English language

How to pronounce country music in English?

Full Transcript

[Music]
country music listening numbers are on
the rise but while black artists
dominate charts across multiple genres
country music is still considered by
many to be a predominantly white space
from Johnny Cash to George Strait Dolly
Parton to the Dixie Chicks why is
country music considered so white first
we should define what country music is
country legend Harlan Howard famously
defined a country song as three chords
and the truth
I love Harlan but I think that
definition misses something this is
Alice Randall a New York Times
bestselling author a professor at
Vanderbilt University and a prolific
country music songwriter I think that
country is three chords and four very
particular truth the first truth life is
hard second truth God is real third
truth whiskey and roads and family
provide worthy compensations and the
final truth the past is better than the
present to me those four truths and
three chords are what define country the
black musical influence on the three
chords is often acknowledged by scholars
with the roots of country music stemming
from the blues and scotch-irish music
one way of defining country music is an
afro Celtic form it is black musical
influences and Celtic ballad forms that
come together to make country but what
often doesn't get discussed is the role
that black artists have had on the four
truths sometimes people talk about
country as a white space and I think
that misses a point America is created
and seen by many people as a white space
so country seems white because to some
people America seems white there have
always been black people in country
music there's of course Charlie pride
[Music]
there's Ray Charles
[Music]
the biggest most revolutionary country
album of all time is arguably modern
suns and Country and Western music by
Ray Charles it's stone country and it's
Ray Charles and then there's what Alice
says is perhaps one of the most
important country songs in recent memory
daddy lessons by Beyonce you've got the
avenged uncle Christianity you've got
the guns you've got the sense of Road
you've got the sense of the past you've
got the compensation of family all the
things that we want to see in a great
country song are there
Beyonce is a very important country
artist too but when Beyonce performed
daddy lessons at the 2016 Country Music
Association Awards alongside the Dixie
Chicks not all country fans seem to
agree are you saying country is a
country club and you don't want us in it
whenever we're talking about music we're
always talking about race
this is Charles Hughes a music scholar
and a professor at Rhodes College in
Memphis Tennessee we're always talking
about how things sound laugh or sound
white that is almost always at least a
metaphor for what we're thinking about
in terms of racial politics throughout
the rest of the country debates over
integration debates over appropriation
and ownership what whiteness means and
white identity means what blackness and
black identity and while country music
isn't the only genre where these debates
take place for several decades at least
if not from the very beginning of
country music country has marketed
itself as essentially the soundtrack of
white identity
trying to essentially say we're real
American music where the music of the
Heartland where the music of the silent
majority where the music of everyday
folks where the music of rural America
or the country people this effort on the
part of the record industry goes back
not just to the beginning of the country
music genre but to the beginning of
musical genre itself when the record
industry created different genre
categories to market these new things
called recordings they often did so
thinking very specifically about how
these particular genres would be
marketed towards racial or ethnic
specific groups starting in the 1920s
black audiences were sold race records
basically any kind of music that was
created by African Americans who use
gospel jazz and other things that again
was thought to be marketed at African
Americans whether they were living north
south or wherever white audiences were
sold country music or as it was
originally called hillbilly music genre
that despite being musically and
thematically rooted in the black
American experience was very explicitly
thought of as being the music of white
Southerners or white folks who had
recently moved out of the south into
northern or western cities the country
music is defined in a sense by the
belief that the folks who will be buying
these records and supporting this music
will be white folks this continued into
the present day when we're talking about
the music or we're just more broadly
talking about those kinds of people and
experiences the assumption has been that
those are white folks politicians have
used country music to try to bolster
white conservatism record industry
leaders have talked about country music
as being not just the soundtrack of
white America but as the reaction to
soul music or hip hop or to the civil
rights movement etc and yet there is no
greater demonstration
of how much of a lie the idea that
country music is white music there's no
greater demonstration of that than the
fact that so many folks who are not
white love country music right I was
born immersed in country music this is
Caroline Randall Williams a poet a
professor of blues lyric and a writer in
residence at Vanderbilt University in
first grade my teacher mrs. Ackerman
said bring your favorite song on a
cassette to school and I brought in all
cued up
George Jones's song the Grand Tour but
if you don't know that song it's about a
man whose wife has taken the baby and
left him and mrs. Ackerman called my
mother and said is everything all right
I was really just moved by a narrative
for Caroline the notion of country music
as a white space would have seemed
peculiar given that in my house country
music was black music because a black
woman was writing country music in this
house in fact not only was country music
written in the house we're sitting in a
house that to me country music built in
part by the hit song X's and O's
performed by Trisha Yearwood and
co-written by Caroline's mother Alice
Randle this house bought by the money I
made on X's and O's a song that I'm
proud to say has this line she's got her
God she's got good wine Aretha Franklin
and Patsy Cline she's an American girl
my daughter was that American girl X's
and O's reached the top of the country
music charts in 1994 making Alice
Randall the first black woman to pen a
number one country record and yet while
Alice realized early on that her
daughter Caroline raised on Aretha
Franklin and Patsy Cline in a house
built by country songs is the epitome of
country Nashville might only just now be
getting the message
my earliest memory of country music is
kinda what my dad liked cuz that's all
my dad listens to late nineties country
this is Stoney Creek recording artist
Jimmy Fallon Jimmy is one of a new class
of black artists making waves in and
around music city only Jimmy's wave has
already swept him onto the stage of the
Grand Ole Opry the Mother Church of
country music but years before his Opry
debut Jimmy was just a young boy growing
up in Milton Delaware dreaming of
becoming a country star for me country
isn't about a cowboy hat it's not about
a fiddle or still on a song it's about
the story in the song the lyrics and
telling a story and whoever the artist
is if they grew up a country boy a
country girl a lot of us kind of the
same morals that's what makes you a
country artist and that's what I love
about the genre itself being able to
hear a country song and it quickly takes
you back from the description Jimmy made
his way to Nashville in his early 20s
and after years of struggling for his
career to break his debut album was
released in October 2018 the album's
first single best shot reached number
one atop the country music charts making
Jimmy the first black artist with a
career number one country gave you oh
it's great but it quickly went from
great to like man that kind of sucks
because we're 2019 and we're still
talking about color my thing quickly
became cool how can I change this
narrative to where three four or five
years from now it's no longer a thing
it's just boom this artist had number
one
so if you're a black kid in this small
town where your family only listens to
like R&B jazz or blues and you might
want to do country you might think it's
just something that white people are
into because you don't see someone that
looks like you in it
Jimi's debut album is titled mercury
lane after the streak he grew up on in
Milton Delaware this could be seen as a
nod to his roots and maybe to as an
acknowledgment of that fourth country
truth the past is better than the
present is where you find the racial
fault line in country and the difference
between great country music mediocre
country music and bad country music
because looking back at the past is more
than nostalgia superficial country songs
are just looking back in some vague way
and a recent past and saying it has to
be better than the present but a sense
of haunted miss by the past actually
creates a sense of responsibility in the
present acknowledging that life is hard
is the essence of country and it is an
essence of the black experience in these
United States which is perhaps why
country often goes from being a musical
form to a vehicle for something else
entirely
the reason why controversies over race
and country music are so powerful and
are understood so immediately is because
the music itself is a stand-in for a lot
of conversations that we are too often
afraid to have or even when we want to
have them we don't necessarily have the
language to do so effectively so I was
born in Detroit in 1959 and one of the
first things that my father ever said to
me
is he wanted me to speak for those who
could not speak for themselves
and one of the sets of people that I
wanted to speak for are all the black
people contributing so much to country
music and then being told there no part
of it at all
we've always been here
[Music]
you

