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      Morgan Wallen Repeats at No. 1 With Big Streaming Numbers

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe ChartsMorgan Wallen Repeats at No. 1 With Big Streaming NumbersSongs from the country star’s “Dangerous: The Double Album” were streamed 177 million times in its second week out.Morgan Wallen’s “Dangerous: The Double Album” had the equivalent of 159,000 sales in the United States.Credit…Josh Brasted/Getty ImagesJan. 25, 2021Updated 1:58 p.m. ETThe country singer Morgan Wallen holds at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart for a second time with his streaming hit “Dangerous: The Double Album,” topping a slow week for music sales.“Dangerous,” which has 30 songs, notched the equivalent of 159,000 sales in the United States, down 40 percent from its opening, according to MRC Data, the tracking service formerly known as Nielsen Music. The album’s total includes 177 million streams and 22,000 copies sold as a full package. Even with those reduced numbers, “Dangerous” had by far more streams in a week than any country album has had before.“Shoot for the Stars Aim for the Moon” by the New York rapper Pop Smoke, who died last February at age 20, is in second place, continuing its remarkable chart run. In the 29 weeks since the album came out in July, it has stayed in the Top 10 for every week but one, when it dipped to No. 11 at the end of last year; for much of that time, it has stayed comfortably in the Top 5.Why Don’t We, a boy band, opened at No. 3 with “The Good Times and the Bad Ones,” with the equivalent of 46,000 sales. Taylor Swift’s “Evermore” is No. 4 in its sixth week out, and Ariana Grande’s “Positions” is No. 5.Last week’s top single, Olivia Rodrigo’s smash “Drivers License,” holds at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Jimmie Rodgers, Who Sang ‘Honeycomb’ and Other Hits, Dies at 87

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyJimmie Rodgers, Who Sang ‘Honeycomb’ and Other Hits, Dies at 87His crossover appeal landed him on the charts often in the 1950s and ’60s, but a violent incident in 1967 derailed his career.The singer Jimmie Rodgers in a 1958 publicity photo. He was was a regular presence on the pop, country, R&B and easy listening charts for a decade.Credit…Bettmann ArchiveJan. 22, 2021, 5:21 p.m. ETJimmie Rodgers, whose smooth voice straddled the line between pop and country and brought him a string of hits — none bigger than his first record, “Honeycomb,” in 1957 — died on Monday in Palm Desert, Calif. He was 87.His daughter Michele Rodgers said that the cause was kidney disease and that he had also tested positive for Covid-19.Mr. Rodgers was a regular presence on the pop, country, R&B and easy listening charts for a decade after “Honeycomb,” with records that included “Oh-Oh, I’m Falling in Love Again” (1958) and “Child of Clay” (1967), both of which were nominated for Grammy Awards.He might have continued that run of success but for an ugly incident in December 1967, when he was pulled over by a man who, he later said, was an off-duty Los Angeles police officer and beat him severely.Three brain surgeries followed, and he was left with a metal plate in his head. He eventually resumed performing, and even briefly had his own television show, but he faced constant difficulties. For a time he was sidelined because he started having seizures during concerts.“Once word gets out that you’re having seizures onstage, you can’t work,” he told The News Sentinel of Knoxville, Tenn., in 1998. “People won’t hire you.”Mr. Rodgers was found to have spasmodic dysphonia, a disorder characterized by spasms in the muscles of the voice box, a condition he attributed to his brain injury. Yet he later settled into a comfortable niche as a performer and producer in Branson, Mo., the country music mecca, where he had his own theater for several years before retiring to California in 2002.James Frederick Rodgers was born on Sept. 18, 1933, in Camas, Wash., in the southwest part of the state. (Four months earlier, a more famous Jimmie Rodgers, the singer known as the father of country music, had died; the two were unrelated.) His mother, Mary (Schick) Rodgers, was a piano teacher, and his father, Archie, worked in a paper mill. Jimmie started out singing in church and school groups.After graduating from high school, he briefly attended Clark College in Washington State but left to enlist in the Air Force, serving in Korea during the Korean War. In a 2016 interview with The Spectrum, a Utah newspaper, he recalled one particular evening near Christmas 1953.