WEBVTT - Alice Randall 0:00:15.476 --> 0:00:22.636 Pushkin. Alice Randall is a country music songwriter, a New 0:00:22.716 --> 0:00:26.236 York Times bestselling author, and a newly minted memoirst. She 0:00:26.316 --> 0:00:29.236 calls her new book, My Black Country a love letter 0:00:29.316 --> 0:00:32.956 to black country music. In addition to her memoir, Alice 0:00:32.956 --> 0:00:35.716 has also released the album My Black Country The Songs 0:00:35.756 --> 0:00:38.196 of Alice Randall that includes her rendition of the song 0:00:38.316 --> 0:00:42.676 The Ballad of Sally Anne performed by Rhiannon Giddons. The song, 0:00:42.676 --> 0:00:45.636 which confronts the harsh realities of lynching and the American South, 0:00:45.836 --> 0:00:48.276 was nominated for a Grammy last year in the Best 0:00:48.316 --> 0:00:52.476 American Roots Performance category. On today's episode, Bruce Hettlam talks 0:00:52.476 --> 0:00:55.276 to Alice Randall about her lifelong love of country music 0:00:55.436 --> 0:00:57.236 and how growing up in Detroit during the height of 0:00:57.276 --> 0:01:01.836 Motown influenced her musical sensibilities. She also traces the countless 0:01:01.876 --> 0:01:05.116 contributions African Americans have made to country music and why 0:01:05.156 --> 0:01:11.836 she believes that history has been ignored. This is broken record, 0:01:12.276 --> 0:01:23.836 real musicians, real conversations. Here's Bruce Headlin's conversation with Alice Randall. 0:01:23.956 --> 0:01:27.876 So you have your book, My Black Country. We should 0:01:27.876 --> 0:01:31.596 mention it's far from your first book. You're also a novelist. 0:01:31.676 --> 0:01:34.796 You've done many other things. You had the tribute album 0:01:34.876 --> 0:01:38.716 My Black Country, which is the songs of Alice Randall 0:01:39.356 --> 0:01:46.076 and beautifully designed in that classical Nashville way. Now and 0:01:46.116 --> 0:01:50.076 you talk about all of this as your project. Are 0:01:50.116 --> 0:01:52.796 there other elements to this project? Is there more coming? 0:01:53.916 --> 0:01:58.996 Yes? There actually is more coming. There is my Black 0:01:59.036 --> 0:02:04.156 Country documentary that Reggie will be directing that will let 0:02:04.236 --> 0:02:06.836 us take a deeper dive into some of this material 0:02:07.116 --> 0:02:10.556 and a visual dive into it. And I've actually just 0:02:10.756 --> 0:02:15.876 begun work on my Black Country Country Cookbook, which will 0:02:16.116 --> 0:02:19.716 actually create taste monuments to some of the women who 0:02:19.756 --> 0:02:24.476 performed on the album and to some of the people 0:02:24.996 --> 0:02:29.996 that are make appearances in the book. In the memoir 0:02:30.036 --> 0:02:32.636 in history, but the memoir in History is very much 0:02:32.676 --> 0:02:36.916 focused on the past and up to the present, and 0:02:37.836 --> 0:02:40.716 my Black Country Cookbook is going to be focused on 0:02:40.756 --> 0:02:42.156 the present and into the future. 0:02:42.596 --> 0:02:45.516 When did this whole idea come to you that there's 0:02:45.676 --> 0:02:48.196 got to be some way to pull all these threads together? 0:02:48.236 --> 0:02:50.916 And we should mention the book is it's a history 0:02:50.956 --> 0:02:53.556 of Black country. It's a very personal history as well. 0:02:53.596 --> 0:02:57.356 It's your history, and it's also the music's history. 