Her Country by Marissa R. Moss

Her Country by Marissa R. Moss

Author:Marissa R. Moss
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.


* * *

It was an anniversary, and it was also a first of hopefully many nights back at the famed Ryman Auditorium. Mickey had moved to Nashville herself just about a year before, and she was looking back on those months with a sense of wistful nervousness: there were the huge steps forward, like signing her deal with Capitol Records, and there were the huge steps back, which usually came with the utterance of words about her skin color or the way she wore her hair or her gender, or knowing glances in boardrooms when they discussed the marketing plans around her music.

The year 2013 was kicking off as custom: with CRS, and it was set to be an important one for Mickey. The Ryman felt no different, really, than it did the year prior, gathered for the same Universal Records showcase, with mostly the same radio programmers in the same “Nashville-ready” outfits, which meant jeans with a little bit of extra flair and a windbreaker for the rain. But this year, it wasn’t just Kacey who was the talk of the Ryman Auditorium, playing “Follow Your Arrow” to yet another stunned crowd—it was Mickey. Mickey was already getting the usual feedback awarded to any Black artist trying to make a space for themselves in the genre regardless of how they actually came across sonically—too R&B for country, too country for R&B. But Mickey had champions at Capitol, vice president Cindy Mabe and Lori Christian, who worked public relations for the label (handling her press coverage).

Even with an executive like Cindy on her side, Mickey still had to play by the rules—to keep the decorum up, to smile and shrug; and Cindy, beholden to the bottom line, had to do the same. The “lessons” of the past echoed in Mickey’s head: the Chicks. Rissi. Stand still, look pretty. Shut up and sing. They were only lessons, however, if you erred on the side of total compliance.

“Seeing the Dixie Chicks canceled really affected me,” Mickey said. “That was a little more terrifying to me than anything else. Shut your mouth, don’t have any kind of opinion or anything remotely unaligned with the country music industry or you will be canceled. And I feared that. That fear is very much in the community today.”

It wasn’t easy for Rissi to watch Mickey taking these steps and to start to grow even a small platform—she had never gotten the support to be able to play an official showcase, never gotten the industry backing that at least seemed, from the outside, to be surrounding Mickey (“seemed” proving to be the operative word). But it was thrilling at the same time, to watch a legacy that she had helped start ease just a bit farther through Mickey’s voice. “I’m gonna be completely transparent,” Rissi said. “My feelings were hurt. And I took it very personally. It wasn’t her. I wasn’t ever upset with her, or angry with her or anything. But seeing her and seeing the fact that it appeared she was welcome—that was hard.



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