I did not know that black women had any input in country music at all. Maren Morris thanked Black women at the CMAs as she accepted Female Artist of the Year.
“There are so many amazing Black women that pioneer and continue to pioneer this genre,” Morris said. “I know they’re gonna come after me. They’ve come before me. You’ve made this genre so, so beautiful. I hope you know that we see you.” This is a history lesson to me I have heard of a few but nobody made a noise I thought.
Morris dedicated her win to a host of Black women who influenced the genre and made it was it is over the past few decades including Yola, Brittney Spencer, Rissi Palmer and more.
One of the names she mentioned was Linda Martell, a country and R&B singer who was famous in the late 60s and 70s. She was the first African American woman to give a performance at the Grand Ole Opry, a weekly country music concert in Nashville, Tennessee. The thing you know and don’t know. Black men Charlie Pride, Darrius Rucker, and Ray Charles well known black women not so much. It is damn shame that black women in country music are unknown the music is what counts and that is all not the color of skin.
Brittney Spencer
History Making
