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Charley Pride was the first great African American star of country music. Born in Sledge, MS in 1938, Pride left farm life behind and had a budding baseball career in the Negro and minor leagues. He worked by day in a Montana steel mill and sang country music at night. That got the attention of Nashville producers in the mid-‘60s, and he went on to a career that included 29 number one country hits and induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Charley Pride passed away in 2020, and his story remains a special one that begins back down home on the Mississippi tenant farm he came to own.
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On this week's episode, we zoom into Clarksdale, Mississippi, where Ryan Coogler’s latest blockbuster "Sinners" is set. -
The late guitarist and singer Richie Havens was raised in the Bed–Stuy section of Brooklyn, home to many West Indians, a kind of urban village where his grandmother from Barbados presided. Havens’ Native American grandfather had ridden horses in Buffalo Bill shows and lived on the Shinnecock reservation on Long Island. Growing up, Richie Havens played in the neighborhood with friends from all over the world. He sang doo-wop on the corner and gospel in the church. But he credited his father, a factory worker, as the primary influence in art and music. -
Shemekia Copeland's dad, Texas guitarist Johnny Copeland, moved his family to Harlem, where Shemekia was born and grew up surrounded by hip-hop, but dedicated to the blues. She's been in the blues scene since she was a little girl singing at her dad's shows. We began back in those early days, on stage, with her father. -
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Local residents and activists successfully campaigned to bring the film to the Mississippi Delta town it's set in — which hasn’t had a theater in 20 years. -
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This is American Routes, celebrating the National Endowment for the Arts 2024 Heritage Fellows. Rosie Flores originally from San Antonio, Texas is a well-traveled singer, guitarist, and songwriter known for playing country, rockabilly, and a mix with punk rock called “cowpunk.” She’s performed with groups including her alt-country band Rosie and the Screamers in San Diego, a female cowpunk band the Screamin' Sirens in Hollywood, and the all-women Tex-Mex supergroup, Las Super Tejanas. She notably helped revive the careers of rockabilly legends Wanda Jackson and Janis Martin with her album, Rockabilly Filly. In 1987, she became the first Latina on Billboard’s country music chart for her single, "Crying Over You.” Her musical career has taken her to San Diego, Los Angeles, and Nashville, but her journey began at home in San Antonio, listening to Buddy Holly, Carl Perkins, and Elvis on the kitchen radio. -
An aggressive deportation push by the Trump administration has stirred fear in this deeply rooted South Louisiana community. -
The Historic New Orleans Collection spotlights the late, great Bourbon Street entertainer Chris Owens. -
