Mickey Guyton is an American country musician. She will sing the national anthem at Super Bowl LVI 2022.
Guyton is a black woman who sings country music. She has a warm, textured voice and her music is a mix of old school country and modern pop. After her first single “Better Than You Left Me” garnered a lot of attention in 2015, Guyton got even more attention when her song “Black Like Me” went viral following the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020.
She was also the first black woman to be nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Country Solo Performance. Guyton’s first full-length album, Remember Her Name, was released in 2021. It was the first time a black artist had been nominated for a Grammy for Best Country Album.
What’s wrong with Mickey Guyton? About her health
As of 2022, Guyton is healthy and has no illnesses.
But in the past, the country music star has said on Twitter that her nine-month-old son was in the intensive care unit where she worked. He was taken to the hospital.
Guyton wrote on Twitter that Grayson had been ill since November 11th. When his condition did not improve, he was transferred to the intensive care unit. She said the dehydration was caused by a very bad gastrointestinal virus.
Mickey said their 9-month-old son is “doing much better” and that all of his vital signs are “stable and improving.”
She added: “He’s still thirsty and weak and he’s lost weight because he can’t keep fluids in his body. However, Gray is a fighter and his lab tests show he’s on the right track.”
Meet Mickey Guyton’s parents, Phyllis Ann and Michael Eugene. Find out about their breed and family history
Guyton was the second oldest of the four children born to Michael Eugene and Phyllis Ann Roddy. Because her father was an engineer, they moved across the state. She comes from an African American family.
First, the singer-songwriter attended the public school in the area. But because some of the other families were racist, she was later transferred to a private school. Even after this move, Guyton continued to have to contend with racism. In 2020, she told NPR that her best friend’s parents often used racial slurs to talk about her.
Mickey started singing when he was young and became interested in music when he was five. She often sang in church choirs, most notably at Mount Olive Baptist Church in Arlington. She got the idea to take up singing after hearing LeAnn Rimes sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the beginning of a Texas Rangers game.
After graduating high school, the singer moved to Los Angeles, California to attend Santa Monica College and pursue a career in country music. She attended trade school and worked several minimum-wage jobs to pay her bills. She sang on several background jobs, including Nick Cannon’s film Underclassman.
She also sang on demo tapes and tried out for American Idol. Just before the live shows for the top 24 contestants, Guyton’s American Idol audition was cut. Her last singing appearance in the audition rounds saw her only briefly on television.
Grayson Clark is the son of Mickey Guyton and Grant Savoy
The singer-songwriter and Savoy wed on June 26 in a small ceremony on the beach at the Kauai Marriott Resort in Kauai, Hawaii. Her representative told PEOPLE that the message came directly from her. Guyton told People that having a luau at their wedding reception was very important to him since Savoy’s family is from Kauai.
Guyton has been married to her husband for more than ten years. Though Mickey and Grant rarely walk the red carpet together, she posts the cutest Instagram photos of her relationship with Grant and their adorable growing family.
In February 2021 they had their first child. The singer posted a cute picture of Grayson in the hospital along with a message on Instagram. In the message, she said giving birth to Grayson was “the hardest and most beautiful thing” she’s ever done.
early years
Guyton was the second oldest of the four children born to Phyllis Ann Roddy and Michael Eugene Guyton. He was born in Arlington, Texas. As a child, her family moved across the state because her father worked as an engineer. She initially attended a public school in the area, but other families in the area treated her badly because of her race, so she was transferred to a private school. Even though this happened, Guyton still faced racism. In a 2020 interview with NPR, she said her best friends’ parents would often call them racial slurs.
Guyton began singing as a child and became interested in music when he was around five years old. She often sang in church choirs, most notably at Mount Olive Baptist Church in Arlington. She wanted to be a singer after singing LeAnn Rimes’ “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the start of a Texas Rangers game. After graduating high school, she moved to Los Angeles, California to play country music professionally while attending Santa Monica College. She went to trade school and worked several minimum wage jobs to pay her bills. Some of the jobs were backing vocals, and one of them sang in Nick Cannon’s film Underclassman. She also sang on demo records and tried out for the show American Idol. [Guyton’s American Idol audition was cut just before the live shows for the top 24, and she only had a few seconds on TV during her final audition performance.
