Soul Country: Where Storytelling, Struggle, and Sound Collide

Summary

In this conversation, Dr. Nashay Lowe and Ric Stewart delve into the concept of Soul Country, a genre that blends the rich storytelling of country music with the soulful rhythms of R&B. They explore the historical roots of this genre, its cultural significance, and the challenges it faces in mainstream music. Ric shares insights from his documentary work and the importance of reclaiming musical histories, emphasizing how music can bridge cultural divides and foster unity. The discussion highlights the transformative power of music as a tool for healing and understanding.

Key Takeaways

• Soul country music honors the legacy of underrepresented contributions to country.
• The genre is a blend of rhythm and storytelling, moving beyond traditional country.
• Nashville's music scene has been slow to embrace the soul country movement.
• Reclaiming musical histories is crucial for both artists and listeners.
• Authenticity in music is key to its lasting impact.
• Music can serve as a powerful tool for healing cultural divides.
• The integration of different musical styles has historically brought people together.
• Challenges in the music industry often stem from commercial interests overshadowing artistic expression.
• Soul country aims to create a space for diverse voices in music.

Chapters

• 0:00 The Soul of Country Music
• 6:43 Exploring the Roots of Soul Country
• 12:45 Nashville's Response to Soul Country
• 19:45 Stories of Unity Through Music

Transcript

Intro Music: 0:01

Thank you.

Dr. Shay: 0:19

Welcome back to The Resolution Room, where we turn tension into transformation through clarity, connection, and consistency. I'm your host, Dr. Nashay Lowe, and this is a space where we explore what's really underneath the moments that challenge us and how they can lead to something more honest, more human, and more whole. So let's get into it. Country music has deep roots in storytelling, but what happens when we bring the soul back into country? In this episode, I'm joined by DJ, documentarian, and podcast host Ric Stewart, whose project Soul Country is reshaping how we think about genre, identity, and cultural connection. We'll explore how Soul Country music honors the legacy of underrepresented contributions to country, bridge cultural divides, and tell stories that resonate far beyond radio. scene to the power of reclaiming musical history. Ric shares how this genre is more than a sound, it's a statement. So Rick, if you could introduce yourself to the people.

Ric Stewart: 1:21

Hi, Dr. Nashay Lowe. Thank you very much for the intro. Yeah, I'm Ric Stewart. I'm a DJ, documentarian, filmmaker, and I've got a podcast going called Soul Country, which we're going to talk about today. And I started out originally as a radio show in 2019 down in New Orleans at WTOL. And I had been blending some different playlists and trying to come up with a format I really liked. And before that, I was doing one called Country Funk. And I realized that was more narrow and I was playing, I needed to play more current releases of modern day Americana. And so that's what led me to Soul Country. Nice. And so what does Soul Country mean to you? You know, that's a pretty interesting question because every time I boil it down, I can come up with a new way to take it. Like, you know, soul country could be a place where you find yourself. It could be the Southland of America or like, you know, soul R&B could be the Southland plus the Midwest, where if you look at the whole situation, it's kind of up and down the rivers more so than just the South. But I think what we're talking about is the country that exists outside of Nashville for the most part. And that involves a rhythm section. I never really bought into stuff that was more weepy and one guy on a guitar. That's not what this is about. You know, this is about having a band, you know, like a rhythm, but you could have it with a guitar. And so Delta blues, you know, kind of did always have that. And so I look at soul country also like Clint Eastwood is famous for saying America only has two original art forms being jazz and the Western. And so I've got soul and country. And so I kind of always feature the Westerns as my country more so because I'm a big fan of old Western movies as a filmmaker and film student. And if you read about that, it's like why Hollywood is in Hollywood and why the industry became was westerns so they were a giant part of our culture that got lost that's kind of part of this like reclaiming all these lost elements of culture that still burble up from time to time and they have all this power and you're like oh where'd that come from like when Beyonce comes out with her cowboy album you know and it's like it's a deep thing and it's not just America that has cowboys these are very large stories you know I had one of my guests was a accordion player mainly named Bruce Sunpie Barnes and Sunpie has played with Paul Simon and staying on tours but he's he's known for his Zydeco style but he also plays harmonica and his father was a much older guy who uh played blues harmonica and taught him how and you know he plays piano too and he's very multi-instrumental and he's written books he's got books of photography books about culture and he really spent a lot of time on it but he'd opened up like this can of worms here where it's like yeah i knew that they had cowboys in mexico they got the mariachis but they have them in brazil too you know these things are bigger cultural archetypes than we're used to dealing with um and so country uh to me was always around You know, I was like around when they came out with, I'm a little bit country, I'm a little bit rock and roll when I was first listening to music. So that was the Osmonds, I think. But the, uh, it was always there. My mom was from Texas and, um, you know, she used to sing Hank Williams songs to me and stuff, but, uh, the, uh, the times were, were the seventies, you know, and, um, the, the rock that was really popular on the radio included that too. The Eagles had the biggest selling album of the 20th century was the Eagles greatest hits, but that was heavily country influenced. So the music had always been very very popular in my experience. And then on the soul side, I'd become, you know, basically a rock fan who wanted to figure out where it all came from and why it was so good. The classic rock, mainly of the British invasion of the 60s, the harder side of that, which was like the Stones and the Who and the Yardbirds and the Kinks and Led Zeppelin. I was like, what's driving this? Pink Floyd even. Like, why is that guitar, you know, grabbing my attention? And it was blues. You know, I was being told this probably from before I was 10 because I was next to a whole bunch of other music heads. And I continue to follow that up and And I started playing blues guitar when I was about 21. And everybody always looked at me as the blues guy. And I'd lived on the south side of Chicago and in Oakland and kind of lived a lot of these things, lived in New Orleans. So I'd been along at a lot of the places with the blues, like holy grounds. And there was some holiness there to me in classical records that could do the trick for you every time. So I was trying to, you know, reverse engineer classic rock, which was what got me into blues and then eventually more into country.

