Charles L. Hughes (Associate Professor, History/Urban Studies, Rhodes College)
April 8, 2025
Advisor(s): Raven Cathey and Michelle Rich, NHC Teacher Advisory Council
In the 1960s and 1970s, nothing symbolized the rift between black and white America better than the seemingly divided genres of country and soul music. Yet the music emerged from the same songwriters, musicians, and producers in the recording studios of Memphis and Nashville, Tennessee, and Muscle Shoals, Alabama—the “country-soul triangle.” In legendary places like Stax Records in Memphis, integrated groups of studio musicians like Booker T. & the M.G.’s produced music that simultaneously challenged and reconfirmed racial divisions in the United States. Working with artists from Aretha Franklin to Willie Nelson, these musicians became crucial contributors to the era’s popular music and internationally recognized symbols of American racial politics in the turbulent years of civil rights protests, Black Power, and white backlash.
In this webinar, Charles L. Hughes will explore this history and its contemporary reverberations, from Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter to political debates over how to bridge the “red state/blue state” divide. As he will discuss, music isn’t just the soundtrack for history—it gives us new ways to reckon with that history and reimagine what comes next. The country-soul triangle gives us new ways of thinking about music, race, labor, and the South in this pivotal period.
Subjects
Music / History / American History / African American History / American South /
Rights
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