“I bought a beat-up old guitar from a guy for $10 and started playing and singing one night and all the guys joined in,” he said. “We were sitting on the floor with only candles for light, and these tough soldiers had tears running down their cheeks. I realized if my music could have that effect, that’s what I wanted to do with my life.”Back in the States and stationed near Nashville, he started performing in a nightclub for $10 a night and free drinks before returning to Washington after mustering out. In 1957 he traveled to New York to perform on a TV talent show and also snagged an audition for Roulette Records, singing “Honeycomb,” a Bob Merrill song he had learned off a recording by Georgie Shaw and had been performing in the Nashville club.“They basically said, ‘Don’t go any further, that’s great,’” he said in an interview with Gary James for classicbands.com.Mr. Rodgers in performance in 1969, two years after a violent incident in Los Angeles temporarily ended his career.Credit…Jim McCrary/RedfernsMr. Rodgers was taken to a studio to record what he thought would be a demo with musicians he had only just met.“They brought in four players and three singers and we recorded it in about two hours — no charts, no music,” he said in a 2010 oral history for the National Spasmodic Dysphonia Association.A week or two later, he was surprised to hear the song on the radio. It reached the top of the Billboard pop and R&B charts.Later that year he had another success with his version of a song that had been a hit for the Weavers, “Kisses Sweeter Than Wine,” giving it an up-tempo kick and injecting key changes similar to what he had used in “Honeycomb.”“I was told that they won’t sell — records that change keys, people can’t sing along with them,” Mr. Rodgers recalled in an oral history recorded in 2002 for the National Association of Music Merchants. The public disagreed.His early songs, released as Elvis Presley was shaking up the music scene, were a sort of comfort food, jaunty yet melodic and not too earthshaking. In 1959 his quick popularity earned him his own television variety show, which ran for one season.“If his singing style calls for more emphasis on beat than lilt,” Jack Gould wrote of its premiere in The New York Times, “at least it has the virtue of being well this side of rock ’n’ roll.”Mr. Rodgers’s short-lived acting career included a lead role in the 1964 war movie “Back Door to Hell.” Also in the cast was a young Jack Nicholson.Credit…ImdbMr. Rodgers in concert in 2012. He had his own theater in Branson, Mo., the country music mecca, for several years before retiring to California in 2002.Credit…John Atashian/Getty ImagesMr. Rodgers dabbled in acting in the 1960s, including a leading role in “Back Door to Hell,” a 1964 war movie whose cast also included Jack Nicholson. In 1965, “Honeycomb” found new life when Post introduced a cereal by that name, repurposing the song to advertise it, the jingle sung by Mr. Rodgers. He also sang a SpaghettiOs jingle that riffed on his “Oh-Oh, I’m Falling in Love Again.”Mr. Rodgers said he was under consideration for a featured role in the 1968 movie musical “Finian’s Rainbow” when the encounter on the freeway derailed his career. In his telling, he was driving home late at night when the driver behind him flashed his lights. He thought it was his conductor, who was also driving to Mr. Rodgers’s house, and pulled over.“I rolled the window down to ask what was the matter,” he told The Toronto Star in 1987. “That’s the last thing I remember.”He ended up with a fractured skull and broken arm. He said the off-duty officer who had pulled him over called two on-duty officers to the scene, but all three scattered when his conductor, who went looking for Mr. Rodgers when he hadn’t arrived home, drove up.The police told a different story: They said Mr. Rodgers had been drunk and had injured himself when he fell. Mr. Rodgers sued the Los Angeles Police Department, prompting a countersuit; the matter was settled out of court in his favor to the tune of $200,000.During his long recovery Mr. Rodgers got another shot at a TV series, a summer replacement variety show in 1969.“I looked like a ghost,” he admitted in a 2004 interview.His marriages to Colleen McClatchy and Trudy Ann Buck ended in divorce. In 1978, he married Mary Louise Biggerstaff. She survives him.In addition to her and his daughter Michele, he is survived by a son, Michael, from his first marriage; two sons from his second marriage, Casey and Logan; a daughter from his third marriage, Katrine Rodgers; five grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      K.T. Oslin, Country Singer Known for ‘80’s Ladies,’ Dies at 78

