Since the release of Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter album in 2024, among other factors, there’s been more conversation about Black Americans’ profoundly important connection to country music. In case you didn’t know, Black musicians were integral to the origins of American country and roots music (and all popular music as we know it), but white people controlled the recording and marketing of most such music, infusing the music industry with racist tendencies from the get-go. Not on

Listen closely to Ronnie Milsap’s golden voice and you’ll hear a singer as close to the heart of American music as anyone who’s ever made the charts. He wound through the R&B nightclubs of Memphis and Atlanta, where he sang straight-up Southern soul and rock ‘n roll, before moving to Nashville at the urging of Charley Pride. Milsap’s voice has always been one of my favorites. I was only about 12 when I first noticed his warm, beautiful tone, classy phrasing, and his way of

Devon Gilfillian is one of the most accomplished rock and soul artists in Nashville that many roots music listeners still may not know about. A self-described melting pot of music, the Philadelphia native is deeply inspired by the too often unheralded impact of Black music in Nashville and its influences on country and rock ‘n’ roll. Gilfillian’s hero, Jimi Hendrix, expanded the genres – and Hendrix’s connections to Nashville aren’t lost on him. The amiable, passionate Gilfil

NEW ORLEANS — When you listen to the great soul artist Irma Thomas sing, you understand why she’s called the Soul Queen of New Orleans. She can move heaven and earth with her voice while also finding great subtlety and nuance in her songs. You can feel that same magic when she talks about music, too. It’s “having people around you that understand what your heart is,” she said, musicians “to back you up, to allow you to be you.” “This mechanical music,” she said of today’s man