FEATURE: Spotlight: Brittney Spencer

FEATURE:

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Rachel Deeb

Brittney Spencer

_________

THE remarkable…

PHOTO CREDIT: Jimmy Fontaine

Brittney Spencer is an American country singer–songwriter that everyone should know about. Whilst her debut full-length is still to come, she has released several singles, including 2021's Sober & Skinny. Spencer has performed on the Country Music Association Awards and has embarked on a world tour. She hails from Baltimore, Maryland. Developing an interest in music from singing in church at a very young age, there was this clear and powerful spiritual and communal connection. Spencer was raised as an African Methodist Episcopal. Coming from a musical family, she began by singing background vocals for R&B and Gospel artists including Jason Nelson. Forward to February 2013: this is where Spencer moved to Nashville to pursue Country music full-time. I am going to bring together quite a few interviews, as it is important to know more about Spencer and her path to Country music. Last year, she spoke with Glamour about her path. After moving to Nashville in 2013, she plugged and worked hard for years to get recognised:

“Glamour: In past interviews you’ve said you never really thought about pursuing music—you just went for it and planned on finding a way no matter what. How do you stay motivated despite the grueling nature of the music industry?

Brittney Spencer: I remember that I’ve wanted to do this my whole life. Like that statement that you just mentioned…I never had a moment in my life where I decided to do music for a living. I just knew at four years old that I wanted to sing. That’s what I've always pursued long before I understood the industry. I’ve been on the road almost consistently since about July of last year. Yes, it’s incredible—but it also takes a lot out of you. So I go back to that place—I go back to that little girl, and it keeps me going because I wanted these days so bad my whole life where I get to sing and write songs. Songs that people connect with and want to hear more of. It’s truly a humbling feeling.

You’ve been candid about how difficult it’s been finding your way in Nashville when you don’t fit in—and how size can play a part of that. Then you released a song called “Sober and Skinny,” which is such a bold move for a new artist who’s defying expectations. Do you feel pressured to talk about your appearance, or is it something you do to inspire other women?

Probably both. There’s no one telling me I should lose weight—not now, at least. I just feel the societal pressure sometimes. Even at the place where I am in my career, just finding clothes that’s in our sizes can be hard. Being a Black woman in Nashville can be challenging when it comes time to book someone to do all sorts of things related to fashion, whether it’s glam or wardrobe. I do feel that systemic or societal pressure at times, but I also feel really empowered. I’m in a constant state of protesting my own thoughts and the things that I’ve been told about what people like me are supposed to look like, or how we’re supposed to approach the world around us. If I’m going to be an artist then I’m going to be myself. I don’t really have a caricature to be—I’m just me, and that’s all I want to be. I just put my truth out there without having to always say it. I’m trying to challenge all of the things I’ve been told to believe about myself and people who are walking in the shoes that I walk in. We are enough as we are.

You just mentioned the intersection of sexism and racism in Nashville. Do you ever get frustrated when people say things like, “Brittney Spencer is redefining what it means to be a Black country artist” when country music is Black music?

You know, when I hear statements like that it takes me back to what I know about history. I spent a whole lot of time studying the history of country music and studying the roots of American music in general. I think that people are just now having an awakening…. They are finally waking up to this thing. I finally woke up to the truth about it a few years ago myself. It makes me excited and very hopeful to know that people are starting to really understand that there is a place for everybody in country music.

It makes me happy to see different sectors in country music making an intentional attempt to rectify history, but more so reshape the future of what this thing is and showing what it always has been when it wasn’t always visible. That makes me hopeful. That’s what gives me just a little more courage to do what it is that I do because I’m honestly not trying to redefine anything more than I am just trying to sing songs. But I recognize the weight of what it is that I’m doing. I recognize the value of my presence in this space, the value of Black presence here in this space. At the end of the day, I just want to sing my songs and love people as well as I can.

What is your advice for Black girls and women who have Nashville dreams of their own but don’t know where to start?