0:02:57.556 --> 0:03:01.476 Absolutely and succorded and unrecorded music history. The music of 0:03:01.516 --> 0:03:04.556 My Black Country begins in the seventeenth century and goes 0:03:04.596 --> 0:03:07.996 to the present, but it focuses on the recorded era 0:03:08.516 --> 0:03:11.156 that starts in nineteen twenty seven and the radio era 0:03:11.236 --> 0:03:15.556 with Deft Bailey on WSM radio, with Lil Harden playing 0:03:15.596 --> 0:03:18.396 on Blue Yodel number nine in nineteen thirty one, country's 0:03:18.396 --> 0:03:23.316 first million selling single. So that's the history part of 0:03:23.356 --> 0:03:26.516 the project. And then it takes up in nineteen eighty 0:03:26.556 --> 0:03:29.676 three with my forty year history, which is the memoir part. 0:03:30.476 --> 0:03:33.916 But the larger project occurred to me when I was 0:03:33.956 --> 0:03:38.276 a little girl in Motown. I was born in Detroit 0:03:38.396 --> 0:03:42.156 nineteen fifty nine, and my parents were not involved in 0:03:42.236 --> 0:03:45.276 the music business, but they were surrounded by people in 0:03:45.316 --> 0:03:49.236 the music business, particularly the Gordy family, particularly Marvin Gay, 0:03:49.316 --> 0:03:56.876 Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder. This very rich musical world swirled 0:03:56.916 --> 0:03:59.556 around me, and so did a lot of great music gossip. 0:03:59.756 --> 0:04:03.076 And so I had heard from early childhood's day that 0:04:03.596 --> 0:04:07.196 Lil Harden played on that big Sometimes they said Hillbilly hit, 0:04:07.276 --> 0:04:10.196 sometimes they said Pekko would hit, meaning Blue Yoga number 0:04:10.236 --> 0:04:13.916 nan and Lil Harden was still moving through that world 0:04:13.996 --> 0:04:16.876 when I was a little girl. So by the time 0:04:16.956 --> 0:04:20.196 fast forward, I'm at Harvard and I'm interested in country music, 0:04:20.796 --> 0:04:23.236 and I'm not hearing any of that, and I start 0:04:23.316 --> 0:04:28.356 to trace the oral history, track down the oral history 0:04:28.396 --> 0:04:32.276 I've been hearing in my Detroit childhood and interrogate it 0:04:32.316 --> 0:04:34.036 with the facts and the history that we were learning 0:04:34.116 --> 0:04:36.916 and was available, and see how much of it was true. Well, 0:04:36.916 --> 0:04:38.996 it turned out my daddy was right about who was 0:04:38.996 --> 0:04:42.836 playing on Jimmy Rogers and Orchestra, so that that was 0:04:42.836 --> 0:04:45.636 also Louis Armstrong and also a little hardened. And so 0:04:45.996 --> 0:04:48.356 I think the project began when I was a little 0:04:48.356 --> 0:04:52.556 girl in Detroit hearing counter narratives and continuing to hear 0:04:52.636 --> 0:04:55.196 counter narratives when I was in middle school, and that 0:04:55.316 --> 0:04:58.156 I loved the Johnny Cash Show, but my father had 0:04:58.236 --> 0:05:01.156 counter narratives to what was happening on the Johnny Cash 0:05:01.156 --> 0:05:06.276 Show too. But in Earnest twenty eighteen, I was diagnosed 0:05:06.316 --> 0:05:09.356 with breast cancer and it was a sort of serious 0:05:09.396 --> 0:05:13.916 of one, and I thought about if I did die soon, 0:05:14.396 --> 0:05:16.396 what were the things I wanted to do and the 0:05:16.396 --> 0:05:18.476 two projects I wanted to do was one write a 0:05:18.596 --> 0:05:22.716 history of the Motown music scene as I understood it 0:05:23.356 --> 0:05:25.636 that I thought should be a novel that was Black 0:05:25.676 --> 0:05:28.396 Bottom Saints. And the other was I wanted to write 0:05:28.596 --> 0:05:31.036 the history of black people in country music, everything that 0:05:31.076 --> 0:05:34.516 I've been collecting and learning and knowing for all that time. 0:05:35.516 --> 0:05:38.876 Then when Black Bottom Saints came out and that book 0:05:38.956 --> 0:05:41.556 did well, I was proud that the New York Times 0:05:41.556 --> 0:05:44.156 picked it as one of the best historical novels of 0:05:44.196 --> 0:05:48.436 the year. People wanted to hear my old records a lot, 0:05:48.916 --> 0:05:51.196 and they and even for the website, they wanted me 0:05:51.236 --> 0:05:55.316 to put up a Spotify playlist of these old recorded songs, 0:05:55.396 --> 0:05:58.076 many of which have been hit and I realized I 0:05:58.076 --> 0:06:01.516 could barely bear to listen to any of them. So 0:06:01.556 --> 0:06:07.716 it's a visceral, real hm event because particularly taken as 0:06:07.756 --> 0:06:11.476 a group, when you look at the one that starts 0:06:11.556 --> 0:06:14.356 off the album, small towns are smaller for girls. I 