Country Update BILLBOARD.COM/NEWSLETTERS FEBRUARY 25, 2019 | PAGE 1 OF 17 INSIDE BILLBOARD COUNTRY UPDATE [email protected] Luke Combs, Two Nashville Paths Converge In Record-Setter >page 3 Rodney Atkins’ Collaboration With Fisk Jubilee Singers Foster, Wiseman Remembered When the Academy of Country Music (ACM) granted recent Lee Greenwood and Shania Twain, who employed them on >page 7 membership to the Fisk Jubilee Singers, the event was doubly “God Bless the Child,” which peaked at No. 48 on Hot Country significant: It recognized an expansion of the ethnic diversity Songs in 1997. taking hold in country, and it represented a full-circle moment But it’s the first time the Fisk ensemble has received a “fea- as country was united with a group that helped build the ture,” and it comes at an opportune juncture in country’s evolu- Keith Urban Ices infrastructure that made Nashville the genre’s home base. tion. Kane Brown, Darius Rucker and Jimmie Allen are current Rainy Date The Fisk ensemble is featured on Rodney Atkins’ single hitmakers of African-American descent. PBS profiled Char- >page 8 “Caught Up in the Country,” ley Pride in an American Masters which is at No. 25 on the episode that debuted Feb. 22, Country Airplay chart dated and the Country Music Hall of March 2. It represents the first Fame and Museum held a panel ACM Awards top 30 appearance on the list on Feb. 23 that explored the Oddity for the Fisk group, which will contributions of Ray Charles >page 8 celebrate its 150th anniversary in conjunction with the rerelease in 2021, a year before the of both volumes of his landmark centennial of the first country 1960s albums Modern Sounds Makin’ Tracks: recording session. Their in Country Music. Chris Janson contributions are particularly “I like country music Creates apparent in a breakdown section personally,” says Crystal ‘Good Vibes’ on “Caught Up in the Country,” Brooks, one of the Fisk alto >page 12 which has Atkins singing above voices on “Caught Up in the the voices, claps and stomps of Country.” She is heartened, she the 16-member choir. Atkins first met the Fisk Jubilee Singers at a 2017 adds, “to see artists that look “I was told several times benefit rehearsal at Fisk University in Nashville. From like me entering those spaces Country Coda: along the way that it would left: Fisk Singers Courtney Kirksey-Warren and Dwayne and to know that we’re able to go Cole Swindell’s never work,” says Atkins. Mitchell, Atkins and Fisk Singers Deonte Williams, perform songs like this, merging ‘Chillin’ ’ Debut It’s not the first time the Christian, Chelseai Cunningham and Javone Sease. all these different cultures.” >page 17 Fisk singers have intersected “Caught Up in the Country” with country. They have performed with Faith Hill and Hank was a direct result of a 2017 merger in which Atkins, at the urging Williams Jr. and have appeared on recordings by Phil Vassar, of Curb | Word Entertainment chairman Mike Curb and CEO of BILLBOARD COUNTRY UPDATE FEBRUARY 25, 2019 | PAGE 2 OF 17 recorded music and publishing Jim Ed Norman, sang “Working On a Building” with the Fisk singers during a 2017 benefit at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium. Atkins knew little of the group’s history at the time, but he was overwhelmed when he walked into a rehearsal where the singers were already raising the rafters. “I was completely blown away by the energy, the spirit,” he says. “I looked at my wife [songwriter Rose Falcon], and she had tears in her eyes. That little building, it was just lit up in there. And we left just feeling unbelievable.” Within weeks of the Ryman appearance, THiS Music GM/partner Rusty Gaston pitched “Caught Up in the Country” to Atkins, who saw it as a song that connected the earth to the sky. The Fisk ensemble, he thought, could enhance that lyrical message. “What the song gave to me was this feeling of the outdoors, this connection that you have with God when you’re out there,” he says. “It’s that expression, ‘Some people go to church and think about fishing. Some people go fishing and think about God.’ ” Reba McEntire unveiled nominees for the 54th annual Academy of The choir’s musical director, Fisk University associate professor of music Country Music Awards during the Feb. 20 telecast of CBS This Morning. Dr. Paul T. Kwami, agreed to the collaboration even before hearing the song From left: co-host Gayle King, McEntire and co-host Norah O’Donnell. because of his belief in Atkins — and because the concept fit his belief in music’s mission. “Every culture has its unique music or language, but all of us make this world a good place as long as we can accept each other, as long as we’re willing to respect other cultures and accept them for who they are,” says Kwami. “If every culture chose to stay within a box and not branch out and even learn about other cultures, I don’t think that we would be able to express true love the way it should be expressed.” That outreach is ingrained in the Fisk singers’ history. Fisk University was founded a year after the 13th Amendment passed in December 1865, becoming the first American college to offer a liberal arts degree to “young men and women, irrespective of color,” according to FiskJubileeSingers.org. Within five years, the institution was in financial straits, and the group began touring to raise money. It sang Negro spirituals, which were previously unfamiliar to the masses, and gave their a cappella performances in formal dress, countering the dismissive blackface format that dominated theatrical depictions at the time. Dierks Bentley (second from left) visited Cumulus’ Nash campus on Green Book, which won the Oscar for best picture, best supporting actor and Feb. 22 to appear on The Ty Bentli Show. He’s shown with (from left) best original screenplay at the Academy Awards on Feb. 24, demonstrated Bentli and co-hosts Tricia “T.J.” Jenkins and Chuck Wicks. how treacherous it was for a single African-American musician to tour amid segregated communities in the 1960s. The Fisk singers, whose number has always exceeded nine vocalists, represented an easier target for discrimination. “There was no Green Book, no reference,” says Brooks. “It was just massive trekking through, trying not to get kicked off of trains. It amazes me when I think about it.” Country music, first recorded in 1922, was considered a niche market, much like spirituals and “race records,” though it often has been referred to as “the white man’s blues.” Country and black music tracked very different routes publicly, though there was some distinct overlap, including the early presence of Deford Bailey on the Grand Ole Opry and the influence of African- American musicians who mentored at least three of country’s pioneers: Hank Williams, Jimmie Rodgers and bluegrass founder Bill Monroe. Both music forms are rooted in similar belief systems, working-class attitudes and a hope for a better life, whether it arrives on earth or in the Jimmie Allen (left) huddled with Charley Pride during the world premiere hereafter: “Working On a Building” operates with the same belief in a heavenly of American Masters’ episode of Charley Pride: I’m Just Me, which reward as country’s foundational Carter Family song “Will the Circle Be debuted on PBS on Feb. 22. Unbroken.” Both also speak to some form of oppression: The sense of being an outcast is obvious in the slave songs that form the Fisk canon, but it’s there, too, in every country song that seeks to defend being country. Atkins feels that outcast nature from his own history. As an orphan who lived at the Holston United Methodist Home for Children in Knoxville, Tenn., he was adopted and returned several times before a family took him in permanently. It’s a storyline that he still struggles to overcome. “It does get in your psyche,” he allows. “There is something that is in the back of your mind that you always wrestle with, of whether you belong. My manager has always had to tell me from time to time, ‘Look, man, you belong.’ ” That’s the ultimate significance of the Fisk singers’ membership in the ACM and their ascent on the country chart. At a time when racist rhetoric is on the rise in America, a historically white music format is opening its arms to talent, recognizing the commonalities between two cultures and emphasizing the hope at the heart of both genres. It’s simply saying, “You belong.” Morgan Wallen performed “Whiskey Glasses” in his first appearance “Us being on the country music charts is amazing,” notes Fisk bass singer on NBC’s Today on Feb. 21. He’s flanked by co-hosts Kathie Lee Gifford Allen Christian. “It just says that anything is possible.” (left) and Hoda Kotb. POLZEL JEREMY BRYAN: PAGANO. ZACH WALLEN: CROWE. MICHELLE MCENTIRE: BILLBOARD COUNTRY UPDATE FEBRUARY 25, 2019 | PAGE 3 OF 17 ON THE CHARTS JIM ASKER [email protected] Luke Combs Sets Record By Sending First Five Singles To No. 1 On Country Airplay; FGL Crowns Top Country Albums Luke Combs makes history as the first artist to reach No. 1 on Billboard’s Combs thus simultaneously leads Billboard’s four main country song Country Airplay chart with his first five entries. On the list dated March 2, charts. He’s the first artist to do so since Kane Brown, who was the first to “Beautiful Crazy” (River House/Columbia Nashville) ascends 2-1, increasing simultaneously top four country song surveys on Oct.