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyK.T. Oslin, Country Singer Known for ‘80’s Ladies,’ Dies at 78Her song, the first of many hits, heralded the arrival of a songwriting voice whose sharply drawn miniatures conveyed domestic humor and pathos.The singer and songwriter K.T. Oslin in Central Park in 1987. Her song “80’s Ladies,” released that year, became an anthem for a generation of women.Credit…Oliver Morris/Getty ImagesDec. 22, 2020Updated 4:49 p.m. ETNASHVILLE — K.T. Oslin, the pioneering country singer-songwriter whose biggest hits gave voice to the desires and trials of female baby boomers on the cusp of middle age, died on Monday at an assisted-living facility here. She was 78.The country music historian Robert K. Oermann, a longtime friend, said that the cause was complications of Parkinson’s disease. He said she had also tested positive for Covid-19 last week.“80’s Ladies,” Ms. Oslin’s breakthrough single, became an anthem for a generation of women. Released in 1987, it heralded the arrival of a songwriting voice whose sharply drawn miniatures conveyed domestic humor and pathos reminiscent of the songs of Loretta Lynn two decades earlier.“We’ve been educated/We got liberated/And had complicating matters with men,” Ms. Oslin sang in a rich, throaty alto to open the song’s second stanza, looking back over four decades of living.Oh, we’ve said “I do”And we’ve signed “I don’t”And we’ve sworn we’d never do that again.Oh, we burned our brasAnd we burned our dinnersAnd we burned our candles at both ends.Its rock-leaning arrangement might have had more in common with the piano-based ballads of the California singer-songwriter Jackson Browne than with the standard Nashville fare of the era, but “80’s Ladies” was down to earth and catchy enough to make the country Top 10 in 1987. The next year, it also made Ms. Oslin the first female songwriter to earn song of the year honors from the Country Music Association.Ms. Oslin performing at the Country Music Association Awards in Nashville in 1987. A year later, she was named female vocalist of the year.Credit…CMA“Do Ya,” her next single, proved that “80’s Ladies” was no fluke; rather, it was the first in a series of poignant meditations from Ms. Oslin on the ebb and flow of midlife vulnerability and desire.“Do you still get a thrill/When ya see me coming up the hill?/Honey now do ya?” she entreats her lover, the coarse timbre in her voice redolent of some of Janis Joplin’s more intimate performances.Do ya whisper my nameJust to bring a little comfort to ya?Do ya?Do ya still like the feel of my body lying next to ya?“Do Ya” was the first of Ms. Oslin’s four No. 1 country hits, cementing her place among a distinguished circle of thoughtful, independent female songwriting contemporaries that included Pam Tillis, Gretchen Peters and Matraca Berg. In contrast to their plucky rural forebears Dolly Parton and Ms. Lynn, Ms. Oslin and her peers attended college and openly embraced feminism, weaving its insights into their lyrics.A late bloomer, Ms. Oslin was 45 when “80’s Ladies” ignited her recording career. Before that she had worked as a folk singer, appeared in traveling productions of Broadway shows like “Hello, Dolly!” (with Carol Channing) and recorded television commercials for soft drinks and household cleaning products.She might have languished in obscurity had Joe Galante, the longtime president of RCA Nashville, not taken a chance on her when she was at an age when many recording artists were contemplating retirement.“I thought it was my last chance at doing anything in this business, which was all that I knew how to do,” Ms. Oslin said in a 2015 interview with Billboard. “I would have ended up selling gloves at Macy’s if it weren’t for Joe Galante. I was so naïve about the business.”Ms. Oslin’s first two albums for RCA, “80’s Ladies” and “This Woman,” were certified platinum for sales of more than one million copies. She had 11 Top 40 country hits in all, most of them collected on the brashly titled 1993 compilation “Greatest Hits: Confessions of an Aging Sex Bomb.”Ms. Oslin also won three Grammy Awards, as well as female vocalist of the year honors from the Country Music Association in 1988. She was later inducted into both the Texas and Nashville songwriter halls of fame.Kay Toinette Oslin was born on May 15, 1942, in Crossett, Ark. Her father, Larry, died of leukemia when she was 5. Her mother, Kathleen (Byrd) Oslin, worked as a lab technician for the Veterans Administration.Ms. Oslin and her brother, Larry, who died several years ago, spent much of their childhood with their mother in Mobile, Ala., and their teenage years in Houston, where Ms. Oslin studied drama at Lon Morris College and sang in a folk trio with the singer-songwriter Guy Clark.In the mid-’60s she moved to New York, where she worked in the theater and as a jingle singer.Ms. Oslin made New York her home for much of the next two decades, appearing in, among other productions, the Broadway musical “Promises, Promises” and the Lincoln Center revival of “West Side Story.”She also started writing songs and was encouraged by Diane Petty, an executive with the performing rights organization SESAC, to pitch her country-leaning material to song publishers in Nashville.She