“I’ll Cry for Yours, Will You Cry for Mi

“I’ll Cry for Yours, Will You Cry for Mine?” Reflecting on the history of Country Music in the shadow of Gettysburg

Alice Randall
Andrew Mellon Professor of Humanities
Professor of African American and Diaspora Studies
Writer-in-Residence
Vanderbilt University


A history of Country music from the 17th Century to the present with a focus on Country as an art form with Black, white, and evangelical Christian roots. Randall's Civil War song, "I'll Cry for Yours, Will You Cry for Mine?" will be put into conversation with other Country Civil War songs and with Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address. The history of Country Music with a focus on the First Family of Black Country will be told.

Starting with this understanding: Lil Hardin Armstrong (who played on Blue Yodel #9 Country’s first million selling record) is the mama of Black Country. DeFord Bailey, the Opry’s first superstar (the man who performed immediately after the words “Grand Ole Opry” were spoken on WSM Radio for the very first time) is the Papa. Ray Charles is their genius child. Herb Jeffries is Lil’s step-child. And Charley Pride is Bailey’s love child.

Reflections on the potential of songs to serve as consolation, bridges across divides, and mirrors that reveal national identity will be shared. The ways songs can provoke both reckoning and reconciliation will be explored by a songwriter with a career spanning four decades working on or in relation to Nashville’s Music Row. And last, but not least, Randall will share a playlist of significant Country songs that engage the Civil War including Steve Earle’s Ben McCulloch, Justin Townes Earle’s, Long Pine Hill, Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley’s Battle Hymn of the Republic, and Waylon Jennings’, The Union Mare & The Confederate Gray.

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