Career
2011–2015: The beginning of his career and “Better Than You Left Me”
When Guyton moved to Los Angeles, he met Julian Raymond, who made records. He told Gary Borman and Steve Moir about her because they worked in the country music business and liked the way she sang. Both men helped people like Faith Hill and Keith Urban get started in country music. She moved to Nashville, Tennessee, in 2011 after meeting Borman and Moir for the first time. Guyton joined the city’s group of people who write country music songs quickly. Guyton had a chance to sing for UMG Nashville’s chairman, Mike Dungan, the same year. She then got signed to UMG’s Capitol Records Nashville branch after singing a song by Patty Loveless. She is the only black woman in the genre who has been signed to a major label. After she signed with a record label, one of the first things she did was sing at the White House with Kris Kristofferson, Lyle Lovett, Darius Rucker, and James Taylor.
A picture of Jennifer Hanson’s head. She is a country music singer.
Jennifer Hanson was one of the people who wrote “Better Than You Left Me,” Guyton’s first single.
As Guyton developed as an artist, she was warned by people in the business that she would fail if she strayed too far from traditional country music: “Make sure your songs really sound country, or people might think you’re not being honest. Don’t make too many R&B sounds in your songs, “she told CNN about it. A country radio DJ asked her to write songs about “fluffy” and “happy” things. Guyton started having trouble sleeping and drinking because of the stress and worry he felt because of these things. Because of these problems and the fact that it was hard for her to find her place at Capitol Records, she had to wait a few years before putting out new music. Gruyton’s first extended play (EP), an acoustic album called Unbreakable, came out in 2014 on Capitol Nashville. The EP got to number 14 on the Billboard Top Heatseekers list after it came out.
“Better Than You Left Me” was Guyton’s first single, which Capitol put out in 2015. Jennifer Hanson, Jen Schott, and Nathan Chapman, who co-produced the song with Dann Huff, wrote the song with Guyton. In the first week after the song came out, 79 ads were added to radio playlists, which had never been done before. [18] The Guardian spoke about how quickly the song hit the charts, largely because Guyton is a black woman in a genre where white men are more prevalent. The song peaked at number 34 on the Billboard Country Airplay chart by July 2015. In Canada’s Billboard Country charts, he reached the same top spot. Guyton says the song didn’t do well on the charts because radio programmers said “they didn’t want to play two slow female songs at the same time”. In May 2015, Capitol released Guyton’s self-titled second EP, which had the minor hit. By August, the EP had peaked at number 17 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart. Queens of Country awarded the project four stars, praising Guyton’s singing and the way she blended different genres of music. In the summer of 2015, Guyton also took part in Brad Paisley’s Crushin’ It World Tour.
From 2016: Changes in music and “Black Like Me”
At the 51st Academy of Country Music Awards in 2016, Guyton competed for the award for new singer of the year. Her next single “Heartbreak Song” was released in the same year. The song peaked at number 45 on the country airplay chart. She continued to release singles on Capitol, such as “Hold On,” “Sister,” and a cover of Patsy Cline’s “Crazy.” Emily Yahr, writing on Entertainment, said Guyton’s 2016-19 albums had “heavily produced” arrangements that seemed to go nowhere musically. Those singles didn’t sell very well either. Guyton says she wasn’t just following her own musical instincts. She told the Washington Post in 2020, “I’ve tried so hard to fit the country music stereotype, I’ve forgotten why I fell in love with it.” Instead, she began to move away from what considered safe for country artists. “I’ve been doing Nashville the Nashville way for so long, and I’d seen so many women doing Nashville the Nashville way with very little results,” she said.
In 2019, Guyton chose to write music that reflects more of what it’s like to be a black woman going through hard times. In early 2020, she released a single entitled “What Are You Gonna Tell Her” written during those sessions. During this time she also wrote the song “Black Like Me”. The song, based on the book of the same name, told of Guyton’s experiences with racism. Most commercial country radio stations didn’t play the song often, but it did garner a lot of attention on social media and streaming services. Spotify put “Black Like Me” on their “Hot Country Playlist”. The track was also noticed by critics. CNN’s John Blake said it was “a three-and-a-half-minute song that turned country music’s good old patriotism on its head and made people look at things from a different angle.” NPR’s Jewly Hight liked how Guyton blended country, gospel and pop styles in his singing. The song has since been nominated for the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards for Best Country Solo Performance. Guyton was the first black woman ever to be nominated for a Grammy in the country music category.