Beyonce's country music hit drives interest in Black Cowboy Museum in Texas

Record ID: 1769458

  • Title: Beyonce's country music hit drives interest in Black Cowboy Museum in Texas
  • Date: 28th February 2024
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (English) BLACK COWBOY MUSEUM OWNER, LARRY CALLIES, SAYING: “Well see, Beyonce’s from Houston. She saw an article on me on TV and I was telling a history of the Black cowboy. And she put it in the Houston Chronicle that she heard where the word cowboy came from and she wanted to dress as a cowgirl. And a year or two later she wanted to sing country music. I was
  • Embargoed: 13th March 2024 22:44
  • Keywords: Beyonce Texas Hold Em black cowboy museum country music
  • Location: ROSENBERG, TEXAS, UNITED STATES
  • City: ROSENBERG, TEXAS, UNITED STATES
  • Country: US
  • Topics: Arts/Culture/Entertainment,Music,North America
  • Reuters ID: LVA006421828022024RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Larry Callies career as a country music singer was cut short when he lost his voice to the rare condition dysphonia that attacked his vocal chords.
    But, decades later, his passion for the genre is undiminished. And he watched with admiration as music superstar Beyonce made history recently by becoming the first Black woman to top Billboard’s Hot Country Songs charts in the United States with "Texas Hold 'Em".
    “It’s country, it’s a good song. I love it,” Callies told Reuters.
    Callies believes Beyonce's success will encourage more Black Americans to embrace country music.
    Seventy-one-year-old Callies' other passion is telling the history of America's Black cowboys, which he says has been whitewashed from the history books.
    In 2017 Callies founded the Black Cowboy Museum in Rosenberg, Texas.
    “Well the Black cowboy to me is so important because my dad was a cowboy, his dad was a cowboy, his dad was a cowboy. All my uncles, all my cousins were cowboys. I didn’t want what the black cowboy to go in vain. You know you can have some things that just go in vain and nobody knows anything about it. I wanted to tell the world there were black cowboys.”
    Beyonce's leap into country music has seen a sharp increase in visitors.
    “The day she opened it up people started coming to my museum. I’m having two bus loads of people come in every day now. Before that, I’d see I’d have one or two, maybe three bus loads of people coming a week. Now I’m having two loads come in all most every day," Callies said.
    Some of the women who stop by try to emulate Beyonce's fashion too, with varying degrees of success. "Mostly I have older women and they’re dressing up in cowboy hats and cowgirl boots and everything. They dressing like Beyonce. Or trying to dress like Beyonce. You can’t dress like Beyonce.”
    "Texas Hold 'Em" debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, which ranks the most popular songs across all genres.
    Beyonce's upcoming album, "act ii," will be released on March 29, the second in a three-album project that began with her 2022 critically-acclaimed "Renaissance"
    (Production: Evan Garcia, Will Russell)
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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