FEATURE: Spotlight: Brittney Spencer

FEATURE:

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: kt sura.

Brittney Spencer

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THERE are some great artists…

that I feel are going to make a big impression this year. Brittney Spencer is a phenomenal Country artist who everyone should know. Her 2020 E.P., Compassion, is a phenomenal release. Last year, Spencer released the single, Sober & Skinny. She is a fantastic artist who I don’t feel is as widely-known in the U.K. as her native U.S. There are some features/interviews that I want to include, so that we can get to know more about Spencer. Country Now named her as one of the fifteen artists to watch this year:

“One of the fastest-rising artists of 2021, Brittney Spencer launched her first-ever headlining tour at the end of the year. It was the culmination of a lifetime of hard work and string of recent successes: The singer-songwriter began performing in her church choir at age three, and she spent years posting cover songs by some of her favorite artists on social media. One of those — a rendition of The Highwomen’s “Crowded Table” — earned her recognition from the artists themselves, with Highwomen band mates Maren Morris and Amanda Shires retweeting Spencer’s version and ultimately inviting her to perform with the band.

She’s gone on to become an in-demand collaborator in the country genre, also releasing a bevy of her own solo work, including her 2020 debut EP Compassion. A powerful performer who blends soul and pop influences into her country roots, Spencer is also among those leading the charge of making space for Black women in country music. In one particularly memorable performance, she joined Mickey Guyton and Madeline Edwards on the stage of the 2021 CMA Awards, performing a visually stunning rendition of Guyton’s “Love My Hair” in a segment introduced by Faith Fennidy, the young girl who inspired the song”.

The first interview is the first of two from Holler. Earlier in the year, they spoke to her after the release of Compassion. I was especially interested in Spencer’s earliest musical memories and her being accepted into arts school:

“When Maren Morris was named Female Vocalist of the Year at last year’s Country Music Association Awards, she used her time in the television spotlight to call attention to trailblazing Black female country artists, including Linda Martell, Yola, Mickey Guyton, Rissi Palmer, and Rhiannon Giddens.

Another name Morris mentioned belonged to newcomer Brittney Spencer, a Baltimore native who has worked as a background vocalist for artists including Carrie Underwood, and moved to Nashville in 2013 to pursue her own career in country music.

Spencer’s elegant, powerful voice first caught the attention of Morris and her Highwomen bandmate Amanda Shires in October of last year, after Spencer posted a cover of The Highwomen’s ‘Crowded Table’. Shires retweeted Spencer’s video, writing, “This is beautiful, Highwoman. Some day, we will play again—and when we do, we’d be honored if you’d come sing this with us.” Morris added her own sentiments, saying, “Brilliant. Come sing with us.”

Possessing more than just a compelling voice, Spencer is a storyteller in her own right, following in the tradition of artists like Morris, Shires, Loretta Lynn, Miranda Lambert, Eric Church, and others with singular perspectives and styles of song craft. In December, she released her EP Compassion, pleading for a society with more empathy on its searing title track, taking on the role of the heartbreaker in ‘Sorrys Don’t Work No More’, and championing individuality and self-assurance on ‘Damn Right, You’re Wrong’.

Here, Spencer discusses the formation of her new EP, her journey to Nashville, and the uphill battle that female artists face at country radio.

You recently released your EP Compassion. Were you surprised at all by the reaction to the project?

If I’m honest, I didn’t think people would really listen to this EP. I didn’t expect the support and love that I’ve gotten, because it wasn’t just a bunch of songs about trucks. Don’t get me wrong, I have songs - I mean, I don’t have any songs about trucks - but I do have party songs. I have songs that talk about other things that aren’t such heavy topics, but I wanted this EP to do a couple of things. I wanted it to show that I am a songwriter who knows how to vocally communicate the ideas in the lyrics. I wanted to show that I am an artist, a songwriter, and I’m about my shit. There are things I care about.

What are your early memories of being involved in music?

I grew up in church and there is just talent everywhere. The best singer in the church is the receptionist, or the best musician in town is a teacher. While growing up and listening to gospel music and singing in church, I was also being classically trained all through middle and high school. I did classical music competitions, opera, jazz standards, just being exposed to as much music as I could. When I was 14 or 15, I was introduced to the music of the Chicks — then they were called the Dixie Chicks — and it opened my world to another style of songwriting. And their harmonies felt like church to me; it sounded like a quartet.

In middle school, I got accepted into an arts school. It was beautiful, just being around creative people all day. I went to school for music and studied voice, but I was also around people who studied dance, culinary arts, business, visual arts. In a way it prepared me for Nashville. Being in an industry town is challenging, but just being around other creatives is rewarding.

You moved to Nashville in 2013. What do you recall about first moving to Music City?

