The notion that country is an innately white genre isn't just wrongheaded and incorrect. If you take five minutes to research the history of the music, you'll learn that it's patently absurd.
First, Black musicians irrevocably shaped the genre at its genesis — from the African roots of the banjo to the presence of the blues in its very chromosomes. Second, the notion would mean barring the crucial participation of everyone from Ray Charles to Charley Pride to Mickey Guyton, which would be a beyond tragic state of affairs.
Despite the magnitude of these implications, racist marketing forces (among other factors) have long made country music a largely lily-white enterprise. That's where the Black Opry comes in. Founded by country music fan Holly G and co-directed by herself and Tanner D, the musician's collective acts as a hub for Black talent from all over the genre spectrum — whether they have tints of blues, folk/pop, soul, or anything else.
And just last week, its Black Opry Revue threw down at the legendary Newport Folk Fest — which is a historic moment, no matter which way you slice it.
Despite featuring Autumn Nicholas, Buffalo Nichols, Julia Cannon, the Kentucky Gentlemen, Lizzie No, Chris Pierce, Leon Timbo, and Joy Oladokun — as well as surprise appearances from Jake Blount, Adia Victoria, Yasmin Williams, and Kam Franklin — the performance wasn't merely a talent showcase. More than that, it showed which way the arrow is pointing for long-overdue racial equality in this embattled sphere.
"Everything that has happened so far regarding Black Opry has felt like divine timing," Holly G tells GRAMMY.com. "The community that we've organically grown fit so perfectly into Newport folk fest that it felt like a homecoming. What we do feels so new to us, and so often we have to spend time explaining what it is and how it works — but Newport understood us without explanation."
Backstage at Newport Folk 2022, GRAMMY.com caught up with Nicholas, Timbo, Blount, and the Kentucky Gentlemen's Derek and Brandon Campbell about how it felt to play at the storied festival — and what it means for country music writ large.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
Where do you feel you fit into the lineage of country music — and Black country music, specifically?
Autumn Nicholas: I think we're maybe creating a lane. I don't know if there's a "fit in." I don't know if I want to fit in, necessarily. I'm OK with standing out, but where I fit in is probably just by what I have to say in each song. It might be different genres; it might be different things. But I don't know if I even care about fitting in, if I'm honest with you.
Derek Campbell: You know that freedom that country music talks about 24/7? I guess where we fit in is that actual freedom. It's not just a word that makes everyone feel good. It's actually representative of the freedom that when you're all encompassing of yourself and everything that you are, you want to be that example.
Brandon Campbell: I also think the word "freedom" means a whole different thing to us than it does to a lot of other people who grew up in small towns like us. So, it definitely fit into the freedom lane of: Be who you are, country or not.
Leon Timbo: I'm from Jacksonville, Florida — Duval County. In Florida, we've got a lot of water around us and a lot of back porches, and we sang a lot of songs that I never knew the origin of. I believe that kind of spoke to the origins of what we now know as country music.
And when I couldn't find my footing in other spaces, country music — and Americana music, specifically — helped me tell my story. The story of struggle, process, pain and love — and say it in a very honest way.
Jake Blount: I perform music that's hundreds of years old that comes out of archives — different written and reported sources from back in the day. My role is definitely as someone who's passing on those traditions — trying to make them available to another generation, because they almost went extinct before they got to me.
Even in my more recent work that's more ambitious, arrangement-wise — creating a new perspective on it — I always want to be mindful of those oldest threads of the tradition, and the way that I serve as a link between that past and the future ahead of us.
Tell me about your path to Newport Folk 2022 and what this festival means to you.
Nicholas: In all honesty, this is my first year ever being at it. I keep texting my mom: "This is just wild." This is an experience that I'm just trying to take in. Did I ever expect to come here? No, but I think that's what makes this career the best thing: what we don't expect, and what we don't necessarily have to put on a bucket list.
Derek Campbell: There are thousands and thousands of people out there with the same look in their eyes that we have when we're creating this music.
Brandon Campbell: It feels united. We're all here for one purpose, and that's just for the music — the feeling that music gives you.
Derek Campbell: It's family out there.
Blount: I think coming up in folk music, you hear "Newport" every 25 seconds. This festival is, like, the OG. And for me, this is my second year here. Last summer was my first time here, and it was the first big gig I ever got. That was my moment where I was like, "I made it somewhere. I did something." And it feels equally as gratifying to know that they liked me enough to have me back.
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How does it feel to have Newport Folk 2022 give such a platform to the Black Opry and to your particular brands of artistry?
Nicholas: I think it's just humbling. I feel like everyone has a right to have a platform; everyone has something different to say. And I think it's just amazing that as life is growing, the younger crowd, I think, is kind of allowing that option. Everything is being opened. Everything is being shared. Love is becoming universal, more and more. At least in my mind; I hope it's coming that way.
