The Soul of Country Music - Black Country Music Artists in Los Angeles!

The Soul of Country Music Though not commonly thought of as the kind of black music to emanate from hip-hop-heavy Los Angeles, a growing number of African-American Angelenos are listening to-and recording-various forms of country music. BY CYNTHIA E. GRIFFIN WAVE STAFF WRITER Go to any urban neighborhood, and the music you're most likely to hear floating of of open windows or booming from car stereos is either hip-hop or R&B. But go to singer Vicki Vann's studio and you'll hear something a bit different. It's not R&B, nor is it the gospel music of her father, the Rev. Artis Turnbough, who was one of th original members of the seminal gospel group the Mighty Clouds of Joy. Vann sings country music. But, surprisingly enough, she's not the only African American in Southern California singing music typically associated with white folks in Nashville. Other L.A.-area singers on the country trail include Mike Mann, Will Glover, Sharyn Lee, Butch Dubari and Sunny Daye. Alice McAfee Williams, known professionally as Al Mac Will, is even trying to create a spinoff music she calls urban country gospel. How do blacks living in the heart of a metropolis like Los Angeles connect with country music? Some, like Will, consider it a God-given talent. "I always felt out of synch, that what I was singing was not the whole song in me," said Will, who sang gospel with people such as the Rev. James Cleveland and his Gospel Music Workshop of America. Although the Inglewood resident says the Lord told her to sing urban country gospel, Williams didn't quite believe it until she went to Nashville in 1997 and met a man trying to create a new category called "country soul." He tried to convince her to join his label. "I looked at him and said: 'You just helped me understand why I have to have my own genre. I don't sound black enough to be 11 a.m. black Baptist gospel, but I'm not country enough to be mainstream country.'" Mike Mann, whose 10-year old group, Mike Mann & the NightRiders, sings cowboy soul said, "Osmosis was at work," in his case. "I grew up in Iowa, and I think that's where the country came from; just from listening to in on A.M. radio acculturated me to country music," said Mann, who was born in Tennessee. In his younger days, Mann traveled around the country as a DJ, and during a stint in Houston discovered black cowboys. At the same time, he was playing guitar and producing music he had labeled "funk folk." Research and exposure helped him realize he was playing cowboy soul, explained Mann. Singing was a natural for Daye, who was born on Chicago's Southside and spent ages 5 thru 9 traveling with her mother, singer-actress Windy Barnes. "People in my family listened to Pop Staples . . . and my grand-daddy used to listen to Ray Charles. I thought that was country. So the gap wasn't big for me," said the 24-year old Daye. Vann grew up hearing music by artists ranging from Aretgha Franklin to Nancy Wilson. She began singing in church by age 5, and was a constant participant in talent shows and musicals at Pasadena's John Muir High. "In High school, I was the weird chick," Vann recalled. "We would audition, and everybody else would sing Stephanie Mills and Anita Baker. And I'd come up ther singing Anne Murray, Crystal Gale and Dolly Parton." What attracted her to country was the storytelling lyrics, Vann said. "There's a beginning, middle and end. I could relate because I love to tell stories." While it may seem "weird" that Vann and the others sing country, according to the 2003 Arbitron Black Radio report, almost two percent of the 21 million African Americans who losten to the radio choose country music. Tulsa-born country singer Al Downing says blacks represent about 27 percent of the country music record-buying public. "But, we're not able to prove it. That's because we aren't counted in the demographics," said Frankie Staton, founder of the Black Country Music Association, an organization trying to help African-Americans gain a foothold in the genre. "And that's the gargantuan task," acknowledged Staton. Concert promoters want "triple threat" artists who can play, sing and write music as well as prove they can move product and sell-out venues, and they're not going to experiment with blacks, Staton said. Nor are black artists heard on country radio. 'Why' is a complex jumble of reasons that include persistent strains of racism, economics and misperceptions, Station said. Access is also an issue. There are only a miniscule number of black-owned radio stations with country music formats and most, like Radio One's KSKW in Springfield, Ohio, only play the top artists. But there are a few like Texas-based, black-owned station KWRD 1470, where operations director Henry Dunn would play country music from African Americans . . . if he got any. ReggieMiles, an assistant professor in the Radio Television and Film department at Howard University, also believes it's a matter of economics. "If it's not going to make them any money, they're not going to be interested," he said. Consolidation has also forced stations to play only artists with strong followings, added Miles. And that's the delimna. Without major record deals or performance opportunities, blacks have a difficult time developing a following. Staton said the BCMA is trying to change that with a presence at Fan Fair, the hugh Country Music Association festival held each June in Nashville, by holding performance showcases, and with a CD it has created. Blacks are not new to country music. In 1926, harmonica player Deforest Bailey appeared on the radio show that was the precursor to the Grand Ole Opry, and blacks taught country legends such as Hank Williams and Jimmy Rodgers. But only a few African Americans have registered on the country music radar. Charlie Pride, of course is the first to come to mind. Downing is another, but on a much smaller scale. Known as "Big" Al Downing, the 63-year-old singer and piano player has been singing country since age 15, when he and his brother rescued a beat-up old piano from an Oklahoma junk yard. In 1976, he snagged several top 20 country records: "Mr. Jones," "Touch Me" and "Bring It On Home." Unlike Downing, whose current CD, "One of A Kind," was released on a small independent label, African Americans who have signed with large record companies, Trini Triggs, Cleve Francis, and the Alabama band Wheels, have no new music on radio playlists. That absence convinced the Los Angeles contingent not to wait for discovery. Instead Mann, Vann, Williams and Daye each completed and are marketing their own CDs. Daye, with her boundless and youthful confidence plans to tackle Nashville in May and call on some of the contacts she made last year when she sang at the famed Bluebird Cafe. The Big Bear resident is supremely confident she'll get a deal. "I don't know how I know it," Daye said, "but nothing can deter me from knowing that country music is beyond ready for a black face, and that I will be a hugh black country artist."	TO SAMPLE OUR NEWEST MUSIC... Click for Home Page Click For More Black Country Artists SUNNY DAYE VICKIE VANN Click for Home Page Click For More Black Country Artists TO SAMPLE OUR NEWEST MUSIC...

