Meet Mickey Guyton: A Rare African-American Voice In Country Music On the same summer evening that hears Barack Obama sing Amazing Grace to a grieving Southern congregation, a Northern stage is opened to an unexpected herald of heartbreak on a more private scale. She is Candace Mycale “Mickey” Guyton, 32, a big-voiced, small-town Texan on her ascendancy up the narrow—and often narrow-minded—stairway of American country music, belting booming songs of aching loss. Summer storm clouds are hovering over an amphitheatre cut from the cornfields near the Pennsylvania-West Virginia state line. Dressed against the boots-and-Stetson trope in sky-high heels and flowery short-shorts, Guyton is twanging a plaint called Why Baby, Why? The song, she says backstage, was inspired by a real-life breakup that left her so shattered that “I went months without eating. I feel like it was a death.”
I’m representing the everyday person in the year 2015—young people, old people, middle-aged people.”“I write about heartbreak and I write about my life, and that’s what authenticity is. Everybody’s been so kind and accepting. Times have changed since Charlie Pride. We don’t have any kind of agenda to get me accepted. “This is no gimmick. This is me.” – Click
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Mickey Guyton on Radio, Grand Ole Opry Debut & LeAnn Rimes’ Inspiration You might not be familiar with the music of Mickey Guyton (yet), but if you’ve read any “Country Singers to Watch” lists for 2015, you have undoubtedly seen the Texas native’s name. We put her at the top of our list, and she also fared well in similar articles from USA Today and Yahoo. Guyton admitted that seeing all the press was an amazing feeling, though just a little bit unbelievable. “You’re just shocked,” she tells Billboard. “I live with myself every day. I don’t know how else to describe it, so I don’t see myself as that. I am so hard on myself and so critical of myself, and to hear people give me such great reviews is shocking. I think ‘Me?’ I can’t believe it. It just seems so weird.” She always loved music as a child growing up in the Lone Star State, but it was a professional sports event — and a future country superstar — that convinced Guyton this is what she wanted to do with her life. Her heart beat just a little bit faster on the night of Jan. 10, when she made her debut at the Grand Ole Opry during the show’s winter run at the Ryman Auditorium. She was emotional that night, and when we ask her about it now, the emotion comes to the forefront once again. Read the full article, check out Billboard.com/mickeyguytoninterview
