone for the canon
  • 10. Far yonder: beyond Motown and Music City
  • Linda Martell, a reckoning
  • Aretha Franklin, a benediction
  • Circling back, DeFord Bailey
  • A new Nashville now, Mickey Guyton
  • Circling back, Charley Pride
  • Circling back, Lil and the linchpins in a wild woman's town
  • Encore: a songbook performed in a wild woman's town.

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