Perhaps you are reading the headline here and thinking, Alice Randall needs no introduction to me. If so, I totally understand. Chances are you know the finer details of song writing credits over the past 40 years or so or perhaps too you have read her ground breaking parody on Gone With The Wind, The Wind Done Gone or her other books including Rebel Yell? You may also have encountered her academic input via her Chair of Humanities at Nashville’s Vanderbilt University.
However I’m writing this blog about her recent publication and record release of a book and album bearing the title, My Black Country. Alice’s book addresses the question of why African American musicians seem to have been erased from the accepted narrative of how country music came to be. Most of us who have paid any attention to the genre will be aware of the popular story of Country Music’s Big Bang. The Bristol Sessions which brought Victor Recording producer Ralph Peer to Bristol Tennessee to make the first recordings of Jimmie Rodgers and The Carter Family.
However, having read Alice’s book I found out that The Bristol Sessions, though significant, may not have been the cradle of country music but more like a kindergarten class. The real beginning, according to Alice, happened decades earlier with The Bohee Brothers, two Canadians of Caribbean descent. It’s really one of a number of myths Alice Randall’s book attempts to bust as she brings together the real stories of why country music has existed. The exciting thing about the book is it is still wildly enthusiastic about the country music we all know and love but equally tries to point out some of the significant stories that have been quietly ignored over the last 100 years or so.
I talked to Alice about all of this a few weeks back and on this week’s Another Country you will get a chance to hear that conversation as well as the story of her own songwriting career. Alice was the first African American woman to have a country number one record. Tricia Yearwood’s version of XXXs and OOOs not only broke through the colour barrier it became part of Tricia’s repertoire in the most unlikely fashion.
Along with the book Alice has curated and produced an album of songs she cowrote with new versions all sung by black country women including some of the AC’s favourites Rhiannon Giddens, Allison Russell and Adia Victoria. The album is on John Prine’s famous Oh Boy Records and is a great testament to the strength of Alice’s songwriting.
So this week’s AC will celebrate all of this. You can hear that conversation I recorded with Alice as well as an opening hour where we play some of the significant country records made by African American artists whose stories are an important part of the book. You’ll hear from Ray Charles, Charley Pride, The Carolina Chocolate Drops and Rissi Palmer as well as a track from the artist whose contribution to country music has been so significant this year – Beyonce´.
It’s a special show and you can hear it this Tuesday evening on BBC Radio Scotland and BBC Sounds. Join me if you can.
