Black Country Music: Listening for Revolutions
Written by Francesca Royster
Narrated by LaNecia Edmonds
5/5
()
About this audiobook
Black Country Music tells the story of how Black musicians have changed the country music landscape and brought light to Black creativity and innovation.
After a century of racist whitewashing, country music is finally reckoning with its relationship to Black people. In this timely work—the first book on Black country music by a Black writer—Francesca Royster uncovers the Black performers and fans, including herself, who are exploring the pleasures and possibilities of the genre.
Informed by queer theory and Black feminist scholarship, Royster’s book elucidates the roots of the current moment found in records like Tina Turner’s first solo album, Tina Turns the Country On! She reckons with Black “bros” Charley Pride and Darius Rucker, then chases ghosts into the future with Valerie June. Indeed, it is the imagination of Royster and her artists that make this music so exciting for a genre that has long been obsessed with the past. The futures conjured by June and others can be melancholy, and are not free of racism, but by centering Black folk Royster begins to understand what her daughter hears in the banjo music of Our Native Daughters and the trap beat of Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road.” A Black person claiming country music may still feel a bit like a queer person coming out, but, collectively, Black artists and fans are changing what country music looks and sounds like—and who gets to love it.
Related to Black Country Music
Related audiobooks
Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Well of Souls: Uncovering the Banjo's Hidden History Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5No Sweeter Sound: The History of Black Country Music Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Black Country: A Journey Through Country Music's Black Past, Present, and Future Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Good Booty: Love and Sex, Black and White, Body and Soul in American Music Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5From the Basement: A History of Emo Music and How It Changed Society Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Liner Notes for the Revolution: The Intellectual Life of Black Feminist Sound Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Music Is History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Night Train to Nashville: The Greatest Untold Story of Music City Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIsn't Her Grace Amazing!: The Women Who Changed Gospel Music Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Thunder Song: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dangerous Rhythms: Jazz and the Underworld Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Just around Midnight: Rock and Roll and the Racial Imagination Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Chronicling Stankonia: The Rise of the Hip-Hop South Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bury My Heart at Chuck E. Cheese's Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An Amerikan Family: The Shakurs and the Nation They Created Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Why Solange Matters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5God Save the Queens: The Essential History of Women in Hip-Hop Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Compton Cowboys: The New Generation of Cowboys in America's Urban Heartland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Top Eight: How Myspace Changed Music Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Abortion Caravan: When Women Shut Down Government in the Battle for the Right to Choose Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSaying It Loud: 1966—The Year Black Power Challenged the Civil Rights Movement Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Her Country: How the Women of Country Music Became the Success They Were Never Supposed to Be Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Risk it Takes to Bloom: On Life and Liberation Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5We Had a Little Real Estate Problem: The Unheralded Story of Native Americans & Comedy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How It Feels to Be Free: Black Women Entertainers and the Civil Rights Movement Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFat Off, Fat On: A Big Bitch Manifesto Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Music For You
Swingtime for Hitler: Goebbels’s Jazzmen, Tokyo Rose, and Propaganda That Carries a Tune Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Effortless Mastery: Liberating the Master Musician Within, Book & Includes Online Downloadable code Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Adversity for Sale: Ya Gotta Believe Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5IT'S ALL IN YOUR HEAD Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Paris: The Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Heroin Diaries: Ten Year Anniversary Edition: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rememberings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5More Myself: A Journey Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Open Book Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5No Bull Music Theory for Guitarists: Master the Essential Knowledge All Guitarists Need To Know Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Music Lesson: A Spiritual Search for Growth Through Music Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5My Effin' Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Me: Elton John Official Autobiography Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Gold Dust Woman: The Biography of Stevie Nicks Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The FBI War on Tupac Shakur: The State Repression of Black Leaders from the Civil Rights Era to the 1990s Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Storyteller: Expanded: ...Because There's More to the Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I've Had to Think Up a Way to Survive: On Trauma, Persistence, and Dolly Parton Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sweat the Technique: Revelations on Creativity from the Lyrical Genius Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin): A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fail Until You Don't: Fight Grind Repeat Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5High School Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Killing the Legends: The Lethal Danger of Celebrity Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This Is What It Sounds Like: What the Music You Love Says About You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Constitution of the United States of America, 1787 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Autobiography of Gucci Mane Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Song Maps: A New System to Write Your Best Lyrics Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Black Country Music
4 ratings0 reviews