My first year in town, I didn’t sing anywhere; I just went around town and listened. I taught myself how to play guitar and started busking downtown. I approached it like marketing research. I wanted to figure out what made people stop and listen. What people give me $2 instead of $1? Or $10 instead of $2? I didn’t have the money to attend songwriting workshops or publishing events, so I would volunteer at them. I just wanted to learn. I noticed students are afforded a lot of opportunities, so that sparked my interest in going back to school. The session work I did in Baltimore really opened my eyes to just how ignorant I was about the industry; I had no idea about royalties or payouts; I didn’t know the business side of it and that bothered me. So that fueled my decision to study Public Relations with a concentration in Music Business at Middle Tennessee State University.

You’ve built relationships with established artists like Maren and Amanda, but also with other newcomers. I saw a video of you, Reyna Roberts and Kären McCormick harmonizing on a cover of Little Big Town’s ‘Better Man.’ What has it meant for to you to have that kind of camaraderie?

Kären and Reyna are some of the most special people I’ve ever met in my life. We realized we were being mentioned in the same articles and we all just reached out to each other. It’s really beautiful to have them in my corner and for me to be in their corner as well. We face a unique set of challenges as Black women who are artists. It’s nice to be able to do life where you can talk about those challenges and you can also not talk about those challenges. You can just be with people who get you. We are very aware of what this moment means for Black women and Black artists in country music, but we are also doing a good job of not taking ourselves so seriously. When we posted the video, we weren’t thinking, “Oh this is going to make a statement. This is three Black women in country music.” We just thought, “This is fun. Let’s do this.” I would love to keep that mentality”.

There is another Holler. interview that I want to come to before finishing. First, it is worth getting some reaction to the Compassion E.P. This is what Atwood Magazine wrote about an exceptional release from one of Country music’s breakout stars and major young talents:

“Country singer Brittney Spencer takes Atticus’ call for empathy and threads it through her four-track EP Compassion. It ranges from the political to the personal and back again, all the while asking us to step out of our bubble—and into someone else’s.

Born and raised in Baltimore, Spencer made the move to Nashville in 2013 to write and perform country music after being inspired by The Chicks. In an interview with Baltimore Magazine she said, “It sounded like church to me. It sounded like a quartet. But they were telling a different story.” Faith and music are incredibly important to Spencer to the extent that she is a central figure in Common Hymnal, which, “involves building a virtual library to facilitate a vital and ongoing exchange of songs, stories and ideas between communities in this space.” A recurring theme for Common Hymnal is Praise and Protest.

Like many other black country artists in Nashville, Spencer ran smack into the racism that permeates country music but which the overwhelmingly white country music establishment continually fails to confront and expunge. Country music is quite happy to pillage black music and black culture (see bro-country), but when it comes to elevating and working with black country artists, no thanks. Spencer isn’t the only black country artist to experience this prejudice. A recent New York Times article interviewed Spencer along with Grammy Nominated Mickey Guyton, Reyna Roberts, Miko Marks and Rissi Palmer, all of whom have similar stories to tell.

In light of Black Lives Matter, a number of black female country artists are refusing to bend anymore. In Spencer’s words, “You thought you had me figured out / Oh well, guess you were wrong/ Damn right, you’re wrong”. Spencer has tried appeasement and catering to ignorant values and has decided that all she can do is be herself.

I’ve been working real hard at people pleasing
Pageant dreams at the parlor reaching
For crowns
I don’t need another sad whiskey anthem
My self esteem don’t move with this crowd

‘Damn Right, You’re Wrong’ has that heavy twang, bounce and fuck you attitude that the best country kiss-off songs have. Think the confidence and swagger of Maren Morris and the acidic wordplay of Kacey Musgraves.

It’s never worth faking my song
Tryna be cool
Tryna prove I belong
That I belong
You made a box to make me feel small
I couldn’t to fit in
So I guess you were wrong
Guess you were wrong
Damn right you’re wrong

‘Sorrys Don’t Work No More’ was written after Spencer found out her boyfriend had been unfaithful. She decided, like Atticus suggests, to step into her boyfriend’s skin. The result is a song from the other side and Spencer saying, perhaps, all the things she wished her boyfriend had said to her.

I try, I try, I try
I try to apologize
But I can’t seem to find the words
I called up you in August
Hoping I could be honest
But you never let me speak”

To round off, it is back to Holler. I was interested in the albums that she names as being important and influential to her. From Beyoncé to Sade, some remarkable artists and icons have moved and inspired the amazing Brittney Spencer:

“For Brittney Spencer, the albums that have proved most influential are those that taught her versatility. Some of her favorites exemplify sonic diversity, like Shania Twain’s genre-defying Up! or Keith Urban’s blend of dazzling guitar work and pop-tinged commercial country. In other cases, the most important albums to Spencer are the ones that present different directions to get to a common musical destination.

For example, she highlights two albums by British singer-songwriter Sade, which taught her that protest songs don’t have to sound a certain way or fit a certain genre. “Music and art, in general, offer a lot of opportunity to walk in someone else’s shoes,” Spencer tells Holler. “To show you what their life looks like or give you a glimpse into their story. For me, that’s the power of music, being able to increase our capacity for empathy.”