The Soul of Country Music
Though not commonly thought of as the kind of black music to emanate from hip-hop-heavy Los Angeles, a growing number of African-American Angelenos are listening to-and recording-various forms of country music.
BY CYNTHIA E. GRIFFIN
WAVE STAFF WRITER

Go to any urban neighborhood, and the music you're most likely to hear floating of of open windows or booming from car stereos is either hip-hop or R&B. But go to singer Vicki Vann's studio and you'll hear something a bit different. It's not R&B, nor is it the gospel music of her father, the Rev. Artis Turnbough, who was one of th original members of the seminal gospel group the Mighty Clouds of Joy. Vann sings country music.

But, surprisingly enough, she's not the only African American in Southern California singing music typically associated with white folks in Nashville. Other L.A.-area singers on the country trail include Mike Mann, Will Glover, Sharyn Lee, Butch Dubari and Sunny Daye. Alice McAfee Williams, known professionally as Al Mac Will, is even trying to create a spinoff music she calls urban country gospel.

How do blacks living in the heart of a metropolis like Los Angeles connect with country music? Some, like Will, consider it a God-given talent. "I always felt out of synch, that what I was singing was not the whole song in me," said Will, who sang gospel with people such as the Rev. James Cleveland and his Gospel Music Workshop of America. Although the Inglewood resident says the Lord told her to sing urban country gospel, Williams didn't quite believe it until she went to Nashville in 1997 and met a man trying to create a new category called "country soul." He tried to convince her to join his label. "I looked at him and said: 'You just helped me understand why I have to have my own genre. I don't sound black enough to be 11 a.m. black Baptist gospel, but I'm not country enough to be mainstream country.'"

