2019 Article Excerpt -"African American Influence on Country Music Can’t Be Understated, or Overstated" (with selected comments)

Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post presents an excerpt from a 2019 article published by Trigger (Saving Country Music) that is entitled "African American Influence on Country Music Can’t Be Understated, or Overstated".

Selected comments from that article's discussion thread are included in this post.

I encourage everyone to read the entire article and all of the comments in that article's discussion thread. 

The content of this post is presented for folkloric, socio-cultural, and educational purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to Trigger and thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.
-snip-
This post is part of an ongoing series on Black influence on (American) Country music. This music is also called "Old Time music, Hillbilly music, fiddle music, Country & Western music, etc..

Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2020/03/black-influences-minstrel-influences-on.html for a 2020 pancocojams post in this series that is entitled "Black Influences & Minstrel Influences On The Songs That Old Time Music Performer Uncle Dave Macon Sung & Played". 

Also, click the tags that are found below for more pancocojams post on this subject.

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ARTICLE EXCERPT
From https://www.savingcountrymusic.com/african-american-influence-on-country-music-cant-be-understated-or-overstated/ African American Influence on Country Music Can’t Be Understated, or Overstated, January 15, 2019; Trigger, Saving Country Music 
..."there has been a recent trend by media and even some artists to overstate the influence of African Americans in country music in an effort to systematically downgrade the influence of white performers in the ever-present politicization of culture that often derides “whiteness” as implicitly unsavory, inherently exploitative, if not outright evil. This effort appears to want to revise history to state that country music was primarily, or solely an African American art form, and it’s an aberration to characterize country music as an expression of agrarian whites beyond a few minor contributions. This revisionist endeavor has been emboldened even more lately due to the metastasizing of political vitriol throughout society, and the presence of two new African American performers at the very top of popular country: Kane Brown and Jimmie Allen. Hungry for political narratives around their ascent, the impact of African Americans in country music is becoming more commonly discussed, and often inaccurately embellished.

[…]

In an era when nuance is often drained from discussion, and people feel the need to settle on binary conclusions that often misrepresent the wide array of facts, country music must be considered to some as either black or white, when it truth its origins and history fall well within shades of grey. However if one was forced to settle upon one predominant racial influence on the genre, then country music would have to be considered a distinctly Caucasian art form, with its most potent and lasting influences coming from the folk and fiddle traditions of Irish, Scottish, and English settlers in America’s Appalachian and Southern regions, then mixed with the Western influences of the Singing Cowboys of Hollywood’s early silver screen era, and folk musicians such as Woody Guthrie.

The primary Anglo influence on American country music goes undisputed by the consensus of historians insulated from identity trends or equity arguments. While it’s true that some of country music’s most defining historical accounts potentially could have spent more time exploring the African American influences in the music, over-emphasizing these influences in retrospect as either the major generation point or sole origin of country music does not help to set the record straight, it only see-saws the misnomers in a different direction.

[…]

Except for country music, every major popular American genre has its roots primarily in African American origins, from hip-hop and R&B, to blues, to rock and roll which is primarily blues-based, to jazz, and Gospel, even though African Americans make up a minority of the American population. Country music is the only American genre where Caucasians played a predominant role in genre’s formation. That doesn’t mean African Americans didn’t contribute either, because they did, and that’s been a truth that was de-emphasized or overlooked too often in country music’s historical narrative. But to attempt to strip Caucasians of their country music influence is not only in contradiction to historical consensus, it can be counter-productive to the effort to make sure all country music artists are dealt with equitably regardless of color moving forward, whether they are current artists, or previous contributors who deserve to be framed in a proper historical context.”…

© 2022 Saving Country Music

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SELECTED COMMENTS FROM THIS ARTICLE'S DISCUSSION THREAD

As of September 16, 2022 11:44 AM ET, there are 58 comments in that article's discussion thread.
 
I've added numbers for these comments that I selected from that discussion thread. These numbers are added for referencing purposes only.

1. Cackalack
JANUARY 15, 2019 @ 10:09 AM
"Trig, I’m gonna try and be as clear as possible with this comment. I’m not taking issue with the article as a whole, this is an attempt to expand on the concept of the “folk and fiddle traditions of Irish, Scottish, and English settlers in America’s Appalachian and Southern region,” which is a murky sort of area with a lot of misconceptions. To try and give myself some credibility, I come from a family that plays that sort of music (hillbilly, mountain, old-time, whatever you want to call it), and I have a degree from a well-respected Southern university specializing in that history.

From about 1750 till the early 1900s, the most common musical configuration in the South was the fiddle-banjo duo, occasionally with a third instrument added, most commonly bones. These bands would travel about a day away at the most to play dances. There were many more amateur musicians would would only play at their local dance, party, or jam. There is a smaller data set as to the pure amateurs, but for the dance bands, it is clear that a great deal of them, perhaps more than half, were black. All these musicians influenced each other, picked together, swapped tunes and techniques and stories. The waters were mixed right there, as early as 1745, when a British traveller saw a “Negro band” playing Gaelic tunes for a dance, and I’d argue that it wasn’t until the Bristol Sessions when you can begin to separate the streams again.

