THE READING ROOM: ‘Color Me Country: A Celebration of Black Women Who Shaped Country Music’
In 1970, Linda Martell, the first Black woman to play the Grand Ole Opry, released her album Color Me Country. “Color Him Father,” the first single from the album, hit number twenty-two on the Billboard country charts. Over fifty years later, Beyoncé was the first Black person
Black News 
In 1970, Linda Martell, the first Black woman to play the Grand Ole Opry, released her album Color Me Country. “Color Him Father,” the first single from the album, hit number twenty-two on the Billboard country charts. Over fifty years later, Beyoncé was the first Black person to win the Grammy for Best Country Album. Now, in an entertaining and revealing book, Color Me Country: A Celebration of Black Women Who Shaped Country Music (Candlewick Studio/Candlewick Press), editors Kelly McCartney and Rissi Palmer, with illustrations by Rhiannon Giddens, offers an inspiring tribute to the enduring lives and music of Black and brown female country artists.
Palmer writes in her foreword to the book that Martell’s story moved her to launch her radio show Color Me Country in August 2020 to “shine a light on artists of color in country, Americana, and roots music and to challenge listeners to reconsider their perceptions and stereotypes surrounding people of color in the country music landscape.” Palmer and radio host and journalist McCartney (founder of the Rainey Day Fund, which supports roots artists with marginalized identities) established the nonprofit Color Me Country Artist Grant Fund in 2020 to “help support emerging artists of color.” In 2023, Giddens suggested the ideas for this book, and Palmer and McCartney asked several journalists and writers to produce short biographies of artists ranging from Martell and Sister Rosetta Tharpe to Tina Turner and Mickey Guyton.
