BONUS TRACKS: Beyoncé Hits Country Radio + Remembering Dex Romweber and Roni Stoneman

The big question last week, as the dust settled from megastar Beyoncé’s Super Bowl bombshell about releasing a country album, was whether country radio would embrace her new songs. After all, modern pop country radio doesn’t have a great track record for playing songs by women, and people of color on those airwaves are few and far between. But here we are this week with Beyoncé’s “Texas Hold ‘Em” topping the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, which is determined via numbers from streaming, airplay, and sales. (Before you get too excited, read this piece in Slate about how those numbers get crunched.) Beyoncé is the first Black woman to top that chart. “16 Carriages,” the other song released so far from her new album, Act II, coming March 29, debuted on the same chart at No. 9. Read more about Beyoncé’s latest chart position, plus how the songs are being marketed, in this story from Billboard.

Look for the intersection of roots music and punk rock, and you’ll likely come across Dexter Romweber. He was best known as half of the late-1980s/early ’90s North Carolina band Flat Duo Jets, which was featured on MTV and Late Show With David Letterman, and made music with his sister, drummer Sara Romweber, and solo after the Flat Duo Jets disbanded in 1999. Dex Romweber died this week at the age of 57 of suspected cardiac arrest, according to his family. His influence was perhaps even bigger than any of his bands, with Cat Power and Jack White among the artists paying tribute to him this week. In a long post remembering Romweber, White called him “an electrical outlet, an old soul, a vampire, a cave man in a modern age, a WWI trench soldier, a different kind of American, out of luck living on the outskirts of town, lonely even when in a room of thousands.” He continues: “Over time he passed on secrets I’ll never tell, and brought tears to my eyes when he told me how proud of me he was. But I was proud of him first, and always will be.” Read White’s whole post here, and learn more about Romweber’s impact in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and far beyond in this piece from the region’s alt-weekly, Indy Week.

Roni Stoneman, crowned “The First Lady of the Banjo,” died Wednesday at the age of 85. She began her career with The Stoneman Family, a family band dating back to 1924 and involving several of Ernest “Pop” Stoneman’s 23 children, of which Roni was the youngest. Having already established her bona fides on banjo, Roni Stoneman became known far beyond bluegrass circles when she joined the cast of Hee Haw, where she played banjo and got laughs as Ida Lee Nagger during her 18-year run. She was still cracking people up well into her 80s, including at the induction ceremony for The Stoneman Family into the Bluegrass Hall of Fame in 2021, when she appeared with her sister Donna and played a medley of “House of the Rising Sun,” “Amazing Grace,” and “Bluegrass Breakdown.” Read more about Roni in this remembrance from Bluegrass Today, and check out The Stoneman Family’s hall of fame citation here.

The Ameripolitan Awards gave out its annual honors in a weekend-long gathering in Austin last weekend, helmed by awards founder Dale Watson and “Master Award” recipient Ray Benson. Individual artists and groups were honored in Honky Tonk, Western Swing, Rockabilly, and Outlaw categories. Read a recap of the awards show and a full list of winners at Saving Country  Music.

There was no loss of life, but an overnight fire Wednesday that destroyed the Mississippi John Hurt Museum in Avalon, Mississippi, is a tragedy nonetheless. The museum was inside a three-room wooden house with a tin roof where Hurt once lived, and open for tours only by appointment. Inside were artifacts from Hurt’s life, which was spent mostly as a blues-playing farmer in Avalon until he was recorded by the Library of Congress during the blues revival of the 1960s. No foul play is suspected in the fire, according to Carroll County authories, though the Mississippi John Hurt Foundation is terming it a “vicious act of arson.” Read more about the fire in this coverage from the Clarion Ledger, and learn more about the museum and other tributes to Hurt’s life on his family’s foundation website.

UPDATE: While the museum building and the artifacts within it cannot be replaced, a GoFundMe has been set up to allow the foundation to present educational programs and events to continue their work of honoring Hurt’s legacy. Learn more and donate here.

WHAT WE’RE LISTENING TO

Here’s a sampling of the songs, albums, bands, and sounds No Depression staffers have been into this week:

Bonny Light Horseman – “When I Was Younger”
Cris Jacobs – “Daughter, Daughter,” from his new album, One of These Days, coming in April
Nicolette & The Nobodies – “Show Up,” from their debut album, The Long Way, coming in April
Rhiannon Giddens – “The Ballad of Sally Anne,” from My Black Country: The Songs of Alice Randall, coming in April (ND story)
Ken Pomeroy – “Cicadas”
Kaïa Kater feat. Taj Mahal – “Fédon,” from her new album, Strange Medicine, coming in May

Cooper Kenward – “Orbit”
Waxahatchee – “Slow You Down”
The Pernice Brothers feat. Neko Case – “I Don’t Need That Anymore,” from The Pernice Brothers’ new album, Who Will You Believe, coming in April
Emily Nenni – “Get to Know Ya,” from her new album, Drive & Cry, coming in May
The Brother Brothers – “Lonesome,” from their new album, The January Album, coming in April
Becky Buller feat. Aoife O’Donovan – “Jubilee”
Lisa Bastoni – “Let’s Look at Houses,” from her new album, On the Water, coming in March