'From Where I Stand' compilation offers a foundation for Black progress in country music

In 1992, Dr. Cleve Francis, a 47-year-old Black singer, songwriter and cardiologist, was a Top 10 Country Music Television video countdown charting performer.

Three decades later, Rissi Palmer, a 42-year-old Black female country artist, is a special correspondent for CMT's Hot 20 countdown.

When time presents Black advancement in country's mainstream industry as a flat circle, progression's logical straight-line evolution feels impossible.

Twice in the past 25 years, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum has, via the now re-released 82-song collection "From Where I Stand: The Black Experience in Country Music," created what it describes in a press statement as a "multifaceted, educational initiative" aimed at evolving past this notion.

Francis, one of the key architects of the collection's 1998 inception, referred to it in a 1995 Billboard editorial as "the relationship between the country music industry and African-Americans" representing "one of the most interesting paradoxes in music history."

The latest collection will be celebrated Tuesday at "From Where I Stand: The Concert Celebration, Presented by Amazon and Riverview Foundation" in the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum's CMA Theater. The event, co-produced by Palmer and Grammy-winning Broadcast Music Inc. executive director Shannon Sanders, will feature performances by Blanco Brown, Cowboy Troy, Tony Jackson, Hubby Jenkins, Miko Marks, Wendy Moten, Palmer, Darius Rucker, the War and Treaty and Barrence Whitfield.

Cleve Francis' history

Francis has degrees from Louisiana's Southern University, the College of William and Mary and George Washington University. By 1992, he was a quarter-century past his undergraduate education and feeling the pull of his lifelong love of Hank Williams' bluesy country stylings and his stellar tenor vocal toward Music City.

Jimmy Bowen of Liberty Records' (now Capitol Nashville) signed Francis in 1992 because his 1990 single "Love Light" was showing promise on CMT's video charts and gaining favor among artists like George Jones and Porter Wagoner.

Five years had passed since Charley Pride had achieved a Top 10 hit. Francis stood a chance in a mainstream Nashville system that had only mega-rewarded singular African-American success for generations.

"Nashville loves to shake the (metaphorical) tree of music," he says. "Whenever one Black man who can write or sing country music well falls out and into a traditional mold that the city's industry has set for itself, sometimes they just stop shaking the tree."

Francis was shaken from the tree. However, regardless of race or background, success in Nashville is as much of a guarantee as is buying a ticket and assuredly winning the lottery. After three albums and four singles, Francis felt less than successful by the standards he judges top-tier achievement.

He's grateful for the chance but then compares himself to a plethora of 1970s-era country artists also featured on "From Where I Stand," like La Melle Prince, Stoney Edwards and O.B. McClinton, plus soul acts who demonstrated an interest in country's mainstream, like Ray Charles, Dobie Gray, Al Green, Millie Jackson the Pointer Sisters, Joe Tex and Bobby Womack, whom he feels could've developed a competitive field of Black artists alongside Pride.

The potential existed for a broader moment of national acclaim for a stellar crew of Black performers. By the time Francis was being seen on CMT in heavy rotation alongside Garth Brooks, Vince Gill and Reba McEntire, he would not have felt so isolated.

"Imagine a time before the present where multiple Black people could seize the opportunity," he says. "Yes, there is the question of whether they would've been accepted by country music's fanbase, but they could've been better supported by country music's industry."

Revisiting a paradox

For the modern era, he reframes his paradox as a conversation of "economics versus culture."

For Francis, the idea that culture values the historical record is important. In the absence of Black country artists en masse being significant bottom-line contributors to country's mainstream revenue, maintaining a purpose-driven connection to tangible goals allowed a community of iconoclastic creatives to sustain itself.

To him, work like "From Where I Stand" offers a beacon in the darkness to Black people, for whom banjo-picking, guitar-playing and countrified, western-themed takes on hip-hop and R&B represent their most potent cultural and musical influences.

That isn't to say that commerce hasn't been growing recently from Black artists in and around country music's mainstream environs.

In the past five years, three modern shifts have revived conversations around Francis' "paradox."

Since 2020, six different Black male country artists — Jimmie Allen, BRELAND, Blanco Brown, Kane Brown, Rucker and Shaboozey — have achieved chart-topping Billboard success. The latter artist's success recently occurred via Billboard's country sales charts for his single "A Bar Song (Tipsy)," following his addition to Beyoncé's country-inspired album, "Cowboy Carter."

