For decades, country music has been largely shut off to Black artists. There have been notable, even iconic, exceptions throughout history, of course. But there are too few of those, to the point that their success was often treated as novelty. There were also too many performers who should have made it big but were forced into stereotypes that didn’t comfortably fit. Fortunately, there have been signs of hope in the past few years—hope that feels like a lot more than just good intentions and lip service. This tribute explores the history, and promising future, of Black artists in country music.

DeFord Bailey: The pioneer

The legend goes that Bailey started playing harmonica—"Black hillbilly music," he would later call it—in rural Bellwood, Tennessee, when he was just three years old and bedridden with polio (which led to him growing to be just 4 feet, 10 inches tall). At age 25, Bailey first appeared on Nashville radio in 1925, and two years later made his debut on the legendary "WSM Barn Dance" show. During the era he also put out several harmonica-solo records, including the great John Henry and Fox Chase. (He also played guitar, banjo and bones—literally, animal bones, also known as rhythm bones.) Signed to RCA, Bailey's music was categorized for two marginalized audiences: "race" and "hillbilly."

A true original, he was the eighth musician inducted to the Grand Ole Opry and toured with stars like Roy Acuff and Bill Monroe, but faced discrimination because of Jim Crow laws: Bailey was often denied lodging and forced to eat outside while his white costars dined inside. According to Tennessee's Greeneville Sun, "There are stories of him obtaining hotel lodging only by posing as valet for Uncle Dave Macon, who was white."

Bailey was fired from his radio gig in 1941, over a licensing dispute, which effectively ended his music career. It was decades before he would perform at the Opry again, when the show left its original Ryman Auditorium home in 1974. He passed away in 1982, and it took decades more before his legacy began getting the respect it deserves: Bailey was finally inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2005, and Ken Burns' 2019 Country Music documentary introduced the harmonica wizard to a new audience.

Ray Charles: The crossover icon

Born to a 15-year-old mother, Ray Charles had a heartbreaking childhood in Florida: His beloved brother drowned at age four, he went blind at age seven, and his mother died when Charles was 14. But a school for the deaf and blind saved him, as that's where Charles learned to play classical piano.

He went pro as a teenager, reportedly following in the stylistic shoes of pop star Nat King Cole, and moved to Seattle in 1947, forming his own band. Signed to Atlantic Records in the early '50s, Charles became a major star of the decade—with hits including "Mess Around," "I've Got a Woman" and the Latin-inflected "What'd I Say," the latter crossing over from the R&B to pop charts.

Indeed, Charles was never one to be pinned down. He was also making jazz, blues and big-band records and, in 1959, recorded a cover of Hank Snow's "I'm Movin' On." But Charles' decision to make a whole album of country music was reportedly met with negativity at his new label, ABC-Paramount. Charles won out, and the now-legendary Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music was released in 1962. This was no ordinary country record: Charles chose covers of hit songs and standards—from "Bye Bye Love" to "Hey, Good Lookin'"—but applied jazz arrangements, many of them from the West Coast school. And there's no mistaking Charles's own R&B flourishes.

The music was crossover nirvana: Modern Sounds went to the top of the Billboard pop charts and spawned four hit singles across pop, R&B and country radio, including the massive “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” which sold nearly 1.5 million copies in just about two months and won a Best R&B Recording Grammy. Rolling Stone has named Modern Sounds an essential rock record, while CMT gave it a place among the greatest country albums. It influenced artists from Solomon Burke to Willie Nelson to the Mavericks’ Raul Malo, who recognized it as “one of the most important records of our time, not only because of its content, but also due to its social and political ramifications.”

Charley Pride: The groundbreaker

Charley Pride almost had a very different life—and country music almost looked a lot different. Before he was a country star, Pride pitched in baseball's Negro League, but an injury led to him being traded by the Louisville Clippers for a bus. He finished up his career playing semi-pro ball in Helena, Montana, where he also worked as a smelter and sang before games. Everything changed when Chet Atkins heard his demo and helped Pride get a deal at RCA. While his first single, 1966's "The Snakes Crawl at Night," did not chart, a year later "Just Between You and Me" reached the Top Ten and earned him a Grammy nomination. It was radio, though, and no one knew what he looked like.

Pride has said, as he walked onto the stage in Detroit at his first big concert, the crowd of 10,000 went silent. “I told the audience: ‘Friends, I realize it’s a little unique, me coming out here—with a permanent suntan—to sing country and western to you. But that’s the way it is.’ " Audiences fell in love, giving Pride eight number one country singles (including “Is Anybody Goin’ to San Antone” and “Kiss an Angel Good Mornin’”) in the span of two years, many of which crossed over to the pop charts, making him a key player in Atkins’ “Countrypolitan” movement. For a while, only Elvis Presley sold more for RCA.

In 1971, he was named the Country Music Association’s Entertainer of the Year. The CMAs also gave him a lifetime achievement award in 2020, and he symbolically passed the torch in a duet with contemporary artist Jimmie Allen. Tragically, Pride passed away from COVID-19 complications the next month, at age 86. Darius Rucker later paid emotional tribute to Pride, recalling: “All of a sudden, I see him on Hee Haw, and he looks just like me. I think seeing that as a kid was one of the things later on in life that made me feel like I could do whatever I wanted to do. How someone could have 52 top hit country songs and make it look as easy as Charley Pride did is amazing.”

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