safari tab bar background

I have a Macbook Pro (2013/retina) with 10.15.1 Catilana installed. For some reason, the tab bar background color went from grey with black letters to black with white letters (last few days) (not in a private window). Also, I had to force quit Safari, reopen in the application section, and relocate it on the Dock in order to keep Safari from displaying the Tab Bar after going to View to hide the Tab Bar (this after going to Safari, Preferences, Tab and closing all selections (never) etc. In any case, is there a simple solution to get the Safari Tab Bar in normal operations to display a grey tone rather than a black one.

Note: Also, I noticed that by right clicking (with cursor on the bar), I could get the color to go from black to grey in the Tab Bar , but this was very time limited (went back to black almost immediately). Note: If Show Favorites selected in View, that bar is in grey, etc) Any ideas out there? Thanks.