Ben R. Atkinson

This paper on the impact of COVID-19 in American country music, was presented at the Grieg Research School in Interdisciplinary Music Studies Summer School 2021, ‘Music in Crisis: Crisis in Music’, at the University of Bergen, Norway. You can view a video of the presentation at the end of this article.

This paper will examine the way in which the COVID-19 pandemic upended the US country music awards season in 2020 and the extent to which the crisis provided an opportunity for the country music industry to respond to the global social movements of #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter. In particular, I will seek to establish the extent to which the decisions made by producers of two flagship country music awards shows, can be seen as an obvious alignment with popular social movements, well-known the public consciousness and further highlighted by the impact of the pandemic, or more reflective of a trend in which the country music industry is moving away from its divisive past in relation to issues of race and gender. 

By now you will have heard the very sad news that we lost John Prine, one of the greatest songwriters in American history, to the horrible COVID-19 virus. John was often compared to Mark Twain in terms of his lyrical talent and his songwriting was some of the best I’ve ever heard, equally as impressive as Dylan, James Taylor, Springsteen, or any other you’d care to name.

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Cover of Tim McGraw’s Humble and Kind from the album Damn Country Music. I know the original is by Lori McKenna and I love her version. But I’ve used the chords for Tim’s track here. Wonderful song, either way!

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I want 2020 to be all about music, so this was the perfect song to start the year. Recorded on New Year’s Day, it’s the closing track from Taylor Swift’s 2017 album ‘Reputation’.

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