Mike Mann, whose 10-year old group, Mike Mann & the NightRiders, sings cowboy soul said, "Osmosis was at work," in his case. "I grew up in Iowa, and I think that's where the country came from; just from listening to in on A.M. radio acculturated me to country music," said Mann, who was born in Tennessee. In his younger days, Mann traveled around the country as a DJ, and during a stint in Houston discovered black cowboys. At the same time, he was playing guitar and producing music he had labeled "funk folk." Research and exposure helped him realize he was playing cowboy soul, explained Mann.

Singing was a natural for Daye, who was born on Chicago's Southside and spent ages 5 thru 9 traveling with her mother, singer-actress Windy Barnes. "People in my family listened to Pop Staples . . . and my grand-daddy used to listen to Ray Charles. I thought that was country. So the gap wasn't big for me," said the 24-year old Daye.

Vann grew up hearing music by artists ranging from Aretgha Franklin to Nancy Wilson. She began singing in church by age 5, and was a constant participant in talent shows and musicals at Pasadena's John Muir High. "In High school, I was the weird chick," Vann recalled. "We would audition, and everybody else would sing Stephanie Mills and Anita Baker. And I'd come up ther singing Anne Murray, Crystal Gale and Dolly Parton." What attracted her to country was the storytelling lyrics, Vann said. "There's a beginning, middle and end. I could relate because I love to tell stories."

While it may seem "weird" that Vann and the others sing country, according to the 2003 Arbitron Black Radio report, almost two percent of the 21 million African Americans who losten to the radio choose country music. Tulsa-born country singer Al Downing says blacks represent about 27 percent of the country music record-buying public. "But, we're not able to prove it. That's because we aren't counted in the demographics," said Frankie Staton, founder of the Black Country Music Association, an organization trying to help African-Americans gain a foothold in the genre. "And that's the gargantuan task," acknowledged Staton. Concert promoters want "triple threat" artists who can play, sing and write music as well as prove they can move product and sell-out venues, and they're not going to experiment with blacks, Staton said. Nor are black artists heard on country radio. 'Why' is a complex jumble of reasons that include persistent strains of racism, economics and misperceptions, Station said.

Access is also an issue. There are only a miniscule number of black-owned radio stations with country music formats and most, like Radio One's KSKW in Springfield, Ohio, only play the top artists. But there are a few like Texas-based, black-owned station KWRD 1470, where operations director Henry Dunn would play country music from African Americans . . . if he got any.

ReggieMiles, an assistant professor in the Radio Television and Film department at Howard University, also believes it's a matter of economics. "If it's not going to make them any money, they're not going to be interested," he said. Consolidation has also forced stations to play only artists with strong followings, added Miles. And that's the delimna. Without major record deals or performance opportunities, blacks have a difficult time developing a following. Staton said the BCMA is trying to change that with a presence at Fan Fair, the hugh Country Music Association festival held each June in Nashville, by holding performance showcases, and with a CD it has created.

Blacks are not new to country music. In 1926, harmonica player Deforest Bailey appeared on the radio show that was the precursor to the Grand Ole Opry, and blacks taught country legends such as Hank Williams and Jimmy Rodgers. But only a few African Americans have registered on the country music radar. Charlie Pride, of course is the first to come to mind. Downing is another, but on a much smaller scale. Known as "Big" Al Downing, the 63-year-old singer and piano player has been singing country since age 15, when he and his brother rescued a beat-up old piano from an Oklahoma junk yard. In 1976, he snagged several top 20 country records: "Mr. Jones," "Touch Me" and "Bring It On Home." Unlike Downing, whose current CD, "One of A Kind," was released on a small independent label, African Americans who have signed with large record companies, Trini Triggs, Cleve Francis, and the Alabama band Wheels, have no new music on radio playlists. That absence convinced the Los Angeles contingent not to wait for discovery. Instead Mann, Vann, Williams and Daye each completed and are marketing their own CDs.

Daye, with her boundless and youthful confidence plans to tackle Nashville in May and call on some of the contacts she made last year when she sang at the famed Bluebird Cafe. The Big Bear resident is supremely confident she'll get a deal. "I don't know how I know it," Daye said, "but nothing can deter me from knowing that country music is beyond ready for a black face, and that I will be a hugh black country artist."