[Music]

Toggle Transcript

country music::noun | Spocien Dictionary

country music

noun

/'kəntri_'mjuzɪk/

a simple style of folk music heard mostly in the southern United States; usually played on stringed instruments

Type	Words
Synonyms	c and w, country and western
Type of	ethnic music, folk, folk music
Has types	bluegrass, hillbilly music, zydeco

Examples of country music

country music

Some residents have criticized the arena for focusing too much on country music.

From the kansas.com

There are more bands up here than you might think who are playing country music.

From the delawareonline.com

There will be food, locally brewed Arbor Beer and country music by Gas for Less.

From the freep.com

The wild man of country music has been tamed, creating the perfect summer album.

From the telegraph.co.uk

We were aware of the country music of the day because that's what our dad liked.

From the kentucky.com

When you talk about country music in the Lone Star State, Willie Nelson is king.

From the timesunion.com

The 15-year old from Lexington says he only knows how to dance to country music.

From the courier-journal.com

Valerie Simons poses with country music star Jason Aldean in this undated photo.

From the news-journalonline.com

A stage for national rock and country music acts would be set up in Cutler Park.

From the jsonline.com

How to pronounce country music in English?

country music::noun | Spocien Dictionary

abandonment

Related words

Examples of country music

Related

Subscribe to our Newslatter