eventually was signed, as Kay T. Oslin, by Elektra Records, but neither of the singles she released for the label went anywhere. It was not until other singers started having success with her songs that her career began to gain momentum, ultimately leading to the showcase at which she performed for Mr. Galante.Her acting experience served her well, resulting in several memorable music videos, including the “Bride of Frankenstein”-inspired staging of her final No. 1 single, “Come Next Monday” (1990).Dusty Springfield, the Judds and the soul singer Dorothy Moore are among those who have recorded Ms. Oslin’s material. Latter-day country singers like Chely Wright and Brandy Clark have cited her as an influence.Ms. Oslin in concert in 2012.Credit…Rick Diamond/Getty ImagesMs. Oslin began to focus more on acting than singing as the 1990s progressed, appearing most notably as a Nashville nightclub owner in Peter Bogdanovich’s country music-themed 1993 movie, “The Thing Called Love,” starring Sandra Bullock and River Phoenix.She also appeared frequently on the TV talks shows of Johnny Carson, Arsenio Hall and Joan Rivers and was profiled on the ABC program “20/20.”She had quadruple heart bypass surgery in 1995 and recorded only sporadically after that, embracing her Americana influences on “My Roots Are Showing” in 1996 and releasing a dance-floor mix of the 1951 Rosemary Clooney hit “Come On-a My House” in 2000.No immediate family members survive.In 2015, two years after celebrating its 25th anniversary, Ms. Oslin recorded a new version of “80’s Ladies” for her final album, “Simply.”“That’s the one I still hear the most about, and that’s great,” she said of “80’s Ladies” in her 2015 Billboard interview. “I still love that song. It spoke to a lot of people. I don’t know how I managed to write it, but it was a great song.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Mariah! Dolly! Carrie! 2020 Can’t Quarantine This Cheer

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storycritic’s notebookMariah! Dolly! Carrie! 2020 Can’t Quarantine This CheerPop stars try to pull off a Christmas spectacular in tough times, with three sparkly but heartfelt specials now on streaming services.Pop divas in holiday sparkle: from left, Carrie Underwood, Mariah Carey and Dolly Parton.Credit…From left: Anne Marie Fox/HBO Max, Apple TV Plus, CBSDec. 18, 2020, 9:00 a.m. ETWith the C.D.C. advising against faithful friends who are dear to us gathering anywhere near to us, it’s understandable that we all might need some extra assistance getting into the holiday spirit this year. One of the few bright spots of the season, though, is the abundance of new Christmastime musical specials, helmed by some of our most beloved and benevolent divas. Thank the streaming wars, in part: HBO Max, Apple TV+ and CBS All Access have all jockeyed to get a different A-list angel atop their trees, perhaps in hopes that they’ll persuade you to subscribe to one of their services before your long winter hibernation (or at least forget to cancel before your free trial is over.) Whether gaudy, glorious excess or down-home simplicity, each offers a different take on a perplexing question: How do you stage a Christmas spectacular in decidedly unspectacular times?First up is Carrie Underwood, whose “My Gift: A Christmas Special From Carrie Underwood” is streaming on HBO Max. A companion piece to her recent first holiday album, the stately and reverent “My Gift,” Underwood’s special finds her fronting an orchestra led by the former “Tonight Show” bandleader Rickey Minor. Featuring duets with John Legend and, adorably, her 5-year-old son Isaiah (whose pa-rum-pa-pum-pums are impressively on point), “My Gift” is relatively light on pizazz — save for the eight (!) increasingly dramatic costume changes. As Underwood’s stylists told “People” magazine in an article devoted entirely to all of her different “My Gift” outfits, the fact that the country powerhouse wouldn’t be moving around the stage much gave them an opportunity to “break out these giant confections of tulle and sequins that would never really be appropriate for any other event.” The most memorable is a crimson-tinged Diana Couture dress-and-cape number that suggests a cross between a bridal cake-topper and Jude Law on “The Young Pope.”A scene from “Mariah Carey’s Magical Christmas Special,” which features guests like Jennifer Hudson and Ariana Grande.Credit…Apple TV PlusThe splendor and stirring purity of Underwood’s voice is powerful enough that even a plunging ball gown adorned with literal angel wings cannot overshadow it. Underwood’s most sublime belting, though, doesn’t come until the penultimate set of songs, when she absolutely blows the roof off “O Come All Ye Faithful” and “O Holy Night.” It’s enough to make the relative restraint of the rest of the show pale in comparison. “We really wanted this special and my album to be something that people would return to year after year and not feel dated,” she told “People” and, accordingly, there’s nary a nod to 2020 in sight. It’s a safe choice in a production so full of them that, despite its ample cheer, ends up feeling a little hermetic and snoozy.An offering not as worried about time-stamping itself is “Mariah Carey’s Magical Christmas Special,” a star-studded entry from Apple TV+ in the Yuletide streaming wars. It’s certainly the most plot-heavy of the bunch (a neurotic elf played by Billy Eichner must restore Christmas cheer to a world low on tidings by booking an impromptu Mariah concert, or something), and the one with a wardrobe that most frequently luxuriates in the lack of F.C.C. oversight of streaming content. Perhaps when she wrote “All I Want For Christmas Is You” she was singing to double-sided tape.Though a tad convoluted, Carey’s special is full of one-liners and knowing winks; when the elf has trouble tracking her down, she informs him, “It’s called elusive, darling.” Woodstock makes a brief, animated cameo (perhaps to remind us that Apple owns the streaming rights to the “Peanuts” specials, too), which provides a segue into Carey’s gorgeous, sultry rendition of “Christmastime Is Here.” A lot happens throughout these overstuffed 43 minutes, and the special could have done without some of the bells and whistles. The whistle notes, however, are another story.The most diva-licious moment of the whole affair comes when Carey is joined by two very special guests, Jennifer Hudson and Ariana Grande — who she stages behind her, so that they end up looking like the Supremes to her Diana Ross. Classic elusive chanteuse. By the song’s finale, though, she’s invited them both to stand beside her and riff. It provides the opportunity for something the world has been waiting for ever since a young Grande earned the nickname “Baby Mariah”: They look at each other respectfully, inhale deeply, and harmonize their whistle notes. This must be the exact sound heard when the Covid-19 vaccine enters one’s bloodstream.In “A Holly Dolly Christmas,” Dolly Parton offers the crackling warmth of a hearth.Credit…CBSA woman who might know is Dolly Parton, generous Moderna vaccine trial donor and star of the heartwarming CBS special “A Holly Dolly Christmas.” An hourlong show originally made for Sunday-night broadcast on CBS (and now streaming on CBS All Access), hers is the most traditional of the bunch, and hardly the flashiest: “It’s not a big Hollywood production show, as I’m sure you’ve noticed,” Parton says, gesturing around a set meant to look like a homey church. But she also specifies, “We have managed to do this show safely …. testing, wearing masks and social distancing.”Parton is such a charismatic presence that she doesn’t need guest stars, plot twists, or costume changes to keep this a transfixing show. Whether she’s hamming it up during “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” or filling the spiritual “Mary, Did You Know?” with empathic emotion, her special offers the crackling warmth of a hearth. Before singing her classic “Coat of Many Colors,” she tells a moving story about her late mother’s selflessness, her painted eyes brimming full of tears the entire time. Just try not to cry along with her.Earlier in the fall, Stephen Colbert showed just how tall an order that is, when he was reduced to tears after Parton burst into a ballad a cappella during their televised interview. “Like a lot of Americans,” he explained, “I’m under a lot of stress right now, Dolly!” It’s nothing to be ashamed of, though: Plenty believe there’s something deeply cathartic about Parton’s voice and her overall demeanor. As Lydia R. Hamessley writes in her recent book “Unlikely Angel: The Songs of Dolly Parton,” “For many listeners, the restorative effect of Dolly’s music seems to flow to them directly from Dolly herself, so they often experience her as a healer.” Which sounds like something we could all use right about now. As Parton spins yarns about her humble beginnings and sings songs of enduring faith in the face of despair, “A Holly Dolly Christmas” might, actually, be an effective cure for the 2020 holiday blues.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Charley Pride, Country Music’s First Black Superstar, Dies at 86

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best MoviesBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest TheaterBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThose we’ve lostCharley Pride, Country Music’s First Black Superstar, Dies at 86He began his career amid the racial unrest of the 1960s and cemented his place in the country pantheon with hits like “Kiss an Angel Good Mornin’.”Charley Pride performing in Nashville in 2018. In the 20 years after his breakout hit, “Just Between You and Me,” in 1967, 51 more of Mr. Pride’s records reached the country Top 10.Credit…Laura Roberts/Invision, via Associated PressPublished More

