Local Spotlight: The Black Opry Residency's Impact On Americana Music
1A
NPR
4.3 • 4.5K Ratings
🗓️ 12 July 2023
⏱️ 32 minutes
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Summary
Long before Lil Nas X pushed the boundaries of what constitutes country music, Black musicians across Americana were reclaiming space in the genre.
Many of those musicians found celebration and support in the Black Opry, a collective of Black artists that perform Americana music, founded online by Holly G in Nashville.
This year, the Black Opry partnered up with WXPN to launch the Black Opry Residency, a weeklong program that provides resources and support for unsigned Black Americana musicians.
We explore how and why the residency program came to be and what it means for the future of Black Americana musicians.
This is a part of our series called "Local Spotlight," where we'll cover local stories that deserve national attention. Have a suggestion about what we should feature? You know where to find us.
Want to support 1A? Give to your local public radio station and subscribe to this podcast. Have questions? Find out how to connect with us by visiting our website.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | What do country, bluegrass, folk, and blues music have in common? |
| 0:12.9 | They all fall under the umbrella of Americana, a style of music that originated in the South. |
| 0:27.7 | Americana music is incredibly popular with tracks by major artists routinely topping the charts, |
| 0:33.9 | and many of you love it too. |
| 0:36.2 | My favorite country song is Remember When by Alan Jackson. |
| 0:40.6 | Remember When I was young, so you time stood still. |
| 0:53.1 | Love was all we knew. |
| 0:55.8 | It reminds me of my husband, and I think of it often as we make our journey through life together. |
| 1:01.4 | It's just such a beautiful song and captured the importance of every stage of life. |
| 1:06.0 | One of my favorite folk songs is Roland Columbia, which Woody Gessery wrote for the Bonnacle Power Administration. |
| 1:13.3 | In the 1940s, years ago, I had a summer job in the heart of the Columbia Basin. |
| 1:25.8 | And no one there had ever heard it, so he was a kid from Brooklyn teaching them the song. |
| 1:34.8 | Jen, Carl, thanks for those messages. |
| 1:37.4 | Despite the genre's ties to Black Musical traditions, many of the musicians who routinely achieve commercial success in the Americana space are white. |
| 1:46.0 | In many cases, Black musicians have been excluded from the industry. |
| 1:49.9 | How are Black people reclaiming space in the genre? |
| 1:53.4 | And what initiatives are helping Black Americana musicians gain attention? |
| 1:57.6 | On today's local spotlight, where we cover local stories that deserve national attention, |
| 2:02.2 | we explore the Black Opera and WXPN's Black Opera Residency. |
| 2:07.0 | It aims to do just that. |
| 2:08.8 | I'm Jen White. |
| 2:09.8 | You're listening to The One A Podcast, where we get to the heart of the story. |
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