This is part of our monthly series of interviews with musicians who perform in the Berkshires.
The Black Legacy Project, launched in the Berkshires in September 2021, is a musical celebration of Black history to advance racial solidarity, equity, and belonging. The band is making its debut appearance at The Stationery Factory on Saturday, January 20th. The core band features Berkshire natives Krishna Guthrie and Katherine Winston, who will be joined by Berkshire musicians Bree Nicola, Annie Guthrie, Eric Reinhardt, and other local artists.
The Black Legacy Project is produced by Music in Common, a Berkshire-born, Atlanta-based nonprofit that strengthens, empowers, and connects communities through the universal language of music. In 2022, Music in Common founder & director, Todd Mack, and Music in Common program coordinator, Trey Carlisle, were named CNN Champions for Change for their work with the Black Legacy Project. I had the opportunity to connect with Todd and Trey over Zoom this week to learn more about what we can expect from the show at The Stationery Factory, the history, mission, and goals of the project, and the band’s plans for 2024. I hope you enjoy our conversation, which has been lightly edited for clarity.
Let’s start by talking about next Saturday’s concert at The Stationery Factory. What can people expect to see and hear at the show?
Todd Mack: We will open the evening with a screening of the pilot episode of The Black Legacy Project docuseries. That episode takes place in the Berkshires, from when the project launched back in 2021.
After that, the Black Legacy Project band will do a healthy set, probably 16 songs or so. It might be one long set or two, but it will be a full-length concert. Then we will wrap it up with a community conversation with the audience and the band members and Trey and I, as the producers of the project.
For those who have never heard the Black Legacy Project perform before, how would you characterize the music that the band will perform in terms of styles or genres?
Todd: It ranges from rhythm and blues to folk to neo-soul…
Trey Carlisle: There is some doo-wop in there as well, and funk. It is very much pulling from a lot of different musical genres that really are at the core of America’s musical landscape.
So, very much within a roots construct?
Todd: It’s very much grounded in American roots music.
Trey: From both Black and white communities alike.
I understand that for Saturday’s performance, the core band will include Berkshire natives Krishna Guthrie and Katherine Winston, who will be joined by locals Bree Nicola, Annie Guthrie, Eric Reinhardt, and other local artists. I was wondering if there might be some surprise guests that might include some artists who were a part of the residency or worked with the band in the past, such as Gina Coleman, Billy Keane, or Chris Merenda?
Todd: Absolutely! But that’s about as definitive as I can be.
Does the composition of the band change for different performances?
Todd: Occasionally, we need to have someone fill in for a show if a band member is unavailable or is no longer with the project. Bree is sitting in for this run of shows, which she’s done before. It’s mostly a fixed group, but there is some rotating of the members.
Trey: When we take the band to communities where we launched the project, we love engaging the local musicians who were a part of the launches to join some of the songs that they reimagined and wrote. Annie Guthrie and Eric Reinhardt are great examples of that.
The band members live in different places, and they all have their own music careers. It must be really challenging to get them together to perform, let alone rehearse. Can you talk a bit about that?
Todd: It’s like herding cats – It’s so much fun! [Todd laughs.] They’re a great group of musicians to work with. We have some practices in place that help alleviate some of the stress of so many moving pieces, starting with giving lots of lead time so that we can plan around it. It’s probably not the most pragmatic way to put a touring band together – pulling in musicians who all live in different places, in some cases, 2000 to 3000 miles apart from one another. But there is something very appealing about it in terms of reflecting the reach of the project as a whole. We wanted to put a band together that represented all seven of the communities that the project launched in between 2021 and 2023. And there’s something cool about that. But yes, it definitely makes for a lot more logistical work – arranging flights and all that. Rehearsals always happen at the beginning of a tour. They’re pretty well-versed – this is hardly the first rodeo for them. They’ve got two tours under their belt at this point, and they’re really finding their road legs.