Intro Music: 5:42

Wow.

Dr. Shay: 5:43

And do you come from like a musical family? How did that get into your blood from the beginning?

Ric Stewart: 5:49

I can't really say that that's true. I mean, like everybody else had kind of picked up a few piano lessons and quit. And my mom was like, you know, you seem to be tapping your legs a lot. You know, you should play drums. I was always a rhythm first listener. And so I was interested in bands that had, you know, a drummer and a good drummer. And it's like the cliche, your band's only as good as your drummer. So that never failed either. You know, like a lot of these like things that turned out to be like tidy little phrases were like, oh, it really works, you know. It's amazing how it comes together. And it's really about the songs, too, you know. So in music, if you're going to be, you know, serious about the business, that's who makes the money and that's where the point of origination is. Anybody can cover Beatles songs, but nobody can go out and write 120 of them or whatever. So it's tough to be an imitator and you have to come up with something new. And soul country, you know, I was going to say there is a subgenre called country soul, but it's not really widely referred to. But I would say it's muscle shoals and stacks. Like I said, this kind of outside of the professional music business type of, you know, and somebody like, you know, Nutbush City Limits by Tina Turner, you know, it's R&B, but it's still country, you know.

Dr. Shay: 6:59

Yeah, I love that song.

Ric Stewart: 7:01

Like if you're talking about a place that's in the American West, it's still country, you know, like there's things like the subject matter could turn it into that.

Dr. Shay: 7:09

Right. Hey, can you talk to me a little bit about your documentary? Like what's that about? What are you working on there? And I'd love to get into what you uncovered more on the research research side of doing that documentary for Soul Country.

Ric Stewart: 7:23

Yeah, yeah. So I'd originally was working on a project that called the Blues Center in New Orleans, which was an interactive music museum, but it was going to require millions of dollars. And so I had that as a plan and like a prospectus. And it was it was part of this was I was going to create a documentary called New Orleans Home of the Blues, question mark. And, you know, where does the blues really come from? And I've gotten into this in some of the episodes to Chris Thomas King, who is famous as an actor as well, but is a great blues musician and the son of another great musician from Baton Rouge, but he's tied in a little bit with that culture of the Creole black community of southeastern Louisiana, let's say. And that it was really, you know, a French expression like Sacrebleu that was kind of profanity really at the time that basically was saying, you know, we reject your way of doing it, you know, and it was really about the white Anglo-Saxon kind of conquering force. So all the people on the other side of the equation included the Italians and the and the other minorities, especially the Native Americans, really, I think we're kind of left out of the story. And anyway, so that was beginning of the exploration of the blues. So I spent a few years really looking into this and talking to a lot of experts. And, you know, it became obvious to me that it didn't get invented on the Delta because that's occurring in a time of the 1920s and 30s, et cetera. But that's long after these things happened in New Orleans, going back all the way to the 1700s. So like there was Congo Square and there was a holy space there where it was, they gave thanks for the harvest with, dances and music. And this was the Native Americans were doing that before, you know, the colonists ever showed up from Spain, France. And it is French and Spanish. And that's another thing, you know, that the rules were very different. And even during the slavery era, there was much more time to be able to play music. And so the Congo Square existed at that time as a place where freedmen and all these other folks would gather for this weekly celebration. And then that was where kind of they put the first New Orleans Jazz Festival right near there. And it is a park now, an Armstrong Park. So it's part of the tourism of New Orleans. And all this stuff's just kind of part of the wallpaper down there. But it's like that really happened. And you're going back to the early 1800s for that. And then the recording era of music started in the early 1900s, really. So everything that we even know about music you could play is coming from only the last 100 years, 115 years. So there's a lot of history. But in the end, yeah, the blues kind of seeps into everything because it was this very effective kind of amalgamation and boiling down of all the stuff that worked.

