By Doug Hill | For The Transcript Jan 1, 2021
Jan 1, 2021
Oklahoma singer-songwriter Kalyn Fay performing at Folk Alliance International Jan. 24, 2020.Doug Hill / For the Transcript
January 2020 was a terrific month for arts and music.
COVID-19 was a page 8 story about an obscure and faraway virus emerging on another continent. January included travel, fine dining in restaurants, a visit with friends, making new ones and virtually non-stop live music performances in one of the worldâs great music cities.
The annual Folk Alliance International conference was held in New Orleans that month. A road trip to the event included stopping overnight in Lake Charles to visit friends who both work at McNeese State University. A few months later that small city would be devastated by Hurricane Laura. Happily both friends survived.
Singer and songwriter Rissi Palmer and journalist and radio host Kelly McCartney, two passionate supporters of marginalized artists in country and roots music, have come together to establish the Color Me Country Artist Fund. The newly created fund offers another source of sustainability for Black artists, Indigenous artists and other artists of color within the country music community.
McCartney’s two-year-old Rainey Day Fund (named for Mother of the Blues Ma Rainey) assists BIPOC, LGBTQ+ and disabled artists, as well as those who “add to the rich fabric of roots music.” Similarly, the Color Me Country Artist Fund will aid Black, Indigenous and Latinx acts in country music, and help bring to light the histories of artists of color within the genre.