0:06:14.436 --> 0:06:17.036 was very proud to get that Holly Done cut. But 0:06:17.116 --> 0:06:20.036 when you listen to that cut, it doesn't sound like 0:06:20.516 --> 0:06:23.676 any black girl ever lived in a small town in 0:06:23.716 --> 0:06:27.316 the South, when small towns in the South were full 0:06:27.356 --> 0:06:30.996 of black girls. When you listen to girls ride horses too, 0:06:31.676 --> 0:06:35.756 my first Top ten sung by G. D. Rodman. You're 0:06:35.796 --> 0:06:39.476 thinking white girls in the West ride horses too, But 0:06:39.676 --> 0:06:43.196 I was actually thinking about black and brown women in 0:06:43.236 --> 0:06:45.676 the Western road horses and black and brown women who 0:06:45.676 --> 0:06:48.156 are being caught up in the drug trade that that 0:06:48.316 --> 0:06:52.396 song was about on the tax Mexican border. When Sister 0:06:52.476 --> 0:06:56.276 String sings that, you hear that and more significantly, even 0:06:56.316 --> 0:06:58.836 the Ballad of Sally Inn that had been on a 0:06:58.876 --> 0:07:03.596 Grammy nominated album that was an extraordinary album. Mark O'Connor 0:07:03.676 --> 0:07:06.876 is playing the fiddo, one of the great voices of 0:07:07.916 --> 0:07:11.636 new grass and blue grass. John Cowan is singing the lead. 0:07:12.076 --> 0:07:15.436 But when he sings the Ballad of Sally Anne, it's 0:07:15.476 --> 0:07:18.676 from the perspective of a white man who watched the 0:07:18.716 --> 0:07:22.596 body hung in the trees and couldn't at best do it, 0:07:22.676 --> 0:07:27.276 needing to stop it. When Rihannan sings the Ballad of 0:07:27.316 --> 0:07:30.236 Sally Anne, it's from the perspective of the woman whose 0:07:30.636 --> 0:07:34.756 husband has been lynched between his wedding and his reception. 0:07:35.196 --> 0:07:41.396 And it's the voice of love, transcending death, love eclipsing hate. 0:07:41.916 --> 0:07:45.316 It is a much more profound thing, and it's closer 0:07:45.316 --> 0:07:47.236 to the thing I was writing in the first place, 0:07:47.476 --> 0:07:50.436 because I was writing in my head for my own voice, 0:07:50.436 --> 0:07:51.676 though I did not want to be a singer. 0:07:51.796 --> 0:07:54.956 Mm hmm. Okay, you've just covered an enormous amount of territory. 0:07:55.516 --> 0:07:59.156 So you mentioned you were born in Detroit, but you 0:07:59.196 --> 0:08:00.956 were surrounded by country music. 0:08:02.116 --> 0:08:05.476 Yes, like many black people, I was born in nineteen 0:08:05.556 --> 0:08:08.756 fifty nine. Many black people from my era and before. 0:08:09.556 --> 0:08:12.396 Remember the Golden Age of black radio was yet to 0:08:12.436 --> 0:08:15.316 happen in nineteen fifty nine, that the vast majority of 0:08:15.396 --> 0:08:20.796 radio programming in America, in the American South was country programming, 0:08:21.036 --> 0:08:23.916 and so Ray Charles grew up listening to the opera 0:08:24.156 --> 0:08:26.236 on Saturday nights. He says that his mama would let 0:08:26.316 --> 0:08:28.196 him stay up late. That's the only time she'd let 0:08:28.276 --> 0:08:31.996 him stay up late to listen to it. But intimately, 0:08:32.476 --> 0:08:35.036 I have always said that my mother, my grandmother, and 0:08:35.076 --> 0:08:37.396 my aunt only had one thing in common, and it 0:08:37.396 --> 0:08:39.516 should have been loving me, but it was actually loving 0:08:39.516 --> 0:08:43.036 country music because my mother did not love me so 0:08:43.276 --> 0:08:46.876 but the music they loved was different. My grandmother would 0:08:46.916 --> 0:08:50.796 seemed to me on her lap the old songs, Will 0:08:50.876 --> 0:08:56.396 the circle be unbroken? My auntie would wear out the albums, 0:08:56.436 --> 0:09:00.196 particularly Ray Charles's Modern Sounds in Country and Western. 