For more than four decades, Alice Randall has been one of the few Black female writers on Nashville’s Music Row, and the first to pen a No 1 hit (Trisha Yearwood’s ‘XXXs and OOOs’). She has seen her tunes recorded by multiple generations of, predominantly white, country artists, and worked with legends including Glen Campbell and Johnny Cash. Now the distinguished professor, songwriter, author and country music trailblazer is the focus of a forthcoming collection, released via Oh Boy Records on April 12, which is set to recontextualise her craft.

My Black Country: The Songs of Alice Randall features some of the strongest Black female voices in country, roots and folk music, including Rhiannon Giddens, Allison Russell, Leyla McCalla and Sunny War, as well as Alice’s daughter, Caroline Randall Williams, interpreting some of Randall’s most beloved songs. The album celebrates the Black female experience in genres and sub-genres where these voices are all-too-often obfuscated, their accomplishments routinely diminished, while also forming a poignant reclamation of Randall’s own work depicting powerful, inspiring Black narratives.

Reflecting on her work and My Black Country, Randall says: “Because all the singers of my songs had been white, because country has white-washed Black lives out of country space, most of my audience assumed the stars of my songs were all white. I wanted to rescue my Black characters. This album does that; it centres Black female creativity, but it welcomes co-creators and allies from a myriad of identities. This is the good harvest; abundant love and beauty for all.”  

To coincide with the album release announcement, Oh Boy Records, is sharing ‘Went for a Ride’, performed by the singer-songwriter Adia Victoria (see below).

My Black Country: The Songs of Alice Randall will be released through Oh Boy Records on April 12, while Randall’s memoir of the same name, out April 9, is issued on Artia/Black Privilege Publishing via Simon & Schuster