Dr. Shay: 9:58

Wow. And so why do you think reclaiming these musical histories is important, not just for the artists, but for the listeners too?

Ric Stewart: 10:07

When I look at this stuff, you know, why is music that I like good and music that I like isn't good? Usually I end up with a word like authenticity. You know, it's like, this is real. This person feels this or this is something genuine here. And even to get to the spot where I could play a few licks like that on the guitar, it's about the feel. It's about like, wow, I'm really kind of, I'm getting somewhere with this. Now, a lot of music today, on the other hand, is made for the money and it's commercial and people get into the business for that commercial and rarely stumble upon this kind of feel. So you can sort of tell, you know, but mainly by listening. One time I was beginning my work career, my early 20s, and I was interviewing a fellow who had run a jazz music record label in Chicago for like 30, 40 years. And he was sort of emeritus of that. And he was working as a later second career for Electronic Arts, the video game company. And he helped them get their music licensing and stuff. And he started talking about, you know, good music. And I was like, how do you know when it's good music? And he's like, well, you listen to it enough of it and then you'll know and that's why they can sell you know the teeny bopper music to teenagers you know so this is the opposite end of that this is the music that's going to be around forever and it's somehow based on time-honored things and it's you know i guess there's a way to mess up the blues but it's not a category that people rush into trying to make money so it's a kind of authenticity category like only stevie ray vaughan ever said put my records in the blues section Everybody else was like, put them in the rock section, they'll sell more there, you know. Right,

Dr. Shay: 11:41

right.

Ric Stewart: 11:42

If they were on the borderline, yeah.

Dr. Shay: 11:45

So it seems like you've been all over the U.S., you know, exploring this genre. And so now that we're here in Nashville, how has Nashville's music scene, which is obviously famous, how has that responded to the idea of Soul Country? Um,

Ric Stewart: 12:04

with a wave of the hand, I would say that like not much happened. I mean, it's, it's me, you know, chasing down people to go interview. And I still do a lot of my interviews out of new Orleans and I get, I get funding, um, in part from the new Orleans jazz festival foundation. Um, so I'm on a mission to like explore up here in a way, but, um, I realized that, yeah, the soul country concept to me also kind of, there's a middle, the mid South, you know, there's kind of a region there and I'm from Cincinnati, which kind of echoes that a little bit, but it's, you know, there's things going on here that art going on down there, you know. One of the most formative influences on me ever, which led me to come into Nashville in a way, was Tony Joe White. So he's best known for writing Polk Salad Annie, which Elvis, you know, used to play on stage for years and years. And he'd written Rainy Night in Georgia. He's, you know, as Chuck Berry said, he's the most underrated American songwriter of all time. But, you know, he'd moved to Nashville. He was really from northern Louisiana. But I started realizing, like, hey, he's found a way to live here. This is like an easier, it's an easier life than, the heat and hurricanes of new orleans or the big city trappings of new york and la so if you're in the music business and you wanted something like a house you could afford this might be the place to be so it had been kind of drawn me in and it like it resembled my home turf a little bit you know the hills and the river town kind of vibe um and the kind of green surroundings so i like nashville as an environment for music i don't sense that it has a very good blues scene per se um the Some people who recreate that are good, but it's not. And there had been, you know, a nice R&B scene here in maybe the 50s and the 60s, and Jimi Hendrix kind of entered into that when he left the Army, and it was part of the Chitlin' Circuit then. So, I mean, I think, and they did put an exhibit together at the Country Music Hall of Fame, which was called Night Train to Nashville or something like that, and it was a retrospective on the R&B era here. But that era, in a way, has come to a close a lot of the record labels that were run by folks in the 40s and 50s when they got to retirement age they sold into the majors and took a you know check for retirement like Jerry Wexler so it kind of was an era that went from like maybe 1947 to 1974 and then abruptly stopped then it wasn't about the roots anymore and the business became very consolidated the radio stations the record labels became fewer and fewer and the regional scenes kind of dried up I mean Nashville being an exception but it place like Cincinnati people would kind of like pack their bags and go to one of the coasts to get into the music business and it was a rare thing to have a local music scene in the 80s and 90s and I think there's been some efforts to you know restock that you know but I look at a place like Memphis which was you know a hubbub of things in the 50s I don't really sense that that's going on right now but as far as the Roots performers it is the old performers and people who imitate the old performers I think in a way that keep the Roots music alive but somebody like Chris Stapleton comes along and just kind of knocks over everything and does it sort of the right way based on this kind of you know mindset like he never really veered off what he was doing he's very very bluesy he's emerged it in with his country he's probably from Kentucky but he you know he's kind of sensed all these musics out there and when I saw his version of the Star Spangled Banner before the Super Bowl I was like wow what a nice bookend of the Hendrix version which was like wild and complex and his was like minimal and you know hit the notes and get me out of here you know like really really effective Um, so I do see, you know, there's, there is a sense of that, you know, in country to this day and, you know, um, not just the black performers that are, you know, kind of keeping all that roots traditional live. Um, I would say like, you know, Nora Jones would be another example who's had a very successful career, which is kind of on top of a country element and a blues and jazz element at the same time.