0:08:59.916 --> 0:09:02.316 Which came out I think a year after you were born. 0:09:02.556 --> 0:09:08.476 Yes, right after I was born, and my mother played 0:09:08.796 --> 0:09:12.036 the country radio. That was her secret pleasure. She would 0:09:12.036 --> 0:09:14.596 do it in the laundry room in the basement of 0:09:14.636 --> 0:09:17.316 the house, and she was playing Ernest Tubb and Hank 0:09:17.356 --> 0:09:21.956 Williams and all the honky tar kits of the radio. 0:09:22.036 --> 0:09:26.836 So I was getting country in live voice on my 0:09:26.876 --> 0:09:31.356 grandmother's lap, dancing around the living room with Mary Francis, 0:09:31.396 --> 0:09:36.556 my auntie, and snuck out to the radio with my mother. 0:09:37.236 --> 0:09:39.236 And then I eventually moved to Washington, d C. Where 0:09:39.276 --> 0:09:41.316 I got to hear a lot of live bluegrass, seldom 0:09:41.356 --> 0:09:45.356 seeing country gentlemen ROBERTA. Flack, who I actually think of 0:09:45.396 --> 0:09:49.076 as a country artist. So it live country would come 0:09:49.116 --> 0:09:52.276 into my life then. And I also fell in love 0:09:52.316 --> 0:09:55.276 with the Johnny Cash Show. I actually loved the Johnny 0:09:55.276 --> 0:09:57.916 Cash Show, and I watch got a lot of country 0:09:57.956 --> 0:10:00.756 in the television when I was in middle school. 0:10:01.156 --> 0:10:04.596 Do you remember was there one particular song, Was there 0:10:04.636 --> 0:10:07.116 one moment that made you think, maybe I want to 0:10:07.116 --> 0:10:07.436 do this? 0:10:08.356 --> 0:10:12.036 They were so oh many moments I mean I was 0:10:12.116 --> 0:10:15.236 literally a little girl. I think I was four or 0:10:15.276 --> 0:10:18.196 five in a Motown cherry tree when I wrote my 0:10:18.196 --> 0:10:21.596 first country song, Daddy, don't go in that var Please 0:10:21.636 --> 0:10:23.036 don't leave me alone in the car. 0:10:23.196 --> 0:10:24.876 But you need to tell the story of that song. 0:10:25.636 --> 0:10:28.516 Well, I was, I know, I was about three years 0:10:28.556 --> 0:10:32.116 old when the first event happened. It was a fall, 0:10:32.356 --> 0:10:35.396 dark was coming and my father had stopped in front 0:10:35.396 --> 0:10:38.636 of a door in his car and pointed to hands 0:10:38.676 --> 0:10:40.836 on the clock and said, when the hands got to 0:10:40.876 --> 0:10:42.836 this point, he'd be back. And I knew he would 0:10:42.876 --> 0:10:45.356 be because he was always back before the hands got 0:10:45.356 --> 0:10:47.676 to where he pointed the car. But this time it 0:10:47.796 --> 0:10:49.956 was cold and it was getting dark, and I was 0:10:49.996 --> 0:10:51.876 feeling a little scared. I did not want to be 0:10:51.956 --> 0:10:54.116 left alone in the car. And I looked at these 0:10:54.196 --> 0:10:59.916 letters hanging in the sky, write letters, and I said, Daddy, 0:11:00.036 --> 0:11:03.956 don't go in that baar, because that was the letters 0:11:03.996 --> 0:11:05.876 I saw. I couldn't read those letters. That's how I 0:11:05.956 --> 0:11:09.916 know it was three And he said, I've left you 0:11:09.956 --> 0:11:12.436 in fid of too many bar signs, neon signs. If 0:11:12.476 --> 0:11:15.516 you're spelling those letters out to me now. He still 0:11:15.516 --> 0:11:17.756 went in, but he took me with him, and so 0:11:17.836 --> 0:11:20.236 that was one when I learned the power of language 0:11:20.236 --> 0:11:23.116 and power of using my words. I got to go inside. 0:11:23.436 --> 0:11:25.796 He put me on a barstool. I got something with 0:11:25.836 --> 0:11:29.836 a Maraschino cherry in it. I remember that, And so 0:11:30.876 --> 0:11:35.796 that event happened to me. And fast forward about a 0:11:35.876 --> 0:11:38.716 year or two. It was not immediately, it was around 0:11:38.756 --> 0:11:42.396 the time I was starting kindergarten to around five. I 0:11:42.516 --> 0:11:44.716 used to spend four or five I used to spend 0:11:44.716 --> 0:11:46.716 a lot of time in the cherry tree on the 0:11:46.756 --> 0:11:49.476 side of our house we actually had. It was Detroit, Michigan, 0:11:49.836 --> 0:11:53.036 and there was four fruit trees, and then the highway, 0:11:53.316 --> 0:11:55.116 So the highway and the cars on that