Frankie Staton can spin a winning, winding tale like no other. The Nashville-based musician and co-creator of the Black Country Music Association—a networking and live showcasing community of fellow Black artists, fans, and industry professionals working in country, Americana, blues, and folk music—turns every fluid phrase into a musical notation, and every laugh into a slamming rhythmic punctuation. And there are many giggling rimshots during our nearly two-hour conversation.
You can tell that Staton loves talking about country music in all of its forms, colors, and sexual orientations. When she repeats the phrase “It’s a long story,” that same mantra could just as well be the title of her upcoming debut album (actually, it’s Finally Frankie, but we’ll come back to that). There’s the story of the life of an underappreciated songwriter who kept her son in private school by working more jobs than she has fingers (“My son’s high school is like the prep school in Dead Poets’ Society”). There’s the story where she moved to Nashville in 1981 only to have so many doors slammed in her face that she had to create a new Black country portal of her own by the 1990s (the BCMA, alongside Cleve Francis) in order to get her songs heard on a regular basis along with those of her fellow Black songwriters. Luckily, the yarns that Staton spins (in her narrative “story songs” and in fast, casual conversation) are epic and heartfelt in their proportions, and equally filled with joy and generosity.
How generous? Mention her independently released music—poignant self-penned tracks like “Sunrise” and “Leading Lady”—and she turns the talk to the writers and singers she mentored during 2023’s Black Opry Residency in Philadelphia, currently on tour through March as the Black Opry Revue. “I learned a lot about how best to write through performing rights organizations and workshops like Jason Blum’s, where they ripped songs apart word-by-word to make my own work stronger,” she says. “That’s what I thought I could pass on to these newer songwriters I met in Philadelphia, like Samantha Rise and The Kentucky Gentleman. Together, we’re going to build a genre just like hip-hop did. We should put less emphasis on trying to participate in country music as we know it and build our own brand.” At the very least, Staton and several of her Black Opry Residence artists have written and recorded a new song, “Butterfly,” in Nashville last month, which will be released soon. “I’m as proud of that as I am any of my own songs.”
Talking further about the youth that fills The Black Opry—songwriter Holly G’s networking and showcase organization—Staton says that these independent artists are self-contained and self-motivated. “They don’t need a band to play for them. Holly G sends them out six at a time, on chairs, and sharing a stage. And they fill that stage with dynamic music. That’s pretty powerful.”
“In my generation we always thought there was going to be only one Black country singer, and that was going to me. You can’t do it thinking only of yourself.”
Staton is quick to remind me that for every young Black songwriter in country music, there are two older songwriters who’ve been part of her Black Country Music Association, such as Rhonda Towns, Mike Johnson, and Carl Ray. “I was trying to make sure that anyone who was out there, anyone who’s been part of our showcases, gets heard and seen—there’s so much talent out there,” says Staton of her fellow Black songwriters. Bring up her own Grand Ole Opry debut in 2023 and she discusses how fellow Black country vet Valierie Ellis Hawkins should also be on that same stage. “I want Valierie’s mama to see her daughter on the Opry stage—she’s one of the most authentic voices I’ve ever heard.”
In our conversation it’s hard not to touch on the fact that the first two singles from Houston-born Beyoncé’s new album are dedicated to the sainted sounds of country music—a fact that’s rattled Nashvillian traditionalists on either end of the radio—and Staton calls Bey a blessing, especially with the vocalist nailing the first Billboard Country Song chart #1 for a Black artist with “Texas Hold ’Em.” “I’m all over that,” says Staton with a laugh regarding Beyoncé’s forthcoming country album, Act II. “We already knew that Beyoncé’ was working on a country record, and that Rihannon Giddens was playing on it. I think everyone here is excited about it. She grew up around those cowboys. Nobody used to see that culture for us, even though we had Black cowboys, rodeo riders, and many of us were writing and making music. We didn’t used to have an identity. Maybe Beyoncé helps give us that identity. They did everything they could to stop us and to ignore us. You can’t ignore someone with 32 GRAMMYs.”
“We should put less emphasis on trying to participate in country music as we know it and build our own brand.”
Recalling the currency of organizations like the Black Opry and the Black Country Music Association and how different it is to her time coming up in Nashville at the dawn of the ’80s boils down to one word: community. “They have fellow artists that they can talk to and share with, and a booking agency to handle them—they have a cushion,” she says. “We didn’t have any of that coming up, which is why I had to do it. I got sick of this feeling of being invisible and isolated. I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t have a conversation with my own race about it, and finally figured out that in my generation we always thought there was going to be only one Black country singer, and that was going to me. You can’t do it thinking only of yourself. So I put people together—on the stage, on the page, singing in duos or writing together for a spirit of community. To show that we’re all in all of this together.”
Doing it by herself for so long, Staton knew the struggles of getting a record out, or a song accepted by another artist, as she’d been in that position—unheard—forever. Staton knows the pain of having hundreds of songs on hold for the likes of country stars Vince Gill and Alan Jackson (“From 500 songs of mine on hold for him,” she says of the latter, “down to 250, down to 125, down to 75, down to nothing, because Jackson chose to write his own album”). Staton is still pushing hard to be heard as a singer and as a songwriter, but holds a special place in her heart for those who work singularly toward penning the next great country hit, or have their endless list of songs heard in the first place, let alone covered.
“We didn’t used to have an identity. Maybe Beyoncé helps give us that identity. They did everything they could to stop us and to ignore us. You can’t ignore someone with 32 GRAMMYs.”
Talking to Staton nearly one year to the day since her Grand Ole Opry show, the singer knows that her life and work has changed for the bolder since that auspicious March 2023 date. “It was a beautiful time, as I had just written a tribute to Loretta Lynn—one of my heroes—when I did the Opry show,” she recalls. “I told my life story on that stage, and now I’m bringing that story forward, working on a book in hopes of making it into a movie. I’m finally doing my debut full album for 2024 that I think I have to call ‘Finally, Frankie.’ Having done so many of my showcases for other songwriters, I knew that I’d forever put all my energy on everybody else—but that, also, I have a vault of songs, new and old.”
Thinking of rich, new songs and their basis in the life she’s lived and the people she’s met, Frankie Staton paused for the first time in our long conversation. “Wow, I need to get started.”
As if she’s ever stopped. FL