So, for me to be here with this opportunity, with Black Opry — I just think maybe it's time. Maybe, a long time ago, it was supposed to be time, but we're here now.
Brandon Campbell: It's definitely humbling, and it fits with what the Black Opry's all about: Inclusion in music, and giving everybody a platform to be who they are and express the views they want to express.
Derek Campbell: There are so many incredible performances that are happening on all these stages. And for Newport to open their arms and invite Black Opry is pretty validating — a validation that we all, at some point, need or want to look for.
Blount: I think Newport is leading the way, in a lot of ways. We saw it happen last summer. This was the first folk festival that I've come to where there were that many Black people. And I think getting to be here with this crew of people — this incredible thing that Holly [G] created — is super exciting.
Timbo: It speaks a lot to Newport's evolution, and what they're always represented. It's always been in the bones, but now, to be recognized through Black Opry is a really big win, concerning unity and visibility and equity in musical expression.
I'm going to give you a statement of tension, and the statement of tension is that the reason why people of color haven't had hits in country music is because they don't write great music. And the disrespect in that context digs deep — an accusation of inadequacy.
What of the elephant in the room — the fact that Black people practically invented country music in the first place?
Timbo: So, the fact that Newport Folk Fest sees that, and sees past those really antiquated ideals, really means a lot. America gave us an opportunity, because all great anything comes from a space of absolute tension and pain and process. You give me a person in pain and process, and I give you a future artist because they have to describe it, in a way.
When you're in walls, when you're locked away, you have nothing but your voice — even if nobody can hear it. So, I appreciate the origins, but that's why it came from America — because America created the opportunity to press it into art.
So, it's like, "Thank you for the pain. At least give me the credit for the art, because you didn't mind giving me the credit for the pain."
Blount: And the creation of a thing called the Black Opry, specifically…
It's a watershed moment, for sure.
Blount: Yes. It was so exciting, because it's already creating a space in these ancient, towering institutions for people like us. And I think Newport is another one of those towering institutions that we've been trying to be a part of, and it's so nice to be welcomed in this way. It's so wonderful that Holly's put in the work to get everybody here and make all of this happen.
Who are you most excited to see, or who have you already seen that blew your mind?
Nichols: I've only seen mostly one person today. We haven't been here very long. I'm excited to see the people that I don't know yet.
Blount: I've been here since Thursday. I was playing on the Pete Seeger tribute show on Thursday, [and] Taj Mahal…
Oh, man!
Blount: Listen. I've wanted to see Taj Mahal forever. Seeing him there, and then seeing him here — it's emotional to see someone who's been carrying the traditions in the same way we're doing, and opens so many doors for us just by being there.
And Rhiannon Giddens from the Silk Road Ensemble? Like, I was in tears. It was just amazing. There's no limit on her. She can do whatever she wants. It's incredible to see what's happening.
Tell me about new music you've got out, or what you're working on currently.
Nicholas: I'm working on a song about no regrets — trying to live with that mindset. I think as we get older, we stop doing a lot of things that cause us to take risks. So, we step back from that. We don't climb trees. We don't do anything that's risky, like quitting your job and touring the world. We're constantly, as artists, doing that.
Derek Campbell: We just released a new EP this weekend, which is great!
Brandon Campbell: The Kentucky Gentlemen, Vol. 1. Honestly, the whole EP is just about letting loose all your inhibitions and having fun while you're at it. That's kind of what we're all about, so we're super excited for people to get a chance to listen to that.
Blount: I have a new album coming out Sept. 23. It's called The New Faith, and it's an Afrofuturist exploration of what Black, religious traditional music will sound like post-climate crisis. It's coming out on Smithsonian Folkways Recordings as part of the African American Legacy Series in collaboration with the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Timbo: Lovers and Fools, Vols. 1 and 2. I believe there's a gift in being the lover, and there's a gift in being the fool. Both have the same goal; they just look at it differently. So, the lover acknowledges and honors the gift, and the fool rejects and minimizes it. But there's a gift to do either one. The fact that you can choose no to a thing is a gift as well.
I think with this country, with our relationships — I have daughters. So in that as well, lovers and fools is who we all really are.
Any last words on the vibe of the whole weekend?
Brandon Campbell: It's very peaceful, I feel like.
Nicholas: It's calming to be at a festival that you think [will be] very loud.
Brandon Campbell: It feels very for the people, by the people.
Blount: Oh, it's just wonderful to be back here. I know this happened last year, but just speaking for myself, I've been feeling so cut off from the human part of what we do and what this is. It felt so much like doing a dangerous thing — getting up and being stressed out about it.
But being in a place that's outside — with such an appreciative audience, and with so many artists who I love and respect, and who I'm excited just to be in the same general vicinity as — it's giving me a lot of life that I needed to get back.
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