were like 0:11:55.156 --> 0:11:57.916 my river in Detroit. But I was actually sitting up 0:11:57.996 --> 0:12:01.156 in a fruit tree, a cherry tree. And of course 0:12:01.196 --> 0:12:03.756 they told me that birds poo pooed on the cherries 0:12:03.796 --> 0:12:06.436 in the tree, so I didn't get to eat any 0:12:06.476 --> 0:12:08.756 of those. So this is a Detroit childhood. I am 0:12:08.796 --> 0:12:11.916 sitting in a cherry tree, eating from a jar of 0:12:12.316 --> 0:12:17.036 bar Cherry's Marashino cherry, and I think thinking about that. 0:12:17.196 --> 0:12:19.796 In that first drink I started, you know, I was 0:12:19.836 --> 0:12:21.996 singing to the birds. John Lewis said he used to 0:12:22.076 --> 0:12:24.076 preach to the chickens. I never said I didn't have 0:12:24.076 --> 0:12:25.836 any chickens, and I didn't do any preaching, but I 0:12:25.956 --> 0:12:27.836 used to sing to the birds a very bad voice. 0:12:27.836 --> 0:12:30.996 I don't have a good voice, and usually first I 0:12:31.036 --> 0:12:33.636 was singing songs I learned from my grandmother, my mother, 0:12:33.756 --> 0:12:36.396 my aunt. But eventually I started making up my own 0:12:36.436 --> 0:12:38.956 little songs. And the first one I really remember making 0:12:39.036 --> 0:12:41.956 up was Daddy, don't go in that bar, Please don't 0:12:42.036 --> 0:12:45.476 leave me alone in the car. I'm wishing on a 0:12:45.556 --> 0:12:49.396 something star, Daddy don't go in that bar. And I 0:12:49.436 --> 0:12:51.916 love that song so much, the bones of it. I 0:12:51.996 --> 0:12:55.756 brought it with me to Nashville, and I brought it 0:12:55.796 --> 0:12:58.876 into several meetings, and I remember Archie Jordan, who wrote 0:12:58.876 --> 0:13:01.116 What a Difference You Made in My Life and some 0:13:01.476 --> 0:13:04.756 Grammy winning big songs. Archie said to me, that's the 0:13:04.876 --> 0:13:07.956 hit and I said that happened to me and he 0:13:07.996 --> 0:13:10.316 said I know, and I said, how could you know? 0:13:10.596 --> 0:13:13.716 He said, you can't invent that, but I love that 0:13:13.756 --> 0:13:16.276 event was so precious to me. I could never work 0:13:16.316 --> 0:13:18.636 on that song to make it a professional or co 0:13:18.716 --> 0:13:22.556 written song because I couldn't change anything about it. So 0:13:22.636 --> 0:13:25.556 I've known from almost my earliest hours music was so 0:13:25.596 --> 0:13:28.236 important to me. It's been a lifeline to me through 0:13:28.436 --> 0:13:33.956 my whole life. It was the soundtrack that filled up 0:13:33.996 --> 0:13:37.676 the silences around me in an unhappy home. I've always 0:13:37.756 --> 0:13:43.476 loved music and always wanted to write, write makeup songs. 0:13:43.516 --> 0:13:44.516 I love making up songs. 0:13:44.836 --> 0:13:47.476 And did you start playing piano or guitar when you 0:13:47.516 --> 0:13:48.516 were young as well? 0:13:49.316 --> 0:13:53.116 Weirdly I took some piano lessons. So I went to 0:13:53.156 --> 0:13:55.516 a school called the Ziggie Johnson School of the Theater, 0:13:55.716 --> 0:13:58.316 which I've written a lot about in Black Bottom Saints, 0:13:58.316 --> 0:14:00.156 And that's a real place. It was run by a 0:14:00.156 --> 0:14:04.996 man called Ziggie Johnson, who was, like you, an important journalist. 0:14:05.116 --> 0:14:08.436 He wrote for the Michigan Chronicle of the black newspaper 0:14:08.476 --> 0:14:12.436 there and it was a column largely about the national 0:14:12.556 --> 0:14:16.116 music industry from a Detroit perspective. And he had this 0:14:16.236 --> 0:14:19.356 dance school. So I'm at a dance school where, for example, 0:14:19.556 --> 0:14:22.316 the Supremes will come in and they actually perform on 0:14:22.396 --> 0:14:26.116 the yearly pageant, and Sammy Davis comes in. He's also 0:14:26.156 --> 0:14:30.396 showing us bootleg film a Barishnakov the man was very interesting. 