Dr. Shay: 15:56

Nice. And so, um, when you were talking about, you know, not the push away from But what are some other challenges and opportunities in bringing the sound to mainstream spaces?

Ric Stewart: 16:11

Yeah, well, I think just working with some of the bigger premiere artists is probably going to launch the show into the right orbit. You know, like, should I get Robert Plant and Alison Krauss to come by or Elton John or something that really ups my viewership? So I ride as my guest list rides. But yeah, I think it's there. It is meant to be popular and appreciated. There was an album, for example, called Rhythm, Country and Blues that I think was Universal. put it out or MCA in 1994 went straight to number one in the country charts. But you find things there like, you know, Little Richard doing a duet with Tanya Tucker, you know, and they did that just over and over again with like one artist from one field, one from the other. So, I mean, I think that the, you know, finding the right artists when they want to tap into something like, you know, this vibe at the right time, you know, that's really the answer.

Dr. Shay: 17:08

And how can music, especially soul country, in your opinion, be a tool for healing cultural divides that we experience today?

Ric Stewart: 17:18

Yeah, I think that's kind of like in the, that's in the inception of the whole thing, right? I'm trying to bring people together to share an appreciation of great art and great music and have good times. And the more minutes and seconds you spend thinking about music, that's time you didn't spend thinking about something that was more deleterious to your mind, you know. And, you know, Bobby Rush, he's now 92, maybe. He's on tour in Europe with Kenny Wayne Shepard, and they just did a duet album. And it's called Young Fashioned Ways. And I've heard a few tracks. It's really great. But he said to me about in episode two of the podcast that was down at his place in Jackson, Mississippi. He's like, I see what you're doing. You're bringing people together. And I'm like, you got it, man. And, you know, so it's good to have people get it when, you know, they're the right people. The right people get it. It can be a small show,

Dr. Shay: 18:06

but

Ric Stewart: 18:06

yeah.

Dr. Shay: 18:07

Yeah, yeah. And so I guess what lessons can we take from the way that music transcends conflict, even when words fall short?

Intro Music: 18:15

Yeah.

Ric Stewart: 18:16

Well, I think in a way, I mean, you know, not to get whatever, put on my philosophical hat here, but the erosion of, yeah, the erosion of like segregation and all that and the actual coming together of everybody, music was really key to all that. And initially there was a burst of music went around the 20s, which was the jazz age, you know. And in the jazz age, Afro-American music kind of conquered the globe. It already happened in the 20s. Then it sort of happens again after World War II. But with the integrated military, you know, rock and roll was like a, barrier that kind of very visibly in the news media, you know, got broken down. You know, people were dancing to the devil's music at one level, the religious folks. And then I think on another level, it was, um, it took until probably the sixties. So you really had integrated audiences everywhere. Um, but that, that, that was happening and around the edges, you know, not in the South, maybe, but it was happening everywhere else that this music had brought everybody together. Cause it was, it was black in the inception, the original, um, you know, the rhythm side of it for sure, you know? I think that the earliest rock and roll records, um, it's hard to tell which one, you know, there's a debate about all that stuff. I mean, Hank Williams is on one side and he's got, um, moving on over. It's pretty good rock track right there. 1947. And you got like train kept a roll on recording Cincinnati King records. Um, you got, you know, other records that happened maybe around 1950 that people say that about. So, I mean, it's kind of happened in that timeframe, but society wasn't there yet. You know what I mean? These, this music was, it was a leader. And I, and I think when you saw the role Rolling Stones come to America in the mid-60s. They go straight to Chess Records, and they record where Muddy Waters recorded and Alan Wolfe, and they give a lot of props to those artists. So that was kind of the beginning of a push-up into preeminence in the white viewership space, how great those artists were. And then it's in my documentary. Mike Bloomfield says to Bill Graham, why don't you book in B.B. King and Albert King and Buddy Guy as opening acts for these rock artists when you play them at the Fillmore? And then that really started to cement the fact that this music has a history, you know, we're playing cover songs of Hoochie Coochie Man or whatever. Here's the guy who really wrote that or whatever, you know. So I think that was a turning point really probably was back then. And I think ever since then, it's become obvious if you were a student of rock, if you were going to really play it, you're going to have to get the blues chops down.

