My Black Country: The Songs of Alice Randall

Anyone who enjoyed the 2019 Smithsonian Folkways album Songs of Our Native Daughters is going to love My Black Country. For a start, three of the ‘native daughters’ –Rhiannon Giddens, Leyla McCalla, and Allison Russell – all contribute to this collection celebrating ‘the Black female experience in country and folk music.’ The dozen songs, each featuring a different Black female singer, were written during the last 30 years and more by Alice Randall, one of the few Black female songwriters working in Nashville, and were all originally recorded by white artists. Highlights include McCalla’s bluesy vocal on the stripped-down ‘Small Towns’. ‘The Ballad of Sally Anne’ is a lynching lament sung by Giddens which starts out with a simple banjo accompaniment and swells to take in haunting fiddle and spooked horns. Allison Russell’s ‘Many Mansions’ is gorgeous. Not everything here is quite as satisfying, although among the lesser known names Adia Victoria with her brooding ‘Went for a Ride’ and Sunny War with her punk-folk take on ‘Solitary Hero’ are outstanding. With Beyoncé recently becoming the first Black woman to top the US country chart with ‘Texas Hold ’Em’, this release could not be more timely.