Various Dirty Laundry - The Soul Of Black Country (2-LP)

(Trikont) 24 tracks, booklet

From a distance, the African American presence in country may begin and end with Charley Pride. But if you take a closer look at the involvement of black artists in country, you will discover the story of a great love affair that has been sorely tested and often denied. After all, African-American musicians were part of the country tradition from the very first recordings. And even before that.

"Hillbilly music," writes Bill C. Malone in the leading standard work Country Music USA, "developed primarily from the reservoir of folk songs, ballads and tunes brought to North America by Anglo-Celtic immigrants."
folk songs, ballads and dances brought to North America by Anglo-Celtic immigrants, absorbing many foreign influences, especially from African American culture... Of all the ethnic groups, none played a more significant role in providing song material and styles for the country musician than the blacks who had been transported from Africa." The folklorist Norm Cohen even goes so far as to claim that it was the African admixture that gave country, as opposed to other rural American music, its worldwide appeal.

The fact is that black and white musicians have always interacted across racial lines in the American South. They often developed parallel preferences for certain instrumentations and lyrics. There is hardly a soul singer who has not translated one or two country songs into the language of rhythm 'n blues. And last but not least, there are the black musicians who found and still find their musical home in straight country. "Country songs," explains the English music journalist Barney Hoskins, "appealed to black artists because they contained elements that blues-based songs lacked, especially when it came to the art of storytelling."

As a collection of the different black approaches to country music, the anthology "Dirty Laundry" aims not only to unearth what has been buried in music history, to reveal the often overlooked country roots of soul stars and to place African-American country musicians in a cross-genre context. Above all, it is about asking questions, about shaking up supposedly self-evident facts.