0:14:30.916 --> 0:14:35.716 So I early knew one because I'm hearing not that 0:14:35.796 --> 0:14:38.356 much older than me. Stevie Wonder played the harmonica or 0:14:38.476 --> 0:14:41.516 make music that I am not a great musician. I 0:14:41.556 --> 0:14:46.276 am not a dancer, but I could write. I realized 0:14:46.356 --> 0:14:49.316 I did put words together in sort of interesting ways. 0:14:49.556 --> 0:14:51.916 But I knew so I did not play the piano 0:14:52.036 --> 0:14:54.036 long or the guitar long. And I will make a 0:14:54.036 --> 0:14:57.716 confession I've hardly ever confessed my own daughter, who now 0:14:57.756 --> 0:15:03.196 plays I think a very cool guitar and sings very interestingly. 0:15:03.276 --> 0:15:06.516 It will put out an album next year, and I 0:15:06.556 --> 0:15:10.156 love that. Justin Town's earl said, like he said, you're 0:15:10.196 --> 0:15:11.956 a guitar playing and worth the ship. I can do 0:15:12.036 --> 0:15:14.876 something with your voice that she actually does play some 0:15:14.956 --> 0:15:17.396 interesting guitar. But when she was a little girl, when 0:15:17.436 --> 0:15:19.196 she had been at it just a few years, and 0:15:19.596 --> 0:15:22.836 she went through all this great classical piano lessons, I said, Carol, 0:15:23.036 --> 0:15:24.996 if you were a great pianist for a guitar, we 0:15:25.036 --> 0:15:27.676 wouldn't know that. By now. This is like, Mommy, I 0:15:27.716 --> 0:15:29.676 am not the mother who could listen to this and 0:15:29.756 --> 0:15:34.636 say this is great. It wasn't originally great, but eventually 0:15:34.756 --> 0:15:39.316 she actually has become I think actually a very unusual, 0:15:39.476 --> 0:15:43.356 really great guitar player. And I love acclaiming she wasn't 0:15:43.356 --> 0:15:45.316 for a long time. But I never I cannot sing 0:15:45.356 --> 0:15:48.876 at all, and I cannot play the guitar, and I 0:15:48.876 --> 0:15:51.876 have very good ears. I have. I can tell when 0:15:51.876 --> 0:15:55.316 things are slightly off. I can recognize talent at the 0:15:55.436 --> 0:15:58.676 very beginning. But I have great ears and do not 0:15:58.836 --> 0:16:01.556 play any instrument or sing or anything. 0:16:01.716 --> 0:16:05.956 Okay, this surprises me because your daughter clearly was working 0:16:05.996 --> 0:16:08.876 at it, and you were like, oh, you don't know 0:16:08.956 --> 0:16:10.836 she is going to get there. But you worked at 0:16:10.836 --> 0:16:13.676 being a lyricist. You write in the book about listening 0:16:13.716 --> 0:16:16.636 to the radio. I don't know when you had the typewriter, 0:16:17.196 --> 0:16:20.036 but you would type up the lyrics you would hear 0:16:20.836 --> 0:16:22.356 and then analyze them. 0:16:22.876 --> 0:16:24.796 Well at first what I do at night. So we 0:16:24.876 --> 0:16:26.916 have to back in the days. This is the early eighties. 0:16:26.956 --> 0:16:29.596 So I have worked so hard at being a lyricist. 0:16:30.436 --> 0:16:32.116 So in the early eighties, when I moved here in 0:16:32.156 --> 0:16:36.476 eighty three, I would let the radio run all night, 0:16:37.636 --> 0:16:39.916 and if on the country radio, and if I heard 0:16:39.916 --> 0:16:42.276 a song that I hadn't heard, I would wake up 0:16:42.436 --> 0:16:45.116 and write down so I started with a pad in 0:16:45.156 --> 0:16:48.036 my bed, you know, and of course radio format when 0:16:48.156 --> 0:16:51.276 things are moving up there on every hour, every couple hours, 0:16:51.476 --> 0:16:54.356 literally because there was no Google back then everything. I 0:16:54.476 --> 0:16:58.756 was literally catching the song all through the night, and 0:16:58.796 --> 0:17:01.156 then I would type it up in the daytime in 0:17:01.236 --> 0:17:04.196 this little portable typewriter, but it would be a pad 0:17:04.356 --> 0:17:07.596 in the bed with me during the night, that is how. 0:17:08.076 --> 0:17:10.236 And my goal first was you've heard and written down 0:17:10.236 --> 0:17:12.276 the lyrics for every single song on the top one 0:17:12.356 --> 0:17:16.756 hundred country chart. So once you got