Trey: The musicians all have different degrees of engaging, experiencing, and participating in the Black Legacy Project in one way or another. Some of the permanent band members were the musical co-directors in the launches in their communities and were involved in reimagining and writing some of the original songs that now make up the Black Legacy Project catalog. Some of the permanent band members were the recording artists who were brought in during the recording sessions of those songs during those launches. Some of the members, like Bree, have been part of local launches and performances for the Black Legacy Project throughout these past three years as one-time shows. All of the musicians have some degree of connection to the project.
The band released an album in late 2023: Black Legacy Project Volume 1. Can you tell us a little about the album and how it’s been received?
Trey: Volume one showcases the songs that have come out of the Black Legacy Project launches in Los Angeles, the Ozarks of Northwest Arkansas, Denver, Colorado, and the Berkshires. And so when people listen to the album, they’re able to hear songs that speak to the specific themes that the community members and musicians explored during the launches. So, for example, in Los Angeles, their theme was American skin. It focused on how one’s experience in the United States and how they are treated is very often shaped by the color of your skin and also the way that people like them are portrayed and stereotyped in the media. We had community members explore this in Los Angeles, which was the media capital of the United States for a time. The songs that explored that theme were “American Skin (41 shots)” by Bruce Springsteen, who was living in Los Angeles at the time when he wrote the song, and “Sweeter” by Leon Bridges, who collaborated with local LA artists. All the songs have direct ties to the communities in which we launched the project and direct ties to the themes that we had community members explore. So when people listen to the album, as well as when they see the band perform, not only do they get to hear this really meaningful music that speaks to the legacy of race relations across the nation, but also the unique experiences and dynamics of race relations in the communities that we launched the project in.
Todd: I think the album has been well received by those who have received it. What we’re focused on right now is widening the net of listeners and, ideally, reviewers. The album was released the day the band did its first show on its first tour, which was by design, but then they were basically on the road for most of the fourth quarter of last year. We just didn’t have a lot of space on our plate to focus on promoting the record outside of the live shows. We’ve been shifting the focus to promoting the album this year and are getting ready to do a big radio push. I think you’ll start hearing it and seeing it out there more.
You touched on this a bit when talking about the Los Angeles launch, but can you tell us about the process of choosing the songs for the album?
Trey: Stepping back a bit, we strategically chose the seven launch communities because we wanted diverse communities that represent a snapshot of the diverse experiences of living in the United States – there is a need for these types of conversations everywhere. These are predominantly Black communities, predominantly white communities, places that have a well-known Black history, and places where you wouldn’t even think Black folks live. Those were all of the intentions behind the seven communities that we chose.
From there, we researched the distinct experience of race relations in that local community, a theme that could be explored, and two songs that have direct ties to that community. That’s the process.
For example, northwest Arkansas in the Ozarks has a history of sundown towns – communities that historically excluded Blacks and expelled Black folks from living there. We chose that to be the theme that the community members would discuss and explore in the roundtables and in the song interpretation process. The two songs were “What is the Color of the Soul of a Man” by Jimmy Driftwood, who was a native of the Ozarks, and the song “Sundown Town” by Ry Cooder, which really speaks to the theme of sundown towns.
Then we had Black and white musicians create present-day interpretations and reimagine those songs. What would it look like for these lyrics of the past to be sung in the present day by Black and white folks in the 21st century from their musical genres? Then we had the four musicians that we selected to be the musical co-directors, two Black and two white, come together to co-write an original song, providing tangible steps that can be taken to help us move forward as a nation and to address the specific dynamic of race relations in that community.
So, for example, what are the tangible steps that we can take to prevent the prevalence of sundown towns from reemerging? Or, in Los Angeles, what steps can we take to create a community where one’s lived experience is not shaped by the color of their skin? That was the prompt from which these four co-directors wrote these original pieces on behalf of Music in Common, so the original songs on the album came from the songs written by the co-directors.
