Gospel Gold - Country Gospel

Tonight Gospel Gold will take a look at the black voices in country gospel.

Early black figures in country often saw their efforts made invisible. Black guitarist Lesley “Esley” Riddle traveled the southern United States with A.P. Carter, a founding member of the first mainstream country band, the Carter Family. Together, the two musicians collected songs from communities they visited. Riddle would learn the music, then teach the Carters how to play it for recordings and live performances. While this collaborative effort canonized a large volume of music that might have otherwise been lost to time, Riddle was almost entirely written out of the Carter Family story, as well as the band’s publishing and recording credits. Other early influencers include Rufus “Tee Tot” Payne, a blues guitarist and mentor to Hank Williams, Sr. As time marched on, so did the cross-pollination of musical styles across racial boundaries. Amid the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, the first country album to sell a million copies was none other than Ray Charles’s Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music in 1962. An iconic collection of R&B takes on country standards, the album brought country music, and Charles’s unique interpretations, into the homes of country and non-country fans alike. The album reached number one on the country charts in record time and produced several pop hits, but it never gained acceptance from country radio.