I’d say take it one day at a time, hone one skill at a time. It can be so overwhelming to consider the bigger picture of what it is that you want to do. It can sometimes make your dream feel so out of reach. But just remember that it’s literally one song at a time, it’s one gig at a time. I took a year where I didn’t sing anywhere except for busking downtown after I learned how to play guitar. I didn’t sing at any places; I didn’t take any gigs because I really wanted to focus on learning how to play guitar. I wanted to focus on learning how to write songs and how to make songs that made sense here in Nashville, but I couldn’t do it all.

Also, if anything that you’re doing makes you feel like you have to be less than yourself or it’s not causing you to stretch yourself and grow yourself in the direction that feels good to you as a person—as an artist—leave it alone. It’s just not for you. Finding your place, finding your people, finding your lane is so much more important than trying to be seen and trying to be visible and trying to make it in anything that will be available to you. You’ll lose yourself giving yourself to anything that will accept you”.

I am going to work to some interviews from this year. Last year was a busy one for Spencer. With the three-track E.P., if I ever get there: a day at blackbird studios, in the ether and sounding phenomenal, it is a little taster of an artist who is going to make a huge difference in Country. A compelling woman who is storming a gerne that is broadening and diversifying. Even though it has not always been open to Black artists and women, things are changing slowly. Brittney Spencer is definitely going to break barriers and pave the way for many artists like her in years to come! Last year, American Songwriter spent some time with this incredible human:

“Brittney Spencer has been making waves on the country music scene for years, but she is reaching new heights heading into 2022. Currently out on the 2nd leg of her In A Perfect World Tour and working on her debut album, Spencer promises an exciting year ahead. In an interview with American Songwriter, she reflects on her successes over the past year and gushes about her musical inspirations.

First, as she navigates the ups and downs of rising fame, Spencer reveals how her loved ones and fellow musicians have kept her afloat.

“People have really championed and pushed me into the place where I am in my career. I just feel so overwhelmed with just gratitude for that,” says Spencer. “It’s been just this moment of just recognizing that I get to be more of myself.”

Between her 2020 EP Compassion and her first full-length album expected later this year, Spencer is showing more vulnerability in her music than ever. Her profound lyrics and stunning vocals have recently landed her numerous titles, including Spotify’s 2021 Hot Country Artist to Watch and a spot on CMT’s Next Women of Country.

Yet, as her audience grows, so does the pressure to create art that her fans feel connected to. “There is pressure with that,” she admits. “But there is also a lot of learning about myself, and I’m more focused now than I ever have in my life about what I want to do, where I want to go, what I want to do.”

Her musical direction all started when she was young and a friend at church suggested she listen to The Chicks. Her passion for music, and country music especially, only grew from there. In fact, it wasn’t until Spencer discovered Taylor Swift that she believed she could make country music herself.

“Dixie Chicks made me like it. Taylor made me feel like I could do it,” she recalls. Spencer, a Baltimore native, was unsure that she had the right voice for country music. But Swift made her realize that country music was about more than having a certain accent. “[Swift] didn’t have a twang—she’s from Pennsylvania,” Spencer points out. “She’s very poetic, and I felt like so much of that… It was me.”

Aside from Swift and The Chicks, Spencer has a wide range of musical heroes who influence her writing. “I like Ray Charles, I love Beyonce, I love Miranda Lambert. I think Jazmine Sullivan is the greatest singer alive,” she lists, to name a few

Spencer believes the diversity of the genres, singers, and songwriters that she admires gives her music a sound that is entirely her own. “I feel like I have a really wide stretch of what influences me, which is probably why it still made my songs sound so different,” she observes.

Now, with a platform of her own, Spencer aims to inspire others as each of these artists inspired her. “It was moments that I heard another person that made me feel like maybe there was a place for me here,” she says. “So I’m inspired by a lot. I try to embody that in my music.”