I believe there are four original songs on the album. Does that mean you have several more saved up for volume two, along with the reinterpretation songs from the other residencies?
Trey: Yes. The Mississippi Delta, Atlanta, Georgia, and Boise, Idaho songs will be featured in Volume Two, along with another set of three songs that came out of the Berkshires.
Let’s step back from the concert at The Stationery Factory and talk more about the Black Legacy Project and its history and mission. What was the original impetus for the project?
Trey: Todd and I conceptualized the project in 2020, in the midst of seeing the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery on the news and on social media, as well as the level of polarization that was growing around race relations in the US. It was very reminiscent to the type of polarization and conflicts that Todd’s seen in the Middle East through the conflict transformation work that Music in Common has been doing over the past 18 years, which is very powerful to think about with everything that’s going on in the Middle East right now.
We were moved to explore how we could bring the work that we do at Music in Common to transform the conflict around race relations in the US. At that time, Todd was listening to Bob Dylan songs and was moved by this act of solidarity that this white boy from Minnesota was showing by using music to tell the stories of Black Americans and inspire folks to make change. And I was listening to songs by Sam Cooke and Billie Holiday. As we revisited these songs from the past that seemed like they could have been written today, that’s what inspired us to see how we could have present musicians re-explore these songs, reimagining them in today’s context, as well as collaborate and engage in writing original songs and having conversations about how we can move forward.
What are the goals of the project?
Todd: The goal for the project, like everything that Music in Common does, is to reach as many people as possible in a room, face-to-face. We see our roles not necessarily as the change-makers but as the people providing the platform for change to be possible. And I think that’s an important distinction. Because, in the nonprofit world, it’s easy to get caught up in the idealism of your mission, the loftiness of it. And often, that can work against you, especially if you’re small, like we are, and have very limited resources – which we do a lot with.
The way that we’re able to do that is by knowing what our lane is, and our lane is bringing people together to engage in civil discourse with one another about hard topics that are pressing and urgent at this moment. The more of these conversations we can facilitate, the greater the likelihood of it actually resulting in something tangible in terms of change. There are other organizations that do really great work once people are already down that pathway. Our goal is to open that door and provide that space where people can then continue on down the road of reexamining their own [perspectives] and hearing their own inner voice to do something – whatever it is – that they are called to do.
Trey: To add to that, one of my favorite quotes from Dr. King, which we share every time we do an event, is, “I am convinced that men hate each other because they fear each other. They fear each other because they don’t know each other, and they don’t know each other because they don’t communicate with each other, and they don’t communicate with each other because they are separated from each other.”
Our goal at Music in Common and the Black Legacy Project is to create spaces where people across divides can come together and communicate with each other through a universal language of music and through facilitated discussions – facilitated in a way that is designed to help folks recognize their common ground, not as a way to further polarize. And being in that space, hopefully, people can have that experience, that communication, that consequently breaks down the walls of fear and hate that divide folks.
Black Legacy Project conducted the first of its seven residencies here in the Berkshires in September 2021. Todd, I know you used to live in Sheffield, but other than perhaps knowing the region, were there other reasons why you chose Berkshire as the start of the project?
Todd: Yes! It’s got this amazing, really rich Black history that way too many people don’t know about. We just got lucky that I happened to have been involved in the music scene here for 20 years. But even if I hadn’t, it would have been high on the list of communities we were choosing from.
Trey: Being the birthplace and home of W.E.B. Dubois, the place where Billie Holiday performed, and the place where James Weldon Johnson, who wrote “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” had a writing cabin, the Berkshires is really an example of what we seek to help everybody tap into and recognize in the Black Legacy Project: which is that there is Black history everywhere in the United States. There is a history of Black and white race relations in every place in the United States. And there’s a need for having these types of conversations in every place in the United States.
Let’s talk about future plans for the Black Legacy Project. Are there plans to do more residencies?