The music of the South in that century and a half is impossible to extricate from black influence. The melodies are primarily Celtic, yes, but I think it is intellectually dishonest to describe that music as anything but “American.” Perhaps “Southern.” The best example of this might actually be “Dixie,” which is a patchwork of Scottish and Irish melodies, with words taken from Creole and New York lyrical threads, and, despite it’s current connotations, was most likely written not by the most overrated man in American musical history, Dan Emmett, but by a black fiddler named Thomas Snowden.

On a musicological note, I’d also argue that the biggest black contribution to country music is not the banjo, or the blues progression, but rather tonality and rhythm. Any “bent” or “blue” note in country music, or any shuffle or swinging beat, would not be there without the contributions of black folks.

This is all meant to further knowledge of our music, not to make any sort of attack or political statement. Thanks."

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2. Trigger
JANUARY 15, 2019 @ 10:47 AM
"Hey Cackalack,

Thanks for the insight, this is good stuff. I took a long time to consider how to broach this subject in a way that would be both understood by the wide public, and by both sides of the racial divide. I agree that boiling down to origin story of country music as “folk and fiddle traditions of Irish, Scottish, and English settlers in America’s Appalachian and Southern region,” is definitely the Cliff Notes version. I also feel like I did a fair job to explain the intertwined origins of country music when it comes to race. In previous drafts of this article, I delved much deeper into the musicology of this all, and decided to scrap it, because I didn’t want to get into the weeds and make this too esoteric. Ultimately I wanted to point out that anyone assigning country music as only black, or only white is incorrect, and why, and not to gain advantage over anyone in an intellectual argument, but to foster understanding about the origins of country music, and give people tools to dispel these incorrect theories if they come up in conversation.

You mentioned The Bristol Sessions, and I had a whole paragraph on this that I decided to nix because it was more of a theory than a fact. Ralph Peer, before the Bristol Sessions in 1927, went to places in the early 20’s like Atlanta and New Orleans specifically to record African Americans for the African American consumer market. Race was very much top of mind when he made these recordings. When he showed up to Bristol, potentially his goal was specifically to record rural Appalachian whites. If this is true, and if the Bristol Sessions is truly the “Birthplace of Country Music” as it sells itself, then this would lend further evidence to country music being predominately of white influence.

However, if Peer was specifically excluding black performers from the region from the sessions, which he very well may have been, then this isn’t a fair portrayal of the music and its varying influences at the time. I also agree that this marketing of music by Peer and others is truly where the race in American music got untwined, when before everyone appreciated that most modes of music in America were multicultural."

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3. Cackalack
JANUARY 15, 2019 @ 12:50 PM
"Hah yes my whole post is something of a hike in the weed patch, I just get an insufferable urge to pontificate sometimes. Overall I think it’s a good article. As far as Bristol etc. goes, here’s my take: There was already a racial split between blues and hillbilly music by the time of Bristol, but much more so in terms of the audience, rather than the performer. Jimmie hisself did a bunch of blues songs, and there were a plethora of bands in the Piedmont (including, amusingly, an integrated band from Greensboro NC that named itself after either its white banjo player or black fiddler depending on the gig) that played square dances on Friday nights and blues dances on Saturday nights.

I reckon thinking of Bristol as “The Birthplace of the Term ‘Country Music'” is a helpful way to look at it. Post Bristol, folks had the option to call themselves country musicians, and given the marketing, almost all of those who did were white.

I do think that you can draw a much clearer (and whiter, if you care about that) throughline for folk balladry specifically, though. “Knoxville Girl,” for instance, you can trace pretty directly from England, to Ireland, to Pineville Missouri, and finally to Knoxville with minimal outside influence."

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4. altaltcountry
JANUARY 16, 2019 @ 12:27 PM
"My father, who was born in southern Alabama in 1922, used to listen to Jimmie Rodgers and the Grand Ole Opry on his uncle’s radio (my grandparents had neither electricity nor running water until the 1960’s). Once when I was home from college, I was playing a record of various blues artists like Lightnin’ Hopkins, and my father commented, “Why that’s like what the black men I used to pick cotton with on our farm sounded like.” So even though in formal settings audiences were generally integrated through the 1950’s, rural whites would have been familiar with blues, field hollers, etc.

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5. Cackalack
JANUARY 15, 2019 @ 3:48 PM
"Also, I’ve never come across any evidence of Peer actively excluding black musicians from the Bristol Sessions. My theory is that there just weren’t many black folks in East Tennessee, so all or most of the pickers available there were white. Would have been a different result if he had come hunting for music that sounded more or less the same in the Piedmont."