Dr. Shay: 20:35

And as you work on your documentary and continue with the podcast, what stories have stood out to you as examples of music being bringing people together?

Ric Stewart: 20:47

Uh, well, maybe my last interview series, I had Bobby Rush in that one too. And he was talking about how he went to China and he, you know, he convinced him that, you know, he's a great entertainer. He's got these people entertained. He will play the same building, which was like a stadium tomorrow. And they're going to give him like a dollar on every, he made a lot of money on that show. But, um, I think in terms of, um, yeah, bringing folks together, you know, I look back at the, the artists list, um, that I've been able to interview, um, you know, some of them just kind of, I think it's relating stories and kind of being, I have a transparent showcase. They have something to say, we're going to get together and they're going to be able to be that. And I think that that, um, just sort of, you know, plays it out.

Dr. Shay: 21:34

Soul

Ric Stewart: 21:35

country could be, like I said, on the inside, you know, just turning it the inside out.

Dr. Shay: 21:40

I love that. Well, Rick, this has been an amazing conversation. I've already learned so much from you. Um, and I'm I'm hoping that our listeners can learn even more. So can you tell them where to follow you and your work?

Ric Stewart: 21:54

Yeah, I keep everything pretty much navigable from soulcountry.com, spelled like it sounds. And then we have a lot of the features on the, if you get to the YouTube channel, it's got about 45 exclusive videos and trailers for some of the longer pieces. And the documentary is called Blues Rock Hits Soul Country, available, plays right on the homepage and on the origin tab. I refer to it as my origin story because it goes back about 30 years and covers interviews with... With long-gone legends like Alan Toussaint, Earl King, and Doc Watson, and Tony Jo White, like I mentioned, John Oates is in there. There's a lot of folks that are part of that New Orleans scene, and I think that was the original melting pot of the sound. So that kind of, I guess, is the answer. SoulCountry.com. All right, so I wanted to give a final word. You know, James Brown, you know, probably was the most influential musician of the 20th century by a lot of accounts. And he always had a big country aspect to what he was doing. And in 1979, he fulfilled a lifelong ambition by coming to Nashville and playing the Grand Ole Opry. And he did play some Hank Williams covers and everything. And he said at the time, his quote was, country's just white man's blues. You know, and that it was true in the original incorporation in the 20s, people were drawing all this influence off black performers. They were creating something new and different and that became very interesting to black performers too. And so we didn't really get into DeFord Bailey and the D'Opry in the earlier years and Charlie Pride became a big flag bearer for that. And then now Darius Rucker really, you know, inhabits that space pretty full time. But he's not alone and it is a big thing. And if you look at Muscle Shoals and Stax and the, you know, outside of Nashville sort of country rhythm blues hybrids, you know, and Malico records and there's a lot of great stuff that's out there that doesn't fit a genre and you know people have that problem with the marketing in the industry doesn't mean they're not the best artists around so

Dr. Shay: 23:56

Thanks, Rick. So today's conversation with Rick reminds us that music is not just entertainment. It's a reflection of who we are, where we come from, and where we're going. Soul country isn't just a genre. It's a reclaiming of space and a way to honor history while building new bridges of understanding. Whether it's playlists, his documentary, or his podcast, Rick is showing us how storytelling through song can challenge assumptions, celebrate shared humanity, and create space for conversations that we didn't know we needed. As always, thank you for joining me in the Resolution Room. If this conversation moved you, challenged you, or gave you something to carry forward, consider supporting the show. You can explore our wearable wisdom collection in our Mind Shop, where each piece is designed to spark reflection and dialogue. You can also join our growing community for behind-the-scenes conversations, resources, and support of your own journey through tension and transformation. just want to say thank you in a simple way. You can always buy me a coffee. Every gesture helps keep the space going. All the links are in the show notes. And until next time, keep building in the quiet because that's what will carry you forward.