‘Color Me Country: A Celebration of Black Women Who Shaped Country Music’ is out May 5 from Candlewick Press, and it’s the kind of book that fills a gap that should have been filled a long time ago. Edited by Kelly McCartney and Rissi Palmer, with illustrations by Grammy Award winner and Pulitzer Prize recipient Rhiannon Giddens, the book pairs nearly twenty mini-biographies with full-color portraits of the pioneers who built country, Americana, and roots music from the ground up.
The title draws directly from Linda Martell, the first Black woman to perform on the legendary Grand Ole Opry, whose 1970 debut album ‘Color Me Country’ marked a milestone that the genre was slow to acknowledge. This book does the acknowledging. Each profile is a love letter to artists who loved a genre that didn’t always love them back, and the writing carries that weight with honesty and care.
The roster runs deep. Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Odetta, Tina Turner, Valerie June, the Pointer Sisters, and Our Native Daughters are all here, each given the space and context their contributions deserve. These aren’t footnotes. They’re the foundation.
Rhiannon Giddens brings her own extraordinary credentials to the illustrations. A MacArthur Fellow, Pulitzer Prize winner, founding member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, and artistic director at Silkroad, her lifelong mission has been to restore Black Americans to their rightful place in the story of American music. This book is a natural extension of that work.
Rissi Palmer hosts Apple Music Country’s Color Me Country Radio. Kelly McCartney hosts Apple Music’s Record Bin Radio and co-founded the Rainey Day Fund, supporting roots artists with marginalized identities. Together, they’ve assembled something that belongs in every music lover’s collection.