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6. altaltcountry
JANUARY 15, 2019 @ 8:14 PM
"What’s not so well documented (as far as I’m aware) is the influence of “white” (country and gospel) music on “black” music. White country musicians like the Delmore Brothers and Wayne Raney recorded a number of boogie tunes starting in the 1930’s, but I don’t think many musicologists / historians have focused on whether or not these songs influenced black musicians. Here’s a 1946 Albert Ammons boogie woogie classic. Notice how much the guitar solo (starts around 0:26) sounds like something by Merle Travis or other white country musicians from that era:

https://youtu.be/hyUBUUbuXrw " [This link is no longer active.]

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7. Cackalack
JANUARY 16, 2019 @ 9:05 PM
"Yes, absolutely. If you’re gonna say country music has a significant black component, you also gotta say blues has a significant white component. Honky-tonk as a term, funnily enough, predates country music as a term by some thirty-odd years, and honky-tonk piano playing (unaccompanied ragtime-ish piano in a dive bar or whorehouse) is the direct precursor to boogie-woogie.

There’s a whole nother rabbit hole you can dive down featuring Travis picking, Arnold Schultz (black guitarist that played with Bill Monroe’s Uncle Pen), Spanish guitar technique and clawhammer banjo."

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8. altaltcountry
JANUARY 16, 2019 @ 12:16 PM
"I believe that the heritage of exclusively black music IS an integral part of country music, but not the DEFINING part. But I don’t think the earliest ancestors of country, which happen to be predominantly white (19th century parlor music and British / Celtic music filtered through Appalachia) are the DEFINING part either. By the 1920’s, traditionally white and black music had merged into the earliest recorded forms of what we now call country. It makes no sense to call country music as a whole by any race-based label–black, white, or (as Trigger points out) Hawaiian. Traditional country music is essentially integrative, even if performers and audiences were not racially integrated. Musically, it’s the most open-minded of all American genres–maybe of all genres internationally.

This doesn’t mean that elements of what might be called whiteness or blackness don’t exist among the varied sounds of country music–nobody would confuse Minnie Pearl with Memphis Minnie. But if you listen just to the audio, with no knowledge of the performer’s identity, a number of early and later white singers / instrumentalists could be mistaken for black (country blues) musicians (Dock Boggs, Frank Hutchinson, the Dixon Brothers). White gospel singers The Swanee River Boys would frequently be invited to perform at back churches based on their radio performances. But white doesn’t define country music, any more than black defines jazz. Both forms have evolved far beyond their earliest roots.”…

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9. altaltcountry
JANUARY 16, 2019 @ 1:20 PM
"While I disagree with the Jimmie Allen quote that “Country music came from black people – it all started with the blues and bluegrass….” both because country music didn’t start with the blues and because blues and bluegrass are not at all the same genre / subgenre, I think the influence the blues and ragtime on what country music must have been like before the first recordings was substantial.

If you could filter out the black influence (the way karaoke filters out the vocal from a track), what you have left wouldn’t sound much like recorded country music. For example, the bluegrass favorite “Shoot the Turkey Buzzard” was apparently based on a 19th century Civil War tune “Waiting for the Federals” (which may have derived from an earlier song).

Here’s a modern performance of Waiting for the Federals” (or “Kelton’s Reel):

https://youtu.be/bzhAVRTQn4A

This early recording of “Shoot the Turkey Buzzard” sticks fairly close to the 19th century “original” in tune and harmony: https://youtu.be/hzdOkbREptQ

Here’s a 1978 Smithsonian recording of a black string band playing what was probably a traditional version for them: https://youtu.be/945kRkOVc00 This is much closer to the various bluegrass versions by white musicians.

Unfortunately, the 1949 recording by J. E. Mainer isn’t available on YouTube (it’s on streaming, though–avoid the more recent recording by Mainer on Rural Rhythms), but it’s not too different from this 1990’s performance by older white bluegrass musicians, except that Mainer’s take is even wilder and more frenetic: https://youtu.be/MlIs-2cXtd8 "

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10. Lenworth
JULY 4, 2019 @ 11:20 PM
"I think this article is being a little disingenuous on the topic of race and country music and why this genre has been under the scrutiny of people of color. You insinuate that their is this entitled ideology from some that black people have always been prolific in this genre and I don’t think anyone is trying to make that argument. The issue is that many Southerners who were proud to listen to country music for many years were also proudly racist. And that is why many black people who considered themselves country singers were cut out of those spaces and radio waves. Chuck Berry, Big Al Downing, Arthur Alexander, just to name a few. Tina Turner released a country album but it was nominated for an RB Grammy. Now this may be the part where you say, “Well maybe she didn’t sing with enough twang, or with too much verbrato. Maybe her voice wasn’t soft enough…”. And there enlies the problem. When the gate keepers of a musical genre that has VERY REAL AND TANGIBLE RACIST PRACTICES doesn’t acknowledge it’s own problematic history, you’re gonna get the side eye from the rest of the world. The country music complex has no issue embracing artists like Elvis, but artists like Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley are relegated to rock or the blues and aren’t really allowed any crossover appeal. So no, black artists contributions to country shouldn’t be overstated, but whether y’all can admit or not, we’re still being understated, even in this article."

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