Brandi Carlile, Maren Morris, Allison Russell, and More Sing to Vote Marsha Blackburn Out of Office
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 state’s 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, “I’ll 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 it’s a coincidence that only two of America’s 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.
Blackburn has also received more than 1 million dollars in donations from the National Rifle Association and has opposed legislation regarding gun control measures.
In all, 35 artists, calling themselves the Tennessee Freedom Singers, perform on “Tennessee Rise”: Brandi Carlile, Maren Morris, Brittney Spencer, Devon Gilfillian, Brooke Eden, Elizabeth Cook, Langhorne Slim, Lucie Silvas, Mary Gauthier, Paul McDonald, and Tre Burt are among the vocalists. Each of the singers say they will donate their streaming proceeds from “Tennessee Rise” to Johnson’s campaign.