Todd: There are hopes to do more residencies, but if I’m being completely honest and transparent, they’re very expensive to do. We were fortunate to receive a couple of decent-sized grants that helped fund the first phase of those first seven launches. As long as there’s funding for it, we will continue to do those week-long residencies. It’s seven days for the people that attend, but for us, it’s 10 days, getting there ahead of time, let alone the month’s worth of planning before we ever step foot into the community. But our hope is that there will be continued funding to keep doing them in different places.
In the interim, the other ways we get the project out is through the band and events like what we’re going to do at The Stationery Factory. But we are also doing more and more school programming. Trey and I, or sometimes just Trey, or maybe Trey and one of the musicians, will go in for a day at a school. We are also doing some film screenings and community conversations that Trey and I can facilitate without needing an eight-piece band behind us. These things can have a really big impact, but from a logistics and a budget perspective, are easy things for us to do moving forward.
We’ve spent the past two and a half years gathering a lot of footage – we’ve been filming everything with the intent of creating a seven-part docuseries and a feature-length film. The heavy lift of getting the footage has been checked off, and now we have the at least as heavy, if not heavier, lift of actually cutting it, writing storylines, and turning it into a finished product. So for the next 10 months or so, we’re gonna be very focused on that.
Will the band be touring more?
Todd: Yes, but we will be taking a little bit of a pause after this next short run, allowing us to focus on the other things that are pretty urgent, like the docuseries. Probably in the fall, we’ll pick back up. We’ve just recently signed on with a really great booking agency called IMN, and it’s in their hands at this point for booking the tour dates. I know they’re hard at work at it.
Will you be releasing additional albums?
Todd: Volume Two will be out tentatively in August and no later than the end of September. And it’s a whole new fresh batch of songs.
Is there anything else about your 2024 roadmap that you want to mention?
Todd: Not for the Black Legacy Project, but Music in Common is busy working on some other programs and new initiatives that are aligned with the mission of the Black Legacy Project but in very different spaces. We are working on two large-scale initiatives. One is addressing the alarming rise of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia on college campuses here in the US and its connection to the Middle East. As an organization that has worked extensively both in the Middle East and the United States, we have a pretty good perch to see how one affects the other. The other project is looking at the culture wars and the political divide here in the US and creating spaces for people to have those conversations that they don’t seem to want to have – they’d rather just yell in their little echo chamber what they’re convinced is right and what they believe. These initiatives are very similar to the Black Legacy Project in that they bring people together to engage in difficult conversations with the hope that there’s some learning that comes out of it that pushes the needle forward in some positive way.
Those are both big and very challenging problems!
Todd: Yeah, well, we don’t like the fluff stuff here.
I wish you good luck in making an impact in those areas.
Is there anything else that I did not ask that you would like to share with our readers?
Todd: We have a couple of new videos coming out. On Monday, Martin Luther King, Jr’s birthday, we will be releasing the music videos for “We Shall Overcome” and “Lift Every Voice and Sing” – two songs that are very connected to the life of Dr. King. In February, we’re doing a big push for Black History Month. We’ll be dropping another video of “Where I Find Love,” which is one of the original songs that came out of the Ozarks. It features Bobby Rush, and it’s a great message for the spirit of Black History Month. And we will be trying to elevate the awareness of the album and the project during that month. This project is rooted in Black history and Black legacy. It lives up to its name. The foundation of it is very history-based.
Trey: When it comes to doing more initiatives, whether it’s school programs, whether it’s more shows, whether it’s residencies, or screening the upcoming docuseries, we invite folks to reach out if they would like to bring us to their communities. We spent these past two years creating a really powerful foundation. From that, we want to raise awareness about the project. If you want to bring us to your communities and your schools or screen the docuseries episodes in your movie theaters, please reach out to us; we’d love to come there.
You can learn more about The Black Legacy Project at theblacklegacyproject.org. You can learn more about Music in Common at musicincommon.org. You can follow the Black Legacy Project on Instagram and Facebook. You can find their music on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon.