Danielia Cotton’s discusses her tribute to black country music: ‘Charley’s Pride’
When Charley Pride passed away in December of 2020, we paid tribute to him in our Goldmine In Memoriam series. The prior month, Pride performed and received the CMA Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award at the 54th Annual Country Music Association Awards, hosted by Reba McEntire and Darius Rucker. In his 2014 Goldmine interview Pride said, “I love Darius Rucker. He is from Hootie and The Blowfish! Darius is a great songwriter. I remember a fun time when we were both sitting backstage at the Opry singing together, before a show.” Rucker said that Pride destroyed barriers, did things that no one had done and considered him one of the finest people he has known. Rucker has had several No. 1 country hits beginning in 2008, and Pride preceded him as the biggest black country performer of all-time with 29 No. 1 country hits from the ‘60s through the ‘80s.
Now, Danielia Cotton has released Charley’s Pride: A Tribute to Black Country Music in a year where we have seen Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter album hit No. 1 in the U.S. on the country, pop, and folk charts, and No. 1 in over two dozen countries. Every couple of years we speak with Cotton about her releases, mainly in the rock music genre, but this time we delve into country music, including a Charley Pride flip side, and learn the story of her finding a Charley Pride album hidden under her grandparents’ bed.
GOLDMINE: Welcome back to Goldmine. This time we get to discuss country music.
DANIELIA COTTON: Thank you. I am so psyched by your continued interest in my music. This one started out as a cool side project and then became more involved after I found out that the Charley Pride album that I thought my grandfather had hidden under my grandparents’ bed belonged to my 101-year-old grandmother, who is alive and well. In fact, we have five generations of my family who are alive. My grandmother told me, “That record is mine!” It was taboo for black people to enjoy and own country music. Finding that Charley Pride album under my grandparents’ bed inspired me to do this project, injecting me into yet another genre that I am turning out to have quite affection and respect for as both a listener and performer. What a gift my grandmother gave me!
“It was taboo for black people to enjoy and own country music. Finding that Charley Pride album hidden under my grandparents’ bed inspired me to do this project, injecting me into yet another genre that I am turning out to have quite affection and respect for as both a listener and performer.” – Danielia Cotton
GM: The five song EP opens with “Roll on Mississippi” with a bit of a Bonnie Raitt sound and lyrics filled with rural childhood imagery.
DC: Initially I chose songs which were Charley’s greatest hits but then I found my way into the stories to best deliver something of meaning to the listeners. I grew up in a small white town in the mountains of New Jersey and I would sit by the water. I never did drugs. I always say that my first drug of choice is my imagination. Now, when I think about it, it was a form of manifestation which allowed me to go. I felt like the water told me that I was special, it was OK to get out of here, and when I got out of here, I would shine, but I still go back. My grandfather bought ten acres which were sold off over the years. Somebody bought our family house from my mom, and they took down the cherry tree that had so much meaning to me, which was hard for me to fathom. I had a traumatic childhood from the point of view that I wanted to have blonde hair and blue eyes like the other girls, but I am also everything that I am because you do not gain real character in the moments of happiness, but you gain them with the challenges you face in life. The mountain and river life was quite a beginning for me.
GM: The flip side of Charley Pride’s original single was “Fall Back on Me,” with the comforting message that if freedom doesn’t work out for you, you can fall back on me.
DC: I love all these old country songs lyrically. They are compact short stories. “Fall Back on Me” is a bit somber, but in such a great and beautiful way. It speaks about relationships and the complexity of the roles we play for each other. In this song, one partner is trying to be sympathetic and offer support, knowing that the other is possibly contemplating ending the relationship in search of something new. This is not a song you would necessarily hear today as modern love songs mostly express only one person's point of view. I really love how this tune’s chords help emphasize the tone of the content. This is truly a fabulous flip side.
Charley Pride
Fabulous Flip Side: Fall Back on Me
A side: Roll on Mississippi
Billboard Top Country Singles debut: March 7, 1981
Peak position: No. 7
RCA PB-12178
GM: Growing up, I learned “Kiss an Angel Good Morning” on Top 40 pop radio. The week it debuted at No. 40, Badfinger’s “Day After Day” debuted at No. 39, and both became gold singles. Brian Mitchell’s piano on your version is very nice, so are your harmony vocals, and Marc Copely’s guitar brings a bit of a Doobie Brothers rock sound to it. When I listen to the melody, I am reminded of a song that came decades later, Kid Rock’s “Picture,” which he recorded with both Sheryl Crow for his album and Allison Moorer for a CD single.
DC: I did not expect to be so into “Kiss an Angel Good Mornin’.” I was playing it when I was crossing the road with my daughter and then I screamed, “It’s a hit!” In the studio, it sounded like The Rolling Stones’ “Honky Tonk Women” with Aaron Comess from Spin Doctors on drums and Andy Hess from Gov’t Mule on bass, and I said, “That’s where we are going to go. We are going to ‘Stones’ this.” The song is about a woman who must be nice when she is in public but when you get home in the bedroom girl, you gotta do your thing. I made it more like, “hey ladies,” like a Tina Turner proclamation, “c’mon girl.” I like the ‘70s subtlety compared to the overt twerking of today. My grandfather always said, “In my day, a woman walking down the street with a slit on the side was very attractive. I would wait for the leg to come flying out. What we imagine might be even better than what is there, so just let us imagine.” When you are in a relationship you have two roles of the public persona and the bedroom lover. Charley’s hit chorus was, “You've got to kiss an angel good mornin' and let her know you think about her when you're gone. Kiss an angel good mornin' and love her like the devil when you get back home.”
GM: We both played these songs for our daughters. My daughter Brianna enjoyed “(So Afraid of) Losing You” with your bluesy delivery that she said was nice.
DC: Thank you, Brianna. I had just done a show where I sung an Aretha Franklin tune and I said, “We’re going to take this song back to church.” I had strep throat when we recorded this and it was the first time that I felt my age, so I thought I would go for an Otis Redding killer vocal sound. I carefully thought of everything with intention, even when I went to a falsetto range, and I made sure I didn’t have too many runs. I found my place in it. It was magical for me, making it one of my favorite recording experiences ever.
GM: “Snakes Crawl at Night” is such a pretty song about cheating.
DC: Ha-ha, and murder! It also has a cavalier attitude, with the character in the song feeling justified that I am going to kill him because he did his thing.
GM: In addition to the four Charley Pride covers, you end the EP with a wonderful original, with a powerful chorus, “Bring Out the Country (In Me).”
DC: Thank you. I had some hesitancy on writing and recording a song with the intention of country radio airplay from a rocker like me, but I’ve embraced the genre. It is extraordinary. I normally don’t write with radio in mind, I write from pure inspiration. Then I began to think that I have been with my other half since we were 26 years old, and that’s thirty years ago. He is an upper east side Jewish kid and I’m a black girl from a small New Jersey town, but country life is still a part of me, and a country girl is all I’ll ever be. That became the hook of the song. I was just getting over being ill so I had a Mavis Staples-like sound in the verses and by the time I would get to the choruses, my voice was pretty much back to normal. Making this EP was a great experience and my respect for the country music genre has gone up 120%. It is an honor to tip my hat to that genre with this new EP and I have learned a lot. I also have extreme respect for what you and your fellow music journalists, who have survived over the years, do in the music community. You are great and there is no AI that can do what you do. It is an art. I salute you and I hope to see you again soon with even more music to share with the Goldmine readers.
Danielia Cotton will be performing in Nashville this Thursday, September 19, followed by Scotch Plains, New York on October 19 and Amagansett, New York on October 26.
Related links:
Goldmine 2022 Danielia Cotton interview
Goldmine Charley Pride 2020 In Memoriam
Fabulous Flip Sides is in its tenth year
goldminemag.com/columns/fabulous-flip-sides
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