Saturday 15th March marks a high spot in the history of UK country artists, when Kezia Gill takes to the Spotlight stage at the O2 Arena in London, as part of the C2C festival.
As Kezia said in a recent interview with Country in the UK, “it’s a big deal for me and it is a big deal for the fans of UK country music, as it’s something that people have been wanting to see.”
But it’s not always been that way.
Back in 2017, commenters on a popular online country fan forum compared a very successful UK country act to “CBeebies presenters”. The critic went on to add that their presence on the Radio 2 Stage at the Indigo was “another wasted slot that could go to a visiting act.” It was a defining moment that highlighted how unappreciated UK country artists were in some circles, and an especially misguided comment as the act in question had just (most deservedly) received the award for ‘Global Artist of the Year’ from the CMA in America!
By 2020, with forum membership in the thousands, the criticism became more intense with comments such as “I don’t pay that sort of money to see acts that play the UK regularly; that’s like paying for Netflix to watch BBC content.”
Strangely, a few weeks later, the author of one of the more negative comments enthused that “any UK act would be ready to play the main stage if given that chance.”
Four years later a pair of so-called ‘country fans’ convinced dozens of acts to pay them for services they never delivered, although the pair have since been keen to deny any wrongdoing.
These two events moved John and Morag Finch to act, and they drafted in Hannah Roper (Country on the Coast) and Geoff Meads (Tennessee Twin), who respectively put on festivals and writer’s rounds to support the UK country scene. Writer Jonny Brick (Country Way of Life / The Bridge – Country) was also brought on board.
Throughout 2024 and early 2025 the group of five incorporated the UK Country Music Association (UK-CMA) as a Community Interest Company (CIC) and worked as a board to define the aims and goals of the new organisation. The thrust of the idea was to promote and develop the UK country music scene and its artists. They developed the organisation's aims, slogans and logos, as well as a website and all the back-office operations, plus they garnered wider support from across the UK country scene. All this served to make sure the UK-CMA was equipped to deliver what the industry felt it needed.
The full stories and bios of those concerned are displayed on this very website, and we hope you will join our mission to unite, promote and develop country music in the UK. Who knows, maybe we will see a UK artist on the main stage at C2C sometime soon.
That is how the UK-CMA came to be.
