NASHVILLE, Tenn. – TN Tribune – The Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum in collaboration with Warner Music Nashville released an expanded version of the box set From Where I Stand: The Black Experience in Country Music. Originally released in 1998 by the museum and Warner, the collection returns as a multifaceted, educational initiative, including an expanded CD box set, free online experience and concert celebration.
From Where I Stand spans a century of music and traces the many ways Black Americans have created, contributed to, and been influenced by country music. The collection now includes a fourth disc titled “Reclaiming the Heritage” that presents a fresh wave of Black artists in country and Americana who emerged through 2020. New essays by recording artists Rhiannon Giddens and Rissi Palmer join the original essays by distinguished music scholars and journalists.
All the music in the box set can be heard on the museum’s website via From Where I Stand: The Online Experience. The online experience is free to access and includes all the incisive essays, archival photographs and video, and historical track notes for each selection, as well as resources from the museum’s archive and resources for educators.
Additionally, free tickets to From Where I Stand: The Concert Celebration, Presented by Amazon and Riverview Foundation in the museum’s CMA Theater on Tuesday, June 18, are now available to reserve on the museum’s website, based on availability. Coinciding with Black Music Month, the concert will feature a variety of artists represented in the project. Co-producers Rissi Palmer and Shannon Sanders will lead the concert. Artists performing include Blanco Brown, Cowboy Troy, Tony Jackson, Hubby Jenkins, Miko Marks, Wendy Moten, Rissi Palmer, Darius Rucker, The War And Treaty and Barrence Whitfield. The concert will be filmed and released on the museum’s website on Thursday, Sept 12.
The From Where I Stand box set and online experience are illustrated with traditional quilt designs created years ago by the women of the Gee’s Bend community of Alabama, with type treatments by visual artist and designer David Jon Walker. Each era of music is represented with a quilt from roughly the same time period as the music. The CD box set is now available to purchase through the museum’s website or in the museum’s retail store. Proceeds from the sale of the box set will benefit the nonprofit museum’s educational programs.
Track listing for the box set:
Disc 1 – The Stringband Era
- DeFord Bailey – “Pan American Blues”
- DeFord Bailey – “Muscle Shoals Blues”
- Taylor’s Kentucky Boys – “Gray Eagle”
- Georgia Yellow Hammers – “G Rag”
- Andrew & Jim Baxter – “K. C. Railroad Blues”
- The Dallas String Band – “Dallas Rag”
- James Cole String Band – “Bill Cheatem”
- Peg Leg Howell & Eddie Anthony – “Turkey Buzzard Blues”
- Charlie McCoy & Bo Chatmon – “Corrine Corrina”
- Mississippi Sheiks – “Sitting on Top of the World”
- Mississippi Sheiks – “Yodeling Fiddling Blues”
- Memphis Sheiks – “He’s in the Jailhouse Now”
- Mississippi Mud Steppers – “Morning Glory Waltz”
- Lead Belly – “The Midnight Special”
- Lead Belly – “Rock Island Line”
- Nathan Frazier & Frank Patterson – “Eighth of January”
- Murph Gribble, John Lusk & Albert York – “Apple Blossom”
- DeFord Bailey – “Fox Chase”
Disc 2 – Soul Country
- Wynonie Harris – “Bloodshot Eyes”
- The Orioles – “Crying in the Chapel”
- Big Al Downing – “Down on the Farm”
- Ivory Joe Hunter – “City Lights”
- Ray Charles – “I’m Movin’ On”
- Ray Charles – “I Can’t Stop Loving You”
- Bobby Hebb – “Night Train to Memphis”
- Solomon Burke – “Just Out of Reach”
- Fats Domino – “You Win Again”
- Esther Phillips – “Release Me”
- Joe Hinton – “Funny How Time Slips Away”
- Arthur Alexander – “Detroit City”
- The Supremes – “It Makes No Difference Now”
- Bobby Hebb – “A Satisfied Mind”
- The Staple Singers – “Will the Circle Be Unbroken”
- Joe Tex – “Half a Mind”
- Etta James – “Almost Persuaded”
- Joe Simon – “The Chokin’ Kind”
- Ivory Joe Hunter – “He’ll Never Love You”
- Dorothy Moore – “Misty Blue”
Disc 3 – Forward with Pride
- Charley Pride – “The Snakes Crawl at Night”
- Charley Pride – “Is Anybody Goin’ to San Antone”
- Charley Pride – “Kiss an Angel Good Mornin’”
- Linda Martell – “Color Him Father”
- Otis Williams & the Midnight Cowboys – “How I Got to Memphis”
- La Melle Prince – “The Man That Made a Woman Out of Me”
- Stoney Edwards – “She’s My Rock”
- Stoney Edwards – “Hank and Lefty Raised My Country Soul”
- Stoney Edwards – “Pickin’ Wildflowers”
- O. B. McClinton – “Don’t Let the Green Grass Fool You”
- Jo Ann Sweeney – “I’ll Take It”
- The Pointer Sisters – “Fairytale”
- Ruby Falls – “Show Me Where”
- Lenora Ross – “Lonely Together”
- Big Al Downing – “Touch Me (I’ll Be Your Fool Once More)”
- Professor Longhair – “Jambalaya (On the Bayou)”
- Dobie Gray – “From Where I Stand”
- Cleve Francis – “Love Light”
- Aaron Neville – “The Grand Tour”
- Barrence Whitfield – “Irma Jackson”
- Ted Hawkins – “There Stands the Glass”
- Herb Jeffries – “I’m a Happy Cowboy”
Disc 4 – Reclaiming the Heritage
- Carolina Chocolate Drops – “Ruby, Are You Mad at Your Man?”
- Rhiannon Giddens – “At the Purchaser’s Option”
- Darius Rucker – “Wagon Wheel”
- Darius Rucker – “Don’t Think I Don’t Think About It”
- Valerie June – “Workin’ Woman Blues”
- Our Native Daughters – “Black Myself”
- Mavis Staples – “Touch My Heart”
- Tony Jackson – “I Didn’t Wake Up This Morning”
- Rissi Palmer – “Country Girl”
- Miko Marks – “It Feels Good”
- Kane Brown – “Heaven”
- Kane Brown – “Worldwide Beautiful”
- Yola – “Ride Out in the Country”
- Allison Russell – “Nightflyer”
- Wendy Moten – “’Til I Get It Right”
- Cowboy Troy – “I Play Chicken with the Train”
- Blanco Brown – “The Git Up”
- BRELAND – “Cross Country”
- Brittney Spencer – “Bigger Than the Song”
- Mickey Guyton – “Black Like Me”
- Keb’ Mo’ – “Loving Arms” (performed for the museum’s 2020 online concert fundraiser, BIG NIGHT at the Museum)
- The War And Treaty – “A Lesson in Leavin’” (performed live at the Museum’s 2018 Medallion Ceremony)
