Beyoncé and the Question: What is “Country” Music?
Somewhere around the 37th TikTok video I saw with people doing original dances to Beyoncé’s new hit song “Texas Hold ‘Em,” I started to notice something. The dancers were some sort of approximation of America: there were videos of Black dancers, White two-steppers, Latino’s, mixed groups, old folks, youngsters and various animal species, all helpless to resist dancing to one of the cleverest, earwormiest songs I’ve heard lately.
The song has had an interesting path since it was released during the NFL Super Bowl in February. Soon after its release, people weighed in. The song was not “real country.” Beyoncé (born in Texas) was guilty of “cultural appropriation.” When a fan emailed Oklahoma country music station KYKC asking why they weren’t playing the song, the station’s general manager wrote back to say: “We do not play Beyoncé on KYKC as we are a country music station.” The fan then posted the response and her post went viral. KYKC put out a release saying the GM just hadn’t heard the song (possibly the only radio GM in the country) and had assumed it was not a country song.
Beyoncé’s new album, “Cowboy Carter,” dropped March 29, 2024. It sure sounds country.
Since then “Hold ‘Em”has exploded to Number 1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and country charts, making Beyoncé the first Black woman ever to have a #1 country hit, but when it comes to the song getting airplay on country music stations, she’s facing a stubborn resistance: the song has never made it higher than #33.
This isn’t the first time in the past few years Black musicians have had a rocky entry into the country music space. In 2019, “Old Town Road,” Lil Nas X’s goofy, banjo-driven, horse-centric, western-focused country-rap duet with Billy Ray Cyrus, was pulled from country charts by Billboard, which claimed it did not “embrace enough elements of today’s country music” to be considered “country.” Beyoncé got the same treatment in 2016 when she released “Daddy Lessons,” a distinctly country-feeling song about her father, whiskey, motorcycles, guns, and the Bible: the Recording Academy’s country music committee ruled it was not country enough, making it ineligible for Grammy consideration. That snub, in part, propelled her to develop the album “Texas Hold ‘Em” appears on, “Cowboy Carter.” In a post on Instagram, Beyoncé wrote: “The criticisms I faced when I first entered this genre forced me to propel past the limitations that were put on me,” and making this album was “a result of challenging myself and taking my time to bend and blend genres together to create this body of work.”
This all raises a tricky question: what is country music? Alice Randall is a Black songwriter who wrote the chart-topping “XXX’s and OOO’s” and several other hits (all performed by white country performers), is the author of the upcoming memoir, My Black Country (due out April 9). She says “country music” must have four key elements: some sort of Celtic roots, African rhythms or influences (such as the banjo), storytelling and evangelical Christianity. Thematically, it typically proceeds with four basic assumptions, she told a Vox Media podcast:
“God is real; life is hard; road, whiskey and family are significant compensations; and the past is better than the present. When I see one of those four things, I know I may be looking at a country song.”
“Texas Hold ‘Em” checks a lot of those boxes. It’s a good story, set in a honky tonk, featuring a banjo, with plenty of whiskey, red solo cups, cowboy boots and spurs and a hint of a hard life heartache. So why did it only make #33 on the country music play lists?
Even though country music has long been associated with white southern culture, it has never been all-white. Though the performer wasn’t identified, the first sound heard on the first episode of the radio show “The Grand Ole Opry” in 1927 (it’s still running; the longest-running radio show in the US) was the harmonica of DeFord Bailey (since he wasn’t allowed to speak or sing, and since this was radio, most people didn’t realize he was Black). And two of the three performers on the first big country hit in 1930, “Blue Yodel #9,” Lil Hardin Armstrong and her estranged husband Louis Armstrong, were Black (singer Jimmie Rodgers was identified; the Armstrongs weren’t).
Jimmie Rodgers was good on “Blue Yodel #9,” but so were Lil Hardin Armstrong and Louis Armstrong.
Ray Charles 1962 album “Modern Songs in Country and Western Music” was a true crossover hit, but he found most of his success from songs classified as R&B. Even into the late-1960’s, eventual country superstar Charlie Pride began his career as what Randall calls “incog-negro” -- putting out singles for RCA with no photos until he got so big that he “had” to “come out” as black.
RCA kept Charley Pride’s race secret until his third single became a hit.
But he loved the music. In an interview after he had made it big in the country world, Pride tried to explain why: “My older sister used to say to me – why are you singing their music? I said,well, it’s my music too. That’s me when I was growing up in a segregated southern state.”
Pride’s success emboldened other 1970’s performers who loved country music to try recording it. Tina Turner’s first solo album, was called “Tina Turns Country On!” but it earned her a Grammy nomination in the R&B, not country, category. The Pointer Sisters did better with their full-on country song “Fairytale,” winning the only country Grammy by any Black women, but faced protest signs of “Keep Country, Country” when they performed it at the Grand Ole Opry in 1974.
Since then there have been isolated Black successes in country music, like Darius Rucker and Jimmie Allen, but it has been Black men, not women. It’s unfortunate that Rhiannon Giddens, an immense talent with the Carolina Chocolate Drops, has never gotten the country respect she deserves.
Rhiannon Giddens plays on Beyonce’s new album, but has never gotten the “country” career her talent deserves.
The truth is I don’t know what category to put “Cowboy Carter” in. Besides “Texas Hold’Em,” Beyoncé’s cover of “Jolene” and “Riverdance” sound pretty close to mainstream country, “16 Carriages” has a country feel with lyrics,if not with instrumentation, and there are appearances by country icons Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton. But the vibe of “Spaghetti” is basically hiphop, “Daughter” has a section where Beyoncé is singing part of an Italian aria, “Yaya” includes a Beach Boys sample, and I can’t figure out what genre “Sweet Honey” is. As Beyoncé posted on Instagram last week: “This ain’t a country album. This is a Beyoncé album.”
Amen. But let the music speak for itself; don’t deny it a place because you don’t like the artist’s color, gender or politics.
And recognize the album for the potential gift that it brings with it. It may be the soft entry point or a flood of new potential fans to consider sampling more “country” music – Whites who like Beyoncé but don’t like country; Blacks who think country music is not for them; and Whites that don’t like “Black” country. If she gets even a soft embrace from the genre, she creates the potential for the country “pie” to grow from small and niche to jumbo-sized. Here’s one indicator of the size of her audience: within two hours of its official release (Friday, March 29 at midnight), the album was already #1 in the US on iTunes Album tracker.
The breakthrough she is making in the country world (in sales, if not on radio stations) also makes room for other people who look like her to make it in the mainstream country scene. “She had to avoid layers of cultural redlining,” Randall notes, “But the difference between 0 and 1 is immense. Once it has been done once it can again be done.”
Notes:
Controversy over “Black” “country” songs: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/feb/16/beyonce-song-texas-hold-em-radio-play-kykc-oklahoma
Background on “XXX’s and OOO’s”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XXX%27s_and_OOO%27s_(An_American_Girl)
My Black Country book link: https://www.alicerandall.com
Alice Randall on Vox: https://www.vox.com/2024/3/26/24111978/beyonce-album-cowboy-carter-black-country-history
DeFord Bailey was acknowledged after his death:
https://www.countrymusichalloffame.org/hall-of-fame/deford-bailey
Jimmie Rodgers “Blue Yodel #9” and … the Armstrong’s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY0oizcLLHU
Charley Pride’s race not initially revealed: https://www.countrymusichalloffame.org/hall-of-fame/charley-pride#:~:text=RCA%20kept%20Pride's%20race%20secret,discovered%20that%20he%20was%20Black.