Nick Marino quotes Jay Calvert in his November 6, 2006, article on Black Country Artists:
Since Charley Pride, black performers hard to find in country music
By NICK MARINO
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 11/06/2006
When the Country Music Awards are handed out Monday night, performers from the ever-widening spectrum of country music will gather in Nashville. Beach bums like Kenny Chesney will be there, as will pop-style divas like Faith Hill and old-fashioned honkey-tonkers like Alan Jackson.But as stylistically diverse as the acts have become, there will be little evidence of a demographic group that has long been part of country music: African-Americans.
Charley Pride, shown in the early 1970s, has registered more No. 1 hits than country legends Johnny Cash and George Jones combined.
'Hick-hop' performer Cowboy Troy has been urged to shed his western gear in favor of a sports jersey and baseball cap. www.cowboytroy.com
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None of the artists nominated for this year's CMAs are African-American. This isn't because the CMAs exclude black country superstars. It's because there are no black country superstars.
Country music, especially at the highest levels, remains much more homogeneous than other major genres. Justin Timberlake recently topped the Billboard albums chart with an R&B record. Eminem raps. Prince rocks. Eric Clapton plays the blues. But country music hasn't had a No. 1 hit by a black solo artist since Charley Pride topped the Billboard chart in 1983.
"Country music has always been kind of the status quo, the revered icons of the music," says Wade Jessen, Billboard's director of country, Christian and gospel charts. "We are the place where patriotism and home and mother and apple pie sort of live — you know, the values in the music. If you consider that, and you look at the way that society is evolving, you know American culture and the society is evolving in spite of that. At some point, country music's gotta come along, too."
According to a national consumer behavior survey by Simmons Research, 4 percent of African-Americans consider mainstream country music their favorite genre, compared with 29 percent of white listeners.
Perhaps that's because so few black country artists become famous. Frankie Staton, a black Nashville musician who has arranged showcases for African-American country artists, says he sometimes gets asked why there are no black people in the audience at the Grand Ole Opry. "And I say, 'Did you see any black people onstage?' "
To be sure, black artists have been involved with country music since before the recording industry existed — they have fiddled, sung, strummed the guitar, picked the banjo and blown the harmonica, learning from some white musicians while influencing others. Black country artists have contributed enough music to fill a triple-disc anthology, "From Where I Stand: The Black Experience in Country Music," which was released in 1998. But few of that set's featured artists have had major careers as country musicians.
It has been decades since country music saw an artist like Ray Charles, who released a chart-topping country album in 1962, or like Pride, who has registered 29 No. 1 Billboard hits — more than either Willie Nelson or Garth Brooks and more than Johnny Cash and George Jones combined.
John Rumble, a senior historian at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, takes a big-picture view of country music's prevailing whiteness. The work force in general, he notes, doesn't reflect ethnic and religious groups in proportion to their overall percentage of the population.
"It has always been the case," Rumble writes in an e-mail, "that certain groups can be found in particular professions in disproportionate numbers, due to any number of historical factors (such as discrimination against Jews), family traditions and talents. . . . Thus, it is not surprising that aspiring African-American musicians would tend to seek careers in rock, R&B or rap rather than country music, and young white musicians would be more likely to pursue careers in country than their African-American counterparts."
Country singer Gretchen Wilson, who became famous for her 2004 hit "Redneck Woman," suggests that that's exactly what's happening with African-Americans and country music.
"To be honest with you," Wilson told the AJC earlier this year, "I live in Nashville — I don't see that many black people trying to get record deals. I don't think that any record label would turn anyone away because of the color of their skin."
Luke Lewis agrees. Lewis — who runs Mercury, MCA and Lost Highway Records as the chairman of Universal Music Group Nashville — says he rarely encounters African-Americans looking for record deals. "If they're doing it, we haven't seen 'em," he says.
Then again, consider the case of Troy Coleman. The so-called "hick-hop" artist, who records for Warner Bros. as Cowboy Troy, has sold about 375,000 copies of his 2005 debut album, "Loco Motive," making him modern country music's most prominent black artist.
Coleman says he tries not to focus on his audience's race. "I'm more concerned, to be honest with you, about putting out music that is cool and has a broad enough base where everyone can dance to it, regardless of your ethnicity," he says.
Coleman has attained a certain level of stardom, selling all those records and co-hosting the TV music competition "Nashville Star." None of his singles, however, has cracked the Top 40, suggesting a lack of radio airplay. Coleman also has faced some confusion over where (or whether) he fits into country music.
The 35-year-old self-described "blackneck" says he's been "hammered from both sides of the fence." A black man once told him that the world's not ready for him. He says he's been told to wear a sports jersey and baseball cap, not cowboy gear. And he says he's made it onto white supremacist Web sites.
"There's people that have actually come out and said that I deserve to be drug behind a pickup truck," Coleman says.
Such extreme sentiments are not representative of the average country music fan, suggests Allen Coefield, owner and senior editor of atlantacountrymusic.com, a Web site devoted to country music in Georgia. While some prejudice may exist, Coefield says, he doesn't think that's unique to country music or its fans.
He believes country fans require three things from artists: a traditional sound (or a new sound that makes reference to tradition), a sincere approach and a consistent image. "If they get those things," Coefield says, "I honestly don't think most country music fans could care about what color or nationality somebody is."
That has been Jay Calvert's experience. The black Decatur-based singer, who makes country music independently, says he's always felt part of a community: "If you want to get technical, I'm a black man making country music. But to me and everyone around me, I'm just a country artist."
Cleve Francis, a black Virginia cardiologist who released three major-label country albums in the 1990s, says he never experienced overt racism on the road. The discrimination he faced, he believes, was much more subtle.
"If people decide not to play you on the radio, or don't tour with you, in this case you're not breaking the law," Francis says. "If you discriminate against me on the basis of not letting me do something because I'm black, [I] can go up and file suit. In music, you can't do that. You can say, 'You didn't have the right song' or 'We liked this one better.' Everyone knows you can do whatever you want to do."
Francis suggests that the gatekeepers of country music need to be more open-minded if another black artist is ever to follow in the footsteps of Pride, who could not be reached for comment for this article.
But Mark Richards, operations manager and program director for Atlanta country radio stations Kicks (101.5 FM) and Eagle (106.7 FM), says, "I can't tell you an act of color that has come from our music meeting in the last couple of years other than Cowboy Troy. We're not in a back room saying we would never play a black artist. It's just there are not any to choose from that are presented to me on a regular basis."
Nick Marino - Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Nov 6, 2006)