Artist Guide

Cecily Wilborn

Daddy B. Nice's Top 10 "BREAKING" Southern Soul Singles For. . .

-------MARCH 2024-------

1. "Red Cup Blues"-----Cecily Wilborn

Mark March 2024 as the month and year when country music invaded and dominated the top ten singles, and none leaped the genre boundaries with the breathtaking ease of Cecily Wilborn's "Red Cup Blues". The recent winner of the 17th Annual (2023) Southern Soul Award for Best Collaboration ("Southern Man" with West Love), Wilborn is also featured in last month's "News & Notes" "Will Southern Soul Deejays Play Country-Western/Southern Soul?" on Daddy B. Nice's Corner.

Listen to Cecily Wilborn singing "Red Cup Blues" on YouTube.




Originally published in Daddy B. Nice's Southern Soul Awards (Best of 2023).

March 1, 2024

Best Collaboration:

"He got a smooth walk / He kinda growl when he talk..." Impactful as it was late in 2022, Cecily Wilborn's anthem took off like a second-stage rocket with this timely 2023 pairing.

"Southern Man" ----- Cecily Wilborn & West Love

Listen to Cecily Wilborn & West Love singing "Southern Man" on YouTube.

Buy Cecily Wilborn's single "Southern Man" featuring West Love.




Originally published on Daddy B. Nice's Corner

February 18, 2024:

Daddy B. Nice's News & Notes

Will Southern Soul Deejays Play Country Western/Southern Soul?

"Texas Hold 'Em," Beyonce's unabashedly country-western-styled dance jam, is generating controversy amongst country music deejays across America. The same thing---in reverse---is happening on a lesser scale in the world of southern soul. I'm not just talking about the preponderance of cowboy hats, "daisy dukes" and boots, horses, trail rides, pickups and musical blending of country themes into southern soul that has been going on now for roughly a decade since Big Yayo's pre-cowboy-hat-wearing "Cowgirl" appeared and a half-decade since Jeter Jones' "Black Horse" officially kicked off the "country-fication" of southern soul. Nor am I even talking about the avalanche of country-styled tunes and titles that have followed, songs like Jus Epik's & Money Waters' "Country Girl," in which country influences both musical and lyrical customize a still sturdy southern soul chassis.

Which brings me to the present moment: the pure country-western vocals of Jeter Jones new "Country Girl" and Cecily Wilborn's "Red Cup Blues". Yepp. Two major artists have crossed the boundary between southern soul and country. All the way. Are they experiments? It's hard to say. Jeter Jones recorded a song that's become a southern soul classic: "My Country Girl". But his new "Country Girl," from the just-released Big Boss EP, is pure country---not least the exaggerated vocal. But even that shocker is surpassed by Cecily Wilborn's new song, "Red Cup Blues," in which she outdoes Beyonce in her genuine transformation into a bonafide country singer. So much so that your Daddy B. Nice's Top 10 Singles for March might sound more like a country-western chart than southern soul. As if that weren't enough, the producer for "Red Cup Blues" is Kang 803, King George's producer and the hottest southern soul producer of the moment. If you remember, Kang 803 inserted delicate steel guitar fillips into King George's #1 song of 2023, "Grown Man (Say She Need Somebody"). And they---he and George---used to be rappers!

I recently stumbled upon a song that came out in the latter part of 2023 called
"Back Roads" by GMB Li Curt and ShawtyMac, just a couple of the black artists including K.D. Conner, Curt The Countryman and Countryboi Tye currently recording country. Marcellus The Singer actually guests on another version of the song by Curt The Countryman. "Back Roads" is too good to ignore, but I confess to almost feeling guilty enjoying it because it is country, man, so much so that when the rap verse came in I felt a twinge of relief because, ironically, the rap validated it as a contemporary southern soul song!

As long as there has been country music there have been black country artists. The great Ray Charles straddled both genres like a colossus back in my young day. But here's the kicker. These new songs ARE pure country. They're not southern soul. If a new generation of musicians follows suit, you can't really call it southern soul anymore. Or can you?

--Daddy B. Nice