When it came to putting together her first album, she picked the songs that moved the people close to her. “I have friends that I love who I just trust their ears like crazy. They’re the same ones that helped me pick out the songs for my Compassion EP,” she explains. “But I also have a team there, so I bounce things off some of my team, and I just… I think I also really rely on a lot of the creatives that I kind of come across”.

Before moving things more up to date, when that E.P. was released back in November, Billboard discussed it. They also mentioned how Brittney Spencer, after working in coffee shops and dreaming of forging a career in music, has now signed with Elektra. A huge achievement for one of Country’s finest and most powerful young artists:

“Burgeoning country artist Brittney Spencer has signed with Elektra and will drop if i ever get there: a day at blackbird studio, her first release for the label, at midnight ET.

The highly sought-after Spencer, who put out her breakthrough single, “Sober & Skinny,” independently in 2021, has made tremendous inroads at country, opening for Maren Morris, Reba McEntire, Brandi Carlile, Jason Isbell, Willie Nelson and others. Additionally, she is an honorary member of Morris and Carlile’s The Highwomen (which also includes Natalie Hemby and Amanda Shires), often stepping in for group members, including on Oct. 30 when the quartet performed at Loretta Lynn’s memorial concert at the Grand Ole Opry, where she substituted for Morris.

Spencer began drawing industry attention two years ago in October 2020, when she posted her cover of The Highwomen’s “Crowded Table” on Twitter and drew the praise of Morris and Shires, who invited her to perform with them when they returned to the road after the pandemic. That dream came true in September 2021 when she stepped in for an ailing Shires at The Highwomen’s appearance at the Bottle Rock Napa Valley Music Festival. CMT’s Leslie Fram also became an early supporter, naming her to the CMT Next Women of Country class of 2021. Spencer made her Grand Ole Opry debut in May of last year and embarked on her own headlining tour last December. She also received a CMT Music Awards nomination earlier this year for digital-first performance of the year.

“We were instantly moved by Brittney’s astounding talent and infectious spirit as soon as we met her,” said Breanna Duncan, senior manager of A&R at Elektra, in a statement. “She has a natural ability to connect with listeners with her brilliant vocal delivery and her gift at capturing emotions through her songwriting is just remarkable. Brittney Spencer is an absolute gem in the music scene and we couldn’t be more excited that she has chosen Elektra as her label home.”

Spencer, who is part of Victoria Secret’s “Undefinable” global campaign, recorded her three-track EP live at Nashville’s Blackbird Studio with producer Daniel Tashian (Kacey Musgraves, Little Big Town). The first single is her cover of The Chicks’ 1999 hit, “Cowboy Take Me Away”; the set also includes two originals, “Better As Friends,” co-written with Hailey Whitters, and “A Hundred Years Old,” co-written with Ashley Ray and Sean McConnell.

“These three songs are some of my favorites to perform live, and they reflect a lot of where my head and heart have been lately – a little sad girl fall, a little gleeful nostalgia. I’ve been touring with some of my absolute heroes, getting to partner with brands I love like Victoria’s Secret (like, what?!), and just being a person feeling my way through my ever-changing, stupid life,” said Spencer, who is managed by Activist Artists Management’s Matt Maher and Caitlin Stone. “Still, writing and creating music has been my honest guide, my emotional safety and my best companion this year, my album is close to finished now!”.

Prior to coming to a couple of interviews from this year, this article highlighted an important honour and event from May. In addition to being an inspiring musician who will help diversify and broaden Country music, Brittney Spencer is also making a big difference in the community. Someone who has this wonderful heart and humanity:

“Brittney Spencer has been named Artist Advocate for Habitat for Humanity’s Music Row Build, set for May 13 at Village by the Creek in North Nashville.

As Artist Advocate, she and friends Abbey Cone, Caylee Hammack and Chris Housman will be performing at The Bluebird Cafe on April 13 at 9 p.m. to benefit the Habitat Music Row Build. In addition to the Bluebird performance, Spencer will be at the Habitat build site May 13 with volunteers, supporting this year’s future Habitat homeowner LaShawnda Bowman, who is the mother of four children.

“As a person who’s struggled with housing security and homelessness in the past, it means a lot for me to partner with Habitat for Humanity. Affordable housing can feel impossible to obtain in Nashville. Habitat’s homeownership program provides education and the ability to break down barriers on the build site working with the future homeowners and volunteers who come from all walks in life. Being able to have a home that is affordable means everything,” says Spencer.

“We are grateful Brittney is lending her incredible talent and voice to raise awareness for the affordable housing crisis in Nashville,” says Penny Gattis, Chair for Habitat for Humanity’s Music Row Build. “Our music community providing a pathway to homeownership for a Nashville family is invaluable and we thank Brittney for her advocacy.”

Additionally, UTA will serve as Music Row Build sponsor for 2023.

“I’m thrilled that UTA will join Brittney in actively bettering our community,” says Jeffrey Hasson, Music Agent & Co-Head of UTA Nashville. “Habitat is an amazing organization that positively effects change and this event gives us a chance to give back to those in need.”

Nashville is among the top five U.S. cities on the verge of a housing crisis. Over the last decade median household income has risen 15 percent and home prices have risen 167 percent. Habitat homes are not free and the sustainable homeownership program provides education, budget coaching and home maintenance classes empowering successful homeownership”.

PHOTO CREDIT: KT Sura

Prior to round up, there are a couple of interviews worth sourcing. Riverfront Times spoke with Brittney Spencer last month ahead of a performance at the World Wide Technology Raceway for the Enjoy Illinois 300 NASCAR event. It seems that Country music is very much home for her. A genre of music that connects deep and resonates within her:

“Did you always have your sights on country music as your genre or did it sort of happen by accident?

A little bit of both. I was brought up in the church in Baltimore, I sang opera for years, and I listened to Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald, Mariah, Whitney. I started listening to country music as a kid when I had no concept of genre at all. I started really listening to the Chicks. In hindsight, I really didn’t know it was changing my life, but I loved their harmonies and their stories, and I just became a serious fan. I have a lot of different musical influences. But with country music, it was the songwriting that made me gravitate toward the genre. I finally found a place where I felt like I could tell stories that I wanted to tell. I could put my thoughts into words, and it would make sense in country music.

How would you describe your place in country music sonically?

I’m a country artist. Sonically, I’m always going to want to have fun and stick to tradition, but I’m also going to want to bend and break a few rules. That’s just the creative in me wanting to explore. But I want to tell stories, and I’m going to continue to do that in this space because it feels like home to me.

You are one of several Black artists who are currently finding success in country music. What is your perspective from inside the industry?

I want to see more of us. I know things take time, but I can’t wait until we don’t have to have this conversation anymore because it’s so normalized to see so many different cultures in country music. Right now, we’re sprinkled in and still in the beginning stages of seeing the genre diversity, and there’s a lot of people putting in a lot of effort to make that happen. But we need to keep going. What would make me happy is to look back in 10 years and you won’t be able to name the Black country artists if you tried because there’s so many.

Your songs sound autobiographical. Are they?

I do tend to write in first person, but I’m not always the person in the song. Like “Sober & Skinny” is not about me. I’ve never actually experienced that. “Whiskey Rose” is not about me at all. Writing about other people makes me feel more empathetic, when I'm able to find a human way to connect with people in a story I wrote but didn't actually experience. It’s actually really hard for me to write about me. I feel exposed. But every artist that I love does that, and I decided I don’t want to be a mystery, so I think the bravest thing is to put my actual self in songs, and I’m doing it a lot more these days”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Nicki Fletcher

Recently, Rolling Stone featured a sensational artist who is revolutionising Nashville and Country. Someone making space for Black artists coming through, everyone needs to know her name and investigate her music. She is such a powerful and important artist. Someone primed for very big success:

“BRITTNEY SPENCER WAS stoned and chilling at home in Nashville the night her life changed. She had posted an acoustic cover of “Crowded Table,” a song of radical inclusion by the all-star country quartet the Highwomen, after seeing them sing it on TV. “It was so beautiful watching this supergroup come together in the way they did for this album. I remember feeling so warm inside watching it,” she says.

