Danielia Cotton has made a name for herself in the Americana/Roots Rock world. When I heard that voice, I knew exactly why. She has opened for Gregg Allman, Bon Jovi, Robert Cray, Robert Randolph, Cristone “Kingfish” Ingram, Derek Trucks Band, and Aimee Mann.
Cotton comes from a musical family. Her mother was one of ten children, four boys and six girls. The girls formed a capella band. (Her aunt Jeannie Brooks also has a remarkable jazz solo career and is quite popular in Philadelphia.)
“I joined that group when I was thirteen, and it was amazing,” she said. “It was an acapella, gospel, with really tight harmonies. It was great for me.”
At that same time, her mother gave her a guitar. She lived in New Jersey and attended a mostly white high school that she found challenging. “I was always having an identity crisis and wishing I was someone else,” she recalled. “The music was a really great place to get lost.”
By the time she was 15, her mother began doing her own jazz show in and around New Hope, Pennsylvania. Her mother was a single mom raising four kids on her own so Cotton taught herself to play guitar. Her brother listened to rockers like Todd Rundgren and Foreigner while her mother had records from Chaka Khan, Jonathan Winters, and Bonnie Raitt. She was exposed to everything from Mavis Staple to the Rolling Stones.
When Cotton was a sophomore in high school, she auditioned for the first-ever performing arts in New Jersey. She was bussed several hours away to a community college where the school was headquartered. She did this for two years and graduated at the top of her class.
Cotton ended up getting a scholarship to Bennington College in Vermont, where she studied musical theater. For her last year in college, she was sent to London’s Royal Academy, where she studied alongside Game of Thrones’ Peter Dinklage. She credited teacher Bill Dixon as a major influence, who she says is “still in my head.”
Tracy Chapman was also a big influence. Cotton stated, “For people who are black, she didn’t have an average black voice, at least what people perceived as it. She didn’t embellish a lot. She had this sort of vibrato that worked for her. And you know in that way, it showed me that you can be different.”
When Cotton first became a professional singer, everybody wanted her to go into R&B and Soul. “It was almost like people wanted to put you in a category that was colored correctly. [Chapman] broke that mold on a major scale. And that was great. And that just helped that fuel me you know even more to just be myself,” she explained.
The first black country icon that we all know about was Charley Pride. There were many influential black artists from the Blues era, but Pride was the first from the country genre. At the time, on the RCA label, Elvis Pressley was the only person who sold more records than Pride.
While her original song “Good Day” and the Stones, “Gimme Shelter” have generated a lot of buzz, it is her covers of Pride’s “Roll On Mississippi” and most recently, “Kiss An Angel Good Morning” that have earned Cotton newfound recognition.
As a black woman, Cotton understands the unique challenges of cracking through the country music scene. She has always admired Pride, who was the first black American voted into the Country Music Hall of Fame and the first black singer to perform at the Grand Ole Opry. Now that black country/Americana artists are finally getting the visibility and acclaim they deserve, she feels the time is right to put the finishing touches on the tribute EP, Charley’s Pride: Songs from a Black Cowboy Vol. I.
The producer loved it and compared it to an Otis Redding track. So, they kept it without changing a thing.
What I admire most about Cotton is the emotion she puts in her songs. She’s not too perfect. She agreed, “When we recorded [Pride’s] “So Afraid of Losing You,” I was a bit sick, and the rasp, you’ll hear it. It’s probably one of the best vocals personally that I’ve ever done.”
“When I first had the idea to record this project a few years back, fewer black artists were being fully recognized within this genre. Now, there are more than ever before, and it’s exciting to see them embraced by the country music community. I learn more and more about the history of black musicians in country music every day, and it would be an honor to become a small part of that story,” she shared.
With her extensive musical background, Cotton has taken her beautiful and melodic, gritty rasp and found a home in the country blues genre. Her unique sound makes her stand apart and makes her one to watch.
The full EP, Charley’s Pride: A Tribute To Black Country Music will be available August 29th.
Cotton will be playing WMOT’s Finally Friday in Nashville on July 19th for a free concert at 3rd and Lindsley at noon and later that evening at Miss Zeke’s Juke Joint at Papa Turney’s BBQ at the Nashville Shore’s Marina in Hermitage, Tennessee.
You can follow Cotton on her website, Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube, and streaming platforms.
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Bethany Bowman is a freelance entertainment writer. You can follow her blog, Instagram, and X.