through all hundred, 0:17:17.356 --> 0:17:19.356 it wasn't as hard as it seems, because back in 0:17:19.396 --> 0:17:22.156 those days a song might take two three months to 0:17:22.276 --> 0:17:24.756 rise from the bottom of the chart to the top. 0:17:25.316 --> 0:17:28.356 So once it was on and I had it typed out, 0:17:28.396 --> 0:17:30.076 I had that one, and so I only was having 0:17:30.116 --> 0:17:32.476 to deal with that new songs, And there weren't really 0:17:32.516 --> 0:17:36.436 that many new songs that broke, but I truly would 0:17:36.516 --> 0:17:38.756 work on the new songs that way, and then I 0:17:38.796 --> 0:17:40.836 would go sometimes to the Country Music Hall of Fame 0:17:41.116 --> 0:17:45.076 they're archives a museum, and I would look up all 0:17:45.236 --> 0:17:48.356 songs and write them out, and then I studied those 0:17:48.356 --> 0:17:51.276 songs like I studied Jane Austen and Shakespeare at Harvard. 0:17:51.756 --> 0:17:55.276 I remember coming across Red Bandana, which is an amazing song, 0:17:55.516 --> 0:17:58.236 that red bandana tied around your abbn hair. You look 0:17:58.316 --> 0:18:00.716 like you ought to be somebody's wife somewhere. You ain't 0:18:00.756 --> 0:18:02.916 never gonna be no Bobby McGee, but you're trying to. 0:18:03.316 --> 0:18:05.196 What I learned from that is that country songs can 0:18:05.236 --> 0:18:09.836 actually reference characters in other songs, like that Bobby McGee, 0:18:09.876 --> 0:18:13.676 the Christofferson song being referenced in this other song. I 0:18:13.756 --> 0:18:16.796 found weird, wonderful old songs like Don't Forget the Coffee, 0:18:16.796 --> 0:18:20.116 Billy Joe, mamanise her medicine, She's got that real bad cough. 0:18:20.316 --> 0:18:24.356 I love that portrait of the depression. So I took 0:18:24.436 --> 0:18:27.036 it very seriously both the craft, but I also took 0:18:27.116 --> 0:18:30.116 it very seriously of finding the songs that truly utterly 0:18:30.156 --> 0:18:34.676 spoke to me, that I thought were as important as 0:18:34.676 --> 0:18:38.356 any poetry ever. And also I was interested from those 0:18:38.396 --> 0:18:42.516 very beginnings to find the evidences of what I recognize 0:18:42.636 --> 0:18:46.516 as black influence and black presence in these songs, and 0:18:46.716 --> 0:18:50.156 fascinated by whether it be banjo riff, whether it be 0:18:50.236 --> 0:18:54.076 evangelical Christianity, whether it be a sense of sacred place. 0:18:54.756 --> 0:18:56.796 All these things that I knew were part of what 0:18:57.036 --> 0:19:01.796 Africans brought to the American experience. I was tracing that down, 0:19:01.876 --> 0:19:06.356 but I was also just tracing down proud waves of 0:19:06.436 --> 0:19:12.316 human dignity in the face of poverty that claims, and 0:19:12.396 --> 0:19:15.676 I also chased down other wonderful portraits. I was on 0:19:15.676 --> 0:19:17.956 a panel last night, and I didn't get to straighten 0:19:17.996 --> 0:19:21.596 out this one thing. Somebody's saying, Oh, all these idealized 0:19:21.716 --> 0:19:25.876 usions of mothers in country songs. I'm thinking, what I 0:19:25.876 --> 0:19:29.996 love Bobby gentry Fancy and a cockroach rope pulled across 0:19:29.996 --> 0:19:32.236 the tip of her high heeled shoe, and she said, 0:19:32.436 --> 0:19:34.956 just be good to the gentleman, Fancy, and they'll be 0:19:34.996 --> 0:19:37.956 good to you. This is a mother. Your daddy's the 0:19:37.996 --> 0:19:40.236 baby's real sake, Your daddy's run off, and we're about 0:19:40.236 --> 0:19:42.556 to starve to death. And this mother is basically not 0:19:42.636 --> 0:19:45.796 basically she is pouring her daughter out. She takes the 0:19:45.876 --> 0:19:48.916 last money she has and buys her a tight fitting 0:19:48.996 --> 0:19:53.716 dress and sends her off. That is just one of many. 0:19:54.076 --> 0:19:57.996 Daddy Love Mama, Mama loved Men, mamposite in the graveyard, 0:19:58.036 --> 0:20:01.596 Daddy's in the pen, Country tells some very hard truths 