"Tennessee Rise" by The Tennessee Freedom Singers (supporting Gloria Johnson of "The Tennessee Three") [View all]
Brandi Carlile, Maren Morris, Allison Russell, and More Sing to Vote Marsha Blackburn Out of Office
More than 30 vocalists, including Brittany Howard, Emmylou Harris, and Katie Pruitt recorded the anthem 'Tennessee Rise' to support Gloria Johnson's campaign against the Republican U.S. senator
When a bunch of all-stars get together to record a song for a cause, the result can often be cringey. But Tennessee Rise, featuring the pulpit-ready voices of Brittany Howard, Allison Russell, Katie Pruitt, Amanda Shires, Fancy Hagood, Emmylou Harris, and more, hits all the marks.
The heavenly choir anthem was recorded to encourage Tennesseans to register and vote for Gloria Johnson, who is challenging Republican incumbent U.S. senator and the states Darth Vader Marsha Blackburn in the November election. Johnson is one of the lawmakers known as The Tennessee Three, the group that protested on the statehouse floor the inaction by their Republican peers to pass gun reform in the wake of the 2023 Covenant school shooting in Nashville.
Along with being a state representative, Johnson is also a former special education teacher who has spoken out in favor of gun reform, reproductive rights, and racial equality. When asked by reporters why her Tennessee Three colleagues, representatives Justin Pearson and Justin Jones, who are Black, were expelled from the House following their protest and she was not, Johnson replied, Ill answer your question; it might have to do with the color of our skin.
Blackburn, meanwhile, has made a political career of stoking division in Tennessee and the U.S. During the 2022 confirmation hearings for Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman to become a Supreme Court justice, Blackburn suggested its a coincidence that only two of Americas 114 Supreme Court justices have been Black. She also accused Brown Jackson of indoctrinating young children. You serve on the board of a school that teaches kindergartners, five-year-old children, that they can choose their gender, and that teaches them about so-called white privilege, Blackburn said.
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/tennessee-rise-election-song-gloria-johnson-1234986741/
How awesome is this?!