country music

Black cowboys made up as much as a quarter of working ranch hands during late 19th century. That legacy has been obscured.

Connie B. Gay and the roots of country music militarization.

The first Black woman to play the Grand Ole Opry and hit Billboard’s country music charts.

Beyoncé is following in the footsteps of many Black musicians before her.

Before Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” won song of the year at the CMAs, hit maker Ted Jarrett’s music topped the country charts.

It is impossible to talk about the blues and country without talking about race, authenticity, and contemporary America’s relationship to its past.

The country song that pits idyllic country life against the corruption of the city is a well-worn trope. Aldean's song reveals the dark heart of the tradition.

That history has nothing to do with culture wars, and everything to do with what real justice looks like in the United States, and who has access to it.

The singer wasn't a feminist torchbearer, but her music amplified women's issues.

The best-selling musical artist in the world in 1969, Johnny Cash sang of (and for) the "forgotten Americans": the imprisoned men of all races.

Tammy Wynette and Johnny Cash cancelled gigs in Belfast during the violent 1970s, but Pride played on.

Will the industry remain a bastion of conservatism, or take advantage of the opportunity to broaden its base?

Johnny Cash grappled with the many facets of the outlaw archetype in his feature acting debut, Five Minutes to Live.

Artists like Yola and Rhiannon Giddens are blowing up what Giddens calls a “manufactured image of country music being white and being poor.”

From the moment DeFord Bailey stepped onto a stage in Nashville, country music would never be the same. Decades after his death he finally got his due.

The Depression was the gravitational pull that created country stars and their nationwide universe of listeners.

Maybelle Carter witnessed the dawn of the recording era and helped create country music as one of the genre's biggest acts.

One of the most indispensable guitarists of all time, Carter was a quiet revolutionary.

A songwriter-historian weighs in on the controversy over Lil Nas X’s country-trap hit.

Country music has often stood, as it were, with one foot in and one foot out of the cave.