Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Nowadays, the notion of country music as "the white man's blues" is fairly well-established. But, Ray Charles apart, country's influence on soul music remains one of black music's guilty secrets, a crossover even less welcome (on both sides of the racial divide) when Bobby Womack released BW Goes C&W in the mid-1970s than it had been when Charles made his more successful foray into the genre over a decade earlier. But as this well-researched Trikont anthology shows, this form of musical miscegenation was happening all over the South throughout the 1960s and 1970s. It ranges from country standards with most of the cheese grated off (Womack's "Bouquet of Roses", Candi Staton's "Stand By Your Man", James & Bobby Purify's "Sixteen Tons", James Brown's "Your Cheating Heart") to brilliant renegades such as Arthur Alexander, Roscoe Shelton and Curtis Mayfield, whose eco-protest anthem "Dirty Laundry" contributed to his mid-1980s career revival. Mostly, though, it features black singers finding common ground with country writers on cheatin' songs and love plaints, notably Joe Simon's version of "Chokin' Kind", Solomon Burke's lengthy "I Can't Stop Loving You", and a terrific version of "You Are My Sunshine" by Earl Gaines.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments