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Introduction
Recent years have seen a welcome rise in discussions of the historical and present contributions of non-white artists in country music.1 Fueled in part by the controversy surrounding Lil Nas X's 2019 hit "Old Town Road"-which was removed from Billboards country chart for not sounding country enough-this conversation has especially highlighted the role of Black country musicians. After Black Grand Ole Opry pioneer DeFord Bailey was fired from the show in 1941, it was Charley Pride's groundbreaking achievements that, starting in the late 1960s, brought the idea of a Black country artist (back) into public consciousness. Indeed, Pride's success was frequently taken as a sign that the powerful connection between country music and white identity was slowly dissolving. In an August 1968 feature, for example, Billboard magazine proclaimed that "[c]ountry music, long international in aspect, is now becoming interracial as well" (Williams, "Country" 1).
However, this apparent dissolution of racial and musical boundaries was neither as fast nor as complete as legend would have it. The groundbreaking career of Linda Martell, for instance, was cut short not least because of the country industry's hostile climate towards female Black performers at the time (Pecknold, "Negotiating" 152). It was only with the arrival of Stoney Edwards and O.B. McClinton-in 1970 and 1971, respectively, four to five years after Pride's first chart hit-that other Black artists were able to establish long-term careers. Though Pride's success might have made these careers possible, this does not mean that it was easy for the performers who followed him to hold their ground in the country music industry. Each had to develop a strategy to navigate the fraught terrain of racial identity and musical expression. Whereas McClinton opted for a comparatively playful but self-reflective approach, this essay will show that Edwards's work had a decidedly traditional bent. At a time when the country industry was increasingly targeting white, middle-class audiences in the cities and suburbs, Edwards largely eschewed the genre's evermore noticeable pop influences and regularly addressed his rural, working-class background. Yet, by writing himself-a Southerner of mixed Black, Indigenous, and Irish heritage-into the country music tradition, Edwards also uprooted prevalent assumptions about the genre. In doing so, he drew attention to the prominent linkage between country music, whiteness, and the...