My Black Country

<B>Alice Randall, award-winning professor, songwriter, and author presents “a celebration of all things country music” (Ken Burns) as she reflects on her search for the first family of Black country music.</B><BR><BR>Country music had brought Alice Randall and her activist mother together and even gave Randall a singular distinction in American music history: she is the first Black woman to cowrite a number one country hit, Trisha Yearwood’s “XXX’s and OOO’s (An American Girl)”. Randall found inspiration and comfort in the sounds and history of the first family of Black country music: DeFord Bailey, Lil Hardin, Ray Charles, Charley Pride, and Herb Jeffries who, together, made up a community of Black Americans rising through hard times to create simple beauty, true joy, and sometimes profound eccentricity.<BR> <BR> What emerges in <i>My Black Country</i> is “a delightful, inspirational story of persistence, resistance, and sheer love” (<i>Kirkus Reviews</i>, starred review) of this most American of music genres and the radical joy in realizing the power of Black influence on American culture. As country music goes through a fresh renaissance today, with a new wave of Black artists enjoying success, <i>My Black Country</i> is the perfect gift for longtime country fans and a vibrant introduction to a new generation of listeners who previously were not invited to give the genre a chance.