That album also saw unprecedented visibility for a quintet of Black female country artists separated by five decades. Groundbreaking performer Linda Martell appears alongside Shaboozey on "Cowboy Carter" track "Spaghettii." Tanner Adell, Tiera Kennedy, Reyna Roberts and Brittney Spencer also pair with Queen Bey to cover the Beatles' 1969 ballad "Blackbird."

A new, modern paradox emerges

The moment simultaneously creates a trio of industrial concerns impacting country music's present and future.

Foremost, in country music's traditional mainstream industry, the notion of "separate but equal" that has underpinned Black history in the genre is now thrown into unprecedented juxtaposition — more separates are blending with a moment, namely on country's radio charts, where there are fewer equals.

Data shows 33% fewer chart-topping singles on country radio between 2022 and 2023. Country's sales charts also reflect a 45% downturn in unique chart-toppers.

Also, the rise in country music's touring and tradition-friendly Americana subgenre has platformed artists, including Miko Marks, Palmer, and the War and Treaty. Add in Yola's six Grammy nominations and Allison Russell's recent Grammy win and there's promise afoot.

Even deeper, dive into how streaming and YouTube access directly impact Americana's rise and country's pop-crossover entrenchment. There, discover Adell and Shaboozey, who have pop and mainstream country's most significant breakout moments of 2024. This follows similar achievements by Zach Bryan in 2022 and Oliver Anthony Music's unexpected 2023 rise.

The problem of time remaining a 'flat circle'

The Country Music Hall of Fame's collection also supports the notion that Black history in country music represents a flat circle of distinguished but siloed excellence.

DeFord Bailey, Charley Pride and Rucker are the only three Black male Grand Ole Opry cast members ever.

Also, Francis' activism keyed not only the first "From Where I Stand" collection in 1998.

In 1995, with assistance from global brand strategist MaryAnne Howland and the late educator and minister Nelson Wilson — both Nashville area natives — he started local showcases of Music City-based Black country singers. That evolved into the Black Country Music Association, helmed by Frankie Staton, after Francis returned to his cardiology practice in 1999.

Similarly, 2024 finds an upstart independent organization, the Black Opry, three years into hosting national showcases of Black country music artists, plus pairing with global distributor Thirty Tigers Records for a forthcoming label.

Eras mirroring each other are important in noting that the bridge that advances past the "flat circle" has yet to be constructed between country music's artists, the genre's fans and its industry to Black country performers.

It's also one that has untold commercial and social benefits.

In 1995, Francis noted in Billboard that Simmons' marketing surveys offered that one in four Black adults (aged 18-44 and mostly female) listened to country radio.

"Interestingly, this is the same demographic that describes the most sought after white fans," Francis added.

Very little has changed about those numbers in 30 years.

"I'm a doctor, so I diagnosed the problem like I would a patient," Francis says. "My diagnosis: Country music's mainstream marketing strategies had and remained to be solely fixed to meet stereotypical, unspoken expectations."

The next 50 years

"For years, Black country music artists were separated from the herd, stared at sideways and then we were often separated from each other," offers Francis.

Thus, this collection, featuring nearly 80 acts making 100 years of music, heartens the singer-turned-cardiologist.

Still, his passion for the sustainability of Black artists in country music's modern industry remains unwavering.

When asked about the continued success of Black country artists in non-terrestrial-driven marketplaces outside of country's traditional mainstream — like Apple Music, Spotify, TikTok, TouchTunes jukeboxes and YouTube — he offered that he was initially skeptical of them. However, watching them approach distribution levels similar to country radio leaves him still hoping, 30 years later, that independent promotion teams and recording studios funded by wealthy Black entrepreneurs are still needed.

He's also steadfast about other expectations of Black artists who could easily comprise a "From Where I Stand" box set 50 years from now.

"Take the time to have an education and a job on which to fall back," he says. "Then, understand who you and your stories are, uniquely within how you define country music. From there, present yourself, your music and your songwriting as professionally as possible and play on as many stages as are available to you."

Francis then pauses and offers a thought that feels more distant than any other point made in the conversation:

"It's hard, but so many of us deserve to make a living in this business."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nashville's Cleve Francis reflects on Black progress in country music