Then, there are other songs and albums that showed her how to lead with raw lyricism. She cites Miranda Lambert’s Four the Record album as a project that defies genre lines, stepping effortlessly between the commercial country she’s best known for and a more Americana-based sound, such as in her cover of Gillian Welch’s ‘Look at Miss Ohio’. The emphasis, both in that song and the originals throughout Four the Record’s tracklist, is on lyrical precision and poetry.

“The likes of Miranda Lambert, Taylor Swift, Cam - they write such incredible poetry in everything, which makes me feel at home,” Spencer explains. “I’ve always been a literary person, paying attention to words. The rawness is what I love. I hope I embody that in my new song, ‘Sober & Skinny’, when I say 'When you get sober, I’ll get skinny.’”

‘Sober & Skinny’ explores the pitfalls of picking at another person’s faults, especially in a loving relationship. Spencer wrote it with singer-songwriter Nelly Joy and Jason Reeves - who are also a married couple - as a reflection on the hypocrisy of comparing flaws, in an effort to find better ways to communicate.

“I'm trying to find a loving way to sort problems in a relationship, because it’s so easy to fuss, yell and fight,” she remarks. “It’s just a metaphor for, ‘Stop pointing at my flaws.’ Or, ‘Be willing to change your issues if you’re willing to point at mine.’”

For Cuts The Deepest, Spencer reflected on just a small selection of the albums that have inspired her – the five discussed highlighted as particularly powerful influences on who she is as an artist. “I could’ve kept going!” she adds with a laugh, before launching into her choices.

Sade - Lovers Rock or Lovers Deluxe

I can’t decide between these two. The music is just so beautiful - sonically, it has such a universal sound. It was incredible storytelling presented in a way that reached beyond genre lines. I thought it was brilliant the way that Sade would present protest songs because it wasn’t preachy. She just told the story of a person. She did that on her Love Deluxe album with a song called ‘Pearls’, describing a person’s pain by saying “It hurts like brand-new shoes”. I just thought that was brilliant and it really influenced me. I think you can kinda hear it in my song ‘Compassion’.

PHOTO CREDIT: Jason Meyers

Shania Twain - Up!

I think the biggest takeaway I got from that album was that it was two-sided. One side had all the country music songs, and then the other side was all pop. I thought that was genius; a wonderful way to show that a good song can be translated any way you want. It gave Shania the opportunity to express herself artistically and reach different audiences; it allowed her to branch out. I really do think that album paved the way for so much of what we’re seeing right now in terms of country-pop music and cross-genre collaborations. I’m just so here for that album, it’s beautiful in every way.

Miranda Lambert - Four the Record

It’s so sonically versatile, you know? There are disparate ideas everywhere; it’s not all about the same thing. I love that there were songs she wrote herself like ‘Dear Diamond’, but also ones she cut written by other writers, like ‘Mama’s Broken Heart’. She had Chris Stapleton [‘Nobody’s Fool’] and Charles Kelley [‘Better in the Long Run’] both write on it as well. I just thought it was an incredible display of her artistry; especially as a songwriter who can write by themselves. She probably didn’t really need co-writers, but you can tell that she enjoys collaboration. I think that’s easy to tell on this album, even if you’re not like me, a nerd looking at the liners.

Beyoncé - Lemonade

I remember when I first heard ‘Daddy Lessons’ and watched Beyoncé perform it with the Chicks at the CMA Awards. I was in college walking to my car from class when we found out she was in town. My friend said, “Oh my God, Beyoncé’s in Nashville”, and I just fell on the ground. There are pictures of me just lying on the ground. ‘Daddy Lessons’ is so Black, is so country, and it just totally opened my mind. I was already pursuing country music in Nashville when that song dropped, but when I heard it in the context of all the other styles on her album, I thought, “This is exactly how I’ve always listened to music”. She goes through so many different sounds - ‘Pray You Catch Me’ is really kind of alternative, ‘Hold Up’ is a Caribbean-themed song, 'Daddy Lessons' is a country song, and then you get to the song with Jack White and it’s a rock song! But that’s the way I’ve always consumed music, and this record just meant so fucking much to me. In my mind, it forecast the future of music in general.

India Arie - Testimony Vol. 1, Life & Relationships

I love that album. It fused so many folk, country and R&B elements. It was also the first time I heard an R&B singer with a country band - she did ‘Summer’ with Rascal Flatts. I had never heard that before, so it just blew my mind; I didn’t know that sort of thing happened. It was incredible. That album taught me so much, because I didn’t grow up with country music. As a kid I didn’t have country music, but instead, I had India Arie - and honestly, it’s just as good.

An artist who is going to go even further in 2022, go and follow Brittney Spencer. I hope that her music reaches a lot of people in the U.K. I also hope that radio stations here play her music more. She is a tremendous artist who is going to inspire so many other young artists. The music she has released so far is incredible! Spencer shows immense promise. This year is one where she will…