Today, the Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum in collaboration with Warner Music Nashville released an expanded version of the box set From Where I Stand: The Black Experience in Country Music.Originally released in 1998 by the museum and Warner, the collection returns as a multifaceted, educational initiative, including an expanded CD box set, free online experience and concert celebration.
From Where I Stand spans a century of music and traces the many ways Black Americans have created, contributed to, and been influenced by country music. The collection now includes a fourth disc titled “Reclaiming the Heritage” that presents a fresh wave of Black artists in country and Americana who emerged through 2020. New essays by recording artists Rhiannon Giddens and Rissi Palmer join the original essays by distinguished music scholars and journalists.
Beginning today, all the music in the box set can be heard on the museum’s website via From Where I Stand: The Online Experience. The online experience is free to access and includes all the incisive essays, archival photographs and video, and historical track notes for each selection, as well as resources from the museum’s archive and resources for educators.
Additionally, free tickets to From Where I Stand: The Concert Celebration, Presented by Amazon and Riverview Foundation in the museum’s CMA Theater on Tuesday, June 18, are now available to reserve on the museum’s website, based on availability. Coinciding with Black Music Month, the concert will feature a variety of artists represented in the project. Co-producers Rissi Palmer and Shannon Sanders will lead the concert. Artists performing include Blanco Brown, Cowboy Troy, Tony Jackson, Hubby Jenkins, Miko Marks, Wendy Moten, Rissi Palmer, Darius Rucker, The War And Treaty and Barrence Whitfield. The concert will be filmed and released on the museum’s website on Thursday, Sept 12.
The From Where I Stand box set and online experience are illustrated with traditional quilt designs created years ago by the women of the Gee’s Bend community of Alabama, with type treatments by visual artist and designer David Jon Walker. Each era of music is represented with a quilt from roughly the same time period as the music. The CD box set is now available to purchase through the museum’s website or in the museum’s retail store. Proceeds from the sale of the box set will benefit the nonprofit museum’s educational programs.