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      What Country Music Asked of Charley Pride

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCritic’s NotebookWhat Country Music Asked of Charley PrideThe singer put himself on the line to become the genre’s first Black superstar. He died on Saturday not long after performing at a largely mask-free awards ceremony.Charley Pride onstage in 1975. The country star’s 1994 memoir, “Pride: The Charley Pride Story,” details a litany of aggressions he experienced in his career. Credit…Bettmann Archive, via Getty ImagesDec. 14, 2020At the 54th annual Country Music Association Awards last month, there was Charley Pride, onstage singing his indelible 1971 hit “Kiss an Angel Good Mornin’” alongside the rising country star Jimmie Allen. In the socially distanced audience, Nashville luminaries took in the wondrous spectacle. Eric Church, exuding stoic cool — no mask. Brothers Osborne singing along — no masks. Ashley McBryde swaying to the music — no mask.Here were two kinds of wish fulfillment, tightly holding hands. First, honoring Pride, who also received the Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award that night, was a belated effort at demonstrating sufficient respect for country music’s first Black superstar. Pride was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2000. In 2017, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Grammys. “I’m going to put this with all the other awards,” he said backstage after the show, clutching the trophy.And then there were those unadorned faces, telegraphing a certain blitheness about the coronavirus, which was, at the time of the show, raging through the country. On the day the awards were filmed, 1,576 Covid-19 deaths were reported in the United States, according to the Covid Tracking Project — at the time, it was the most in one day this country had seen since mid-May, near the end of the pandemic’s initial wave. (That daily death count has been topped 15 times since the CMAs.)[embedded content]Of all the recent awards shows — the BET Awards, the MTV Video Music Awards, the Academy of Country Music Awards, the Billboard Awards, the Latin Grammys, the American Music Awards — the CMAs were singular in showing almost no people wearing masks, either onstage or in the audience. (It was also one of very few shows with an audience of any kind.)If you believed what you were watching, you might think that the country music business was a tolerant one, encouraging of Black performers and willing to acknowledge the genre’s debt to Black music. And you might believe that it was possible for a gaggle of superstars (and the behind-the-scenes people who help them navigate the world) to keep the pandemic at bay.The optics were pretty much seamless, the reality less so. Five of the show’s planned performers pulled out because they tested positive for the coronavirus, or were exposed to someone who did. And most cruel was the news that this past Saturday, a month after the awards, Pride died, at 86, of complications of Covid-19. It is likely impossible to know whether Pride contracted the virus traveling from Texas to Nashville, or at the CMAs, but many, including the country stars Maren Morris and Mickey Guyton, expressed reasonable concern on Twitter that Pride’s appearance on the show might have led to his exposure. (The CMA released a joint statement with Pride’s representatives after his death noting that Pride had tested negative for the coronavirus before, during and after attending the awards.)It would not have been the first time Pride risked his well-being and safety in the name of country music’s embrace. His 1994 memoir, “Pride: The Charley Pride Story,” details a litany of microaggressions and macroaggressions he experienced in his career. To be a Black performer in country, especially in the throes of the civil rights era, when Pride was getting his footing, was to put yourself on the line. Opening for Willie Nelson in Dallas in 1967, Pride was warned the crowd was potentially hostile. Not to worry, the promoter told him, because they were prepared to rapidly pull him offstage if the situation turned dire.