0:20:01.916 --> 0:20:05.716 about mothers. One of the songs I love the most. 0:20:06.596 --> 0:20:09.676 It's the opposite of slut shaming. It's so of its time. 0:20:09.676 --> 0:20:12.476 It is done by many people, by Whitey Schaeffer is 0:20:13.596 --> 0:20:17.396 Hickory Holler, tramp Merle Haggard did it, Oci Smith did it. 0:20:17.876 --> 0:20:20.636 And it's about a mother who horse herself out in 0:20:20.796 --> 0:20:24.436 the very cabin with her children. And at the end 0:20:24.516 --> 0:20:27.476 of it, it moves to the graveside and there's a 0:20:27.476 --> 0:20:30.356 big bouquet of thirteen roses and a card that says, 0:20:30.356 --> 0:20:33.476 to the greatest mom on Earth in the history of 0:20:33.516 --> 0:20:39.436 American literature, there is nothing that feminist woman ford about. 0:20:39.796 --> 0:20:41.956 You know. That's the opposite of sluck shaining, that this 0:20:41.996 --> 0:20:45.756 woman is a dynamic sex worker doing her thing and 0:20:45.796 --> 0:20:46.836 her kids are getting it. 0:20:47.476 --> 0:20:49.476 And this is country music, and it's. 0:20:49.356 --> 0:20:53.396 Country music, and it's country music that traveled into other genres. 0:20:53.516 --> 0:20:56.556 It was country. It had multiple country cuts, and it 0:20:56.636 --> 0:20:59.956 also had R and B cuts. It's an amazing song. 0:21:00.196 --> 0:21:02.836 So this whole journey that Beyonce is making right now, 0:21:02.916 --> 0:21:06.076 it's not the first time. Ray Charles is what came 0:21:06.116 --> 0:21:08.436 before it. This song that I've just told you about 0:21:08.436 --> 0:21:12.116 it so much conversation going back and forth. I always 0:21:12.156 --> 0:21:17.316 loved this song about Midnight Train to Georgia. We all 0:21:17.356 --> 0:21:20.516 know that song, Gladys Knight. I knew Gladys Knight in Detroit, 0:21:21.156 --> 0:21:23.996 but I met Jim Weatherley, who wrote that song in Nashville. 0:21:24.076 --> 0:21:26.356 And the two things Jim Weathery said, I think one 0:21:26.396 --> 0:21:29.516 was there are no minor leagues of country songwriting, and 0:21:29.556 --> 0:21:33.436 the other was Midnight Train to Georgia started off as 0:21:34.436 --> 0:21:37.876 Midnight Playing to Houston and it was about Farah Fawcett 0:21:37.876 --> 0:21:40.756 and Lee Natures and when she was telling him, I'm 0:21:40.756 --> 0:21:43.956 going to have to leave Charlie's Angels because I can't 0:21:44.076 --> 0:21:46.516 keep it together with this man. And then a black 0:21:46.516 --> 0:21:48.716 group was recording it and they changed it. They said, 0:21:48.756 --> 0:21:51.196 can we change the name? But it shows you these 0:21:51.676 --> 0:21:56.476 this deep that's a real collaboration that black singers of 0:21:56.516 --> 0:21:59.956 this song collaborated. And I will just say that the 0:21:59.956 --> 0:22:04.116 hook Midnight Train to Georgia is a far stronger hook 0:22:04.196 --> 0:22:08.516 than Midnight Playing. Yes, and those collaborators even I don't 0:22:08.556 --> 0:22:10.516 know what their name are now because I'm not sure 0:22:10.556 --> 0:22:12.876 if it was the original artist that recorded it or 0:22:12.916 --> 0:22:15.956 somebody working with them. A producer that was working with them, 0:22:16.036 --> 0:22:18.156 and poor Jim Webber's dad, so he can't tell us. 0:22:18.316 --> 0:22:22.036 But the point being, there have always been migrations when 0:22:22.076 --> 0:22:26.316 you're talking about important stories. Because one of the things 0:22:26.356 --> 0:22:30.196 that's and important songs that I love about country music 0:22:30.556 --> 0:22:32.196 as well as what I love about soul food and 0:22:32.196 --> 0:22:38.036 Southern food, they're both evidences of how African all Americans 0:22:38.036 --> 0:22:42.796 are and how black and white and indigenous Southerners co 0:22:42.916 --> 0:22:47.676 created a world and multiple art forms, one of these 0:22:47.836 --> 0:22:50.996 art forms being country music, one of them being what 0:22:51.036 --> 0:22:56.716