Queen of country music, Dolly Parton, has weighed in on the recent controversy surrounding the Country Music Awards’ decision to exclude Beyoncé’s album from its nomination list.
Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter is making waves in the country music scene, but her unexpected absence from CMA Awards nominations has sparked heated debate.
Earlier this month, the upcoming Country Music Association Awards nominees were announced, and many people were surprised to learn that Beyoncé had been left out.
Her father, Mathew Knowles, even insinuated that the CMA’s decision to not nominate his daughter was racially motivated.
In an interview with Variety on September 17, Dolly Parton and her sister, Rachel Parton George, recently spoke with Variety about their new cookbook, Good Lookin’ Cookin’. During the interview, Parton was questioned about Beyoncé’s absence from the list.
The 78-year-old “9 to 5” singer explained why Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ may have been left out of the upcoming awards ceremony.
“Well, you never know. There’s so many wonderful country artists that, I guess, probably the country music field, they probably thought, well, we can’t really leave out some of the ones that spend their whole life doing that,” Parton said to the outlet. “But I didn’t even realize that until somebody asked me that question.”
Parton described Beyoncé’s first country release as a “wonderful album” and something she can be “very, very proud of.”
“I think everybody in country music welcomed her and thought that that was good. So I don’t think it was a matter of shutting out, like doing that on purpose. I think it was just more of what the country charts and the country artists were doing, that do that all the time, not just a specialty album,” Parton added.
While Cowboy Carter will not be recognized at the CMA Awards in November, the album’s commercial success speaks for itself. The lead single, “Texas Hold’ Em,” not only peaked at No. 1 on multiple Billboard charts, making Bey the first Black woman to have a No. 1 country song and top the Billboard Top Country Albums chart, but also broke several streaming records.
