Before Keith Urban, Luke Bryan, Blake Shelton, Brooks & Dunn, and dozens more headlining country artists wowed 60,000 fans nightly at Nissan Stadium during CMA Fest earlier this month, MŌRIAH launched the event in Nashville’s Riverfront Park with an emotional, multicultural performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
MŌRIAH incorporated an authentic mariachi band, marrying jaunty trumpets with a crying steel guitar, to meld both her Latin and American backgrounds.
“I’m a blend of different things,” MŌRIAH said. “To me, that’s very representative of what America’s always stood for. It’s this place where people get to come and bring their ideas and their cultures and their stories.”
Fans who couldn’t make it to Music City to watch the California-born singer’s CMA Fest kickoff and debut – or the hundreds of other artists who performed at the festival – can see what they missed.
American Songwriter has the exclusive debut of MŌRIAH’s completely original National Anthem. And tonight, fans can catch “CMA Fest presented by SoFi” at 8/7c on ABC. The CMA special will be available on Hulu starting Friday, June 27.
Videos by American Songwriter
“I’m a Blend of Different Things”
Hosted by Cody Johnson and Ashley McBryde, the three-hour “CMA Fest presented by SoFi” is a blend of collaborations and performances including Urban, Bryan, Shelton, Brooks & Dunn, Trace Adkins, Jason Aldean, Kelsea Ballerini, Dierks Bentley, BigXthaPlug, Jordan Davis, Riley Green, Jelly Roll, Cody Johnson, Ella Langley, Carín León, Ashley McBryde, Parker McCollum, Scotty McCreery, Megan Moroney and more.
And while MŌRIAH wasn’t on the stadium stage this year, more than 5,000 people came out to watch her sing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Inspired to create a Latin-American interpretation of the National Anthem by an invitation to sing at the Nashville Soccer Club, MŌRIAH spent months conceptualizing the blend. Her favorite versions of the anthem are cinematic, and in addition to being sentimental, she hears mariachi bands as orchestral. MŌRIAH asked her producer to help her blend the two, and she suggested she speak to his brother, Brett Mabury, who is a composer. She explained traditional mariachi bands have a system and structure they use while playing, and Maybury needed to work within those guidelines. She also knew she was asking the players to work outside of their creative comfort zone.
“I think that’s where most people are called to be right now is outside of their comfort zones,” she said. “Because when we do that, we do something new, and we grow, and there’s progress. This was definitely outside of my comfort zone, as well as my mariachis’ comfort zone. I appreciate their commitment to their craft.”
MŌRIAH Tests Comfort Zones
Mabury, a native of Australia, heavily researched mariachi bands and incorporated pieces of melodies and elements from mariachi songs that MŌRIAH grew up listening to. When she first heard his arrangement, she cried.
MŌRIAH auditioned players and assembled her own mariachi band. Then they spent months rehearsing – sometimes at her home. The CMA Fest performance was the culmination of six months of work. She put just as much thought into the music video. While the festival stage was punctuated with vivid colors, she wanted the video to be in black and white, with pops of pink and red, to convey a symbolic message.
“When I see that, it’s a reminder that no matter what color our skin is, like all of our blood runs red,” she said. “I loved that we had black men, white men, and everyone in between standing as guardians behind us in the color guard as we performed. It was just such a beautiful moment of having so many different cultures represented on a stage. I’m a Mexican-American woman. I’m a blend of different things. And to me, that’s very representative of what America’s always stood for.”
MŌRIAH never thought her family was unique. She grew up in a Mexican-American household in Chino, California, where mariachi bands played at their gatherings, and the family had quinceañeras when girls turned 15.
MŌRIAH Seeks to Heal Through Music, Blending Cultures
She celebrates her heritage through her work as an actress, producer (of music and film), recording artist, and songwriter. She’s using her art to bolster her culture, but she didn’t know it was culture growing up. MŌRIAH just thought it was ordinary life.
But she was different. A kind spirit with tan skin, curly dark hair, and almond eyes, she was bullied in school. Then she came home, turned on Country Music Television, and felt an instant connection to the songs and places depicted in the videos. They didn’t look like the concrete where she lived. The landscape and lyrics in the clips often mimicked her extended family’s lifestyle in Texas.
MŌRIAH spent every summer in El Paso, and her fondest memories are of riding in the back of her grandparents’ pickup truck with her cousins.
Her roots are in California. Mexican culture is in her blood. Tennessee – and the country community– is her home.
“It’s all just very intricately connected,” she said. “I’m doing this because there’s a cultural moment, responsibility, and opportunity to bring people together when everything else is dividing us. Music is this unique way of putting a bunch of people who are super different in the same space, having them all synchronized, saying the same thing, and singing the same thing. That’s healing.”
(Photo by Tibrina Hobson/Getty Images)
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