“My mouth went so dry it felt like it was stuffed with cotton,” Pride wrote. “He’s not talking about name calling. He thinks something really bad might happen in a room with ten thousand people, and he only has two guys to get me out?” (The show went smoothly.)He had to be careful about his song selection. “There was a time, after all,” Pride wrote, “when it was deemed unsafe to sing ‘Green, Green Grass of Home’ because it was about a condemned prisoner dreaming of his woman with ‘hair of gold.’”Pride remembered being called slurs by performers who were his colleagues and friends; how George Jones and another man scrawled “KKK” on his car after a bender; and how he had to remind Webb Pierce — who told him it’s “good for you to be in our music” — that “It’s my music, too.”Pride mostly relates these stories with dispassion, sometimes even with flickers of affection: These occurrences were simply the cost of doing business as a boundary-crashing pioneer. In the book, he is expressly resistant to politics, and seems eager to assure everyone — fellow Nashville stars, show promoters and people he meets along the way — that he’s got no interest in starting trouble, or being near it.Pride was a pathbreaker, but the path largely remained empty in his wake.Credit…Bettmann Archive, via Getty ImagesUltimately, Pride was rewarded by the country music business — by the end of the 1960s and throughout the 1970s, he was one of the genre’s central, crucial performers, a part of the firmament. But he was also, naturally, the exception that proved the rule — even with his success as an example, the country music industry remained largely inhospitable to Black performers. He was a one of one.Nashville is ever so slightly more progressive now when it comes to diversity. Still, of all the pressures applied to the save-face-insistent country music industry this year, the racial justice reckonings of the summer certainly have been the most challenging to face up to.The CMAs are the most revered of the Nashville industry awards shows — in 1971, Pride won entertainer of the year, the show’s highest honor — and its choice to bestow Pride with the lifetime achievement award this year felt, at a minimum, conspicuous.It was of course a lovely gesture on its own terms. Darius Rucker, one of the show’s hosts and the most successful Black country singer since Pride, has frequently cited Pride’s influence. And Pride’s duet partner, Allen, is a promising young pop-country talent and one of a handful of Black singers with recent hits. But their performance also had the air of tokenism — did no white country star also want to pay tribute to a genre legend?Pride is not the first victim of the coronavirus in country music; the 1990s star Joe Diffie died in March, and John Prine (who wasn’t even acknowledged at the CMAs) died in April.But just because the coronavirus has hit close to home has not discouraged country music stars from taking public risks with their health and others’. In June, Chase Rice played a concert for several hundred fans, and was roundly criticized after video appeared online of maskless revelers clustered together near the stage. Around the same time, Chris Janson was similarly criticized for performing for hundreds of fans. (In this, country stars are not alone; an Ohio venue was recently fined for hosting a Trey Songz performance, and New York officials have reported routinely shutting down dance parties in the city.)In October, Morgan Wallen was forced to withdraw from a scheduled appearance on “Saturday Night Live” after video emerged on TikTok of him partying with — and in one case kissing — fans in Alabama. Wallen ended up performing on the show earlier this month, and even participated in a skit poking fun at his indiscretions.Those things don’t simply happen because of individual choices — they happen because of a system that forgives certain kinds of transgressions, and because of an industry that sees no tension between satisfying the thirst of fans and potentially putting them and their loved ones at risk.Those responsible for organizing the CMAs were not unaware of the risks posed by the coronavirus. The CMA president, Sarah Trahern, told Variety that the organization administered around 3,000 coronavirus tests to performers and staff, in addition to temperature checks and questionnaires. The performers who attended were given face shields to wear anytime they were not seated at their table or onstage during the event. In footage posted from backstage during show rehearsals, the show’s executive producer, Robert Deaton, is shown wearing a mask and a face shield when speaking to Pride and Allen about their performance.Unsurprisingly, the CMAs went into damage control mode this weekend. The organization’s news release about Pride’s death mentioned his award, but made no mention of his performance last month.Regardless, recent events are a painful asterisk on Pride’s career, and a reminder of the ways Nashville remained deaf to his unique circumstances. That insensitivity continues apace. Pride was a pathbreaker, but the path largely remained empty in his wake, owing to an industry for which the image of racial comity is more important than the furtherance of it, and for which the appearance of freedom during a pandemic far outweighs any cost that arises from that hubris.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More