The group, which is comprised of Brandi Carlile, Natalie Hemby, Maren Morris, and Amanda Shires, retweeted her video, and things began to accelerate at a rapid pace. Soon, Spencer was opening shows for artists like Jason Isbell, then making appearances on the CMA Awards and ACM Awards. Now, she’s breaking new ground in a part of the music industry that has not historically (or even recently) made room for Black women. “I’m doing something that is probably already going in the history books,” she says, “and not because it’s me and my song, but because I’m part of something.”

It’s a sunny spring day and Spencer is perched on a group of large stones along Nashville’s Bicentennial Mall, a public park on the north side of downtown that’s in sight of the state capitol building. She’s wearing a sweatshirt that doubles as self-promotion, since it has the title of her song “Sober & Skinny” printed in large letters across the chest.

Spencer grew up in Baltimore — Bicentennial Mall reminds her of public spaces back home, she says — and fell hard for country music after hearing the Chicks as a teenager. Initially she sang backup for gospel and R&B groups around her hometown and the East Coast. Eventually, some of the artists she was working with found out that she wanted to sing country music, and one of them, R&B singer Lil’ Mo, encouraged her to pursue her passion. “I remember one day asking her, ‘Do you think I can actually do this?’” Spencer says. “Everybody knew I wanted to do country music. And she was like, ‘You gotta get to where the music is.’”

So Spencer headed out for Nashville as a 25-year-old who’d just lost her job and felt like she needed to be in town to succeed. She didn’t know much about the country music business, beyond what she’d learned from the Reba McEntire and Taylor Swift documentaries she had watched. “I didn’t know what I was doing,” she says now. “I actually still don’t know what I’m doing.”

Her early years in Nashville were filled with trial and error, and she had trouble getting anyone in the industry to meet with her. It was Highwomen member Maren Morris’ debut album, Hero, that helped Spencer through a tough period when she wanted to give up. “Here’s this woman who knows how to write, and also she can sing her ass off,” she says. “I listened to that album over and over again for weeks until I talked myself off the ledge of stopping.”

Spencer feels like she’s had good fortune in the wake of her viral moment, and been able to work with people who have treated her well. She’s already been out on tour with Reba McEntire and Brett Eldredge, and had a standout moment singing James Brown on Jason Isbell’s Georgia Blue covers album. “My first points of entry into this industry were with people who made me feel really safe,” she says. “The Highwomen are family to me. Jason Isbell made me feel safe. Going on tour with Brett Eldredge and Reba, they were so kind and so welcoming and so themselves with me it made me feel like I could be myself onstage and off.” In July, she’ll get to play a show in London with Bruce Springsteen.

As the country music industry starts to reckon with its racist past, Spencer’s presence in town alongside other Black women like Mickey Guyton and Madeline Edwards is a powerful indication of how things could be. She sees the opportunity not just as a platform for her own career but for the artists who come after her. “We won’t see the true impact of right now for another few years, when we see the next generation of country artists and race isn’t even a question,” she says. “That’s going to be the real testimony of this moment we’re standing in.”

To make sure that future is better and more open, Spencer has a policy of being honest about racism she experiences in the music industry. It’s not attention-seeking — she isn’t a big fan of receiving attention, despite her career aspirations — but more of a reminder that there’s work to be done. “It’s actually doing a disservice to everybody if people are walking around thinking that these things don’t happen, that we’re much further along than we actually are,” she says”.

Go and follow Brittney Spencer. A Country artist with a distinct sound and hugely powerful voice, you only need to hear a bit of one of her songs to know that she is something very special! Go and check out this wonderful artist to ensure that you…