-- from Nashville SCENE: Americana Dream A genre attempts to carve out an identity while recruiting a wider—and younger—audience by Jewly Hight This isn’t the first time the Avett Brothers have showcased during Nashville’s annual Americana Music Festival and Conference, but it’s the first time they’ve led in AMA award nominations. They’re up for three, the same number as Lucinda Williams and Patty Griffin. But though the Concord, N.C., trio appreciate the accolades and attention, they’re not entirely convinced that the freewheeling thing they do with acoustic guitar, banjo, upright bass and a fractional drum kit is truly Americana. But they’re not losing much sleep over it. “We don’t feel like we’re traditional music at all,†says bassist Bob Crawford, the only one of the three who’s not in the Avett bloodline. “Definitely when people say ‘traditional music’ or ‘old country’ or ‘bluegrass’ it’s not an insult, but living it every day, we don’t see it. We’re a rock ’n’ roll band—pretty pure and simple about that. I could even go, ‘Americana awards—what do they want with us?’ But, hey, if it’s touching the people that are in that genre and people are connecting to it….†As genres go, Americana is a bit of an odd bird. There’s certainly no spot in the larger musical landscape that’s immune to debates over styles and categories, since marketing departments, journalists, fans and acts rarely share a synchronized perspective. But Americana may be the only genre that preaches to the choir. It evangelizes listeners who’ve already tasted its fruits without recognizing them as such (say, Bonnaroo attendees digging a live set by Old Crow Medicine Show)—and members of other “sectsâ€â€”recruiting otherwise categorized performers who might be a good fit for Americana. “That’s a huge demographic out there that’s listening to this kind of music and a lot of them don’t know what it’s called,†says Jed Hilly, who’s in his seventh month as executive director of the AMA. “And that’s my job to make that argument.†On one hand, Americana seems to be an issue of semantics. But it’s also a circling of the wagons that could help bring about what almost any artist, industry person or fan would want—a widening, loyal, appreciative audience and a concentration of quality music. As much as it draws on musical traditions, Americana is still a young genre. By the early ’90s, a group of rough-edged rock, country and singer-songwriter acts were identified as the antithesis of mainstream country music, earning the moniker “alternative†country. No Depression started covering the scene in 1995, the same year the Gavin Americana Chart began gauging its modest radio successes. Just before the ’90s drew to a close, a group of 30 people put their heads together at the South by Southwest Music Festival and decided to form the AMA—a nonprofit trade organization whose membership currently numbers around 1,400—and to set up shop in Nashville. Just last year, the genre received a nod from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, which redubbed the “Best Contemporary Folk Album†Grammy category “Best Contemporary Folk/Americana.†“Alt-country†may seem like an ambitious term with its “realer-than-thou†stance toward mainstream country, but “Americana†sets the bar even higher, appealing to an intrinsically American essence. It’s hard to do justice to that kind of broad ideal once commercial considerations come into play. In theory, Americana embraces country (traditional, progressive or irreverent varieties), roots-rock, bluegrass, folk and singer-songwriters, along with rootsier R&B, blues, soul, gospel, Cajun and Tex-Mex styles. But in some ways the functional boundaries of the genre haven’t necessarily expanded all that much since “alt-country†was the more widely used term. That’s a worry for some, such as Grimey’s New and Preloved Music co-owner and AMA board member Doyle Davis, known as “D-Funk†when he spins rare soul and funk cuts on his weekly WRVU radio show. “I would like [Americana] to not be perceived as some sort of subsidiary of country music. The stuff that’s too country for contemporary mainstream country is now Americana, or, if it’s too creative or doesn’t follow the basic formula and can’t find a home in the mainstream country world, then it defaults to Americana,†he says during a brief Saturday afternoon lull at the record store. “I just think those things don’t really do anything for the genre. And it’s a very potent genre.†But there’s also the realization that Americana’s openness to independent artists presents the 75 officially reporting Americana radio stations—none of which, incidentally, are in Nashville—with selection quandaries. “I don’t think it’s some kind of conscious effort to block artists out,†says Radio & Records Americana chart editor John Schoenberger. “Americana stations have a lot of specialty shows, which they do over the weekends or later in the evenings, that might focus more on gospel or bluegrass or blues or even some R&B. Some of it occasionally will break out into more regular rotation, but a lot of it is more focused in on those specialty shows.†“It’s not so much that they couldn’t play it,†he adds. “There is just a ton of shit out there that they could play already. When you throw in all those independent artists along with what is released by the labels, there is a boatload of music to choose from every week to put on the air.†What tends to rise to the top is songwriting rife with nuanced lyrics and intricate, original storytelling. Music that’s heavy on emotion but lacking in fresh lyrics often lingers on the margins. “I think a lot of it comes back to how much Americana tends to favor lyricists, how much it’s about the words,†says Davis. “Acts that are much more visceral or really make an impact through their music—the lyrics can sometimes be an afterthought, or they could be goofy or nonlinear—maybe [don’t] get as much respect as [they] should.†That might be one reason why R&B, soul and blues—or even rockabilly—often get less emphasis. Veteran Detroit soul singer Bettye LaVette—like her soul music peers—doesn’t generally write her own songs. But her latest album, Scene of the Crime, is in the Americana Top 40, and that probably has something to do with the fact that her spurting, flaring rasp is backed by the Drive-By Truckers’ Southern rock fuzz. African American blues, R&B and gospel acts like Ruthie Foster, Precious Bryant, Solomon Burke and the Lee Boys have performed at the AMA festival and conference in the past, but only in relatively small numbers. This year there’s Otis Taylor, who—despite his frequent billing as a blues performer—might be more accurately described as a politically inflected, banjo-playing singer-songwriter. That’s not to say that deep-seated feeling is absent from plenty of Americana mainstays. Buddy Miller traffics in earthy, warm-blooded keening and guttural guitar figures, and Lucinda Williams’ raw, cracked-open vocals consistently strike deep. The current popularity of acts like Old Crow, the Avetts, the Hackensaw Boys, Chatham County Line and the Red Stick Ramblers—each with their own take on something like a raucous rock-and-string-band mash-up—has brought energy and the all-consuming musical experience front and center. On last year’s Big Iron World, Old Crow Medicine Show loped and barreled through 12 tracks with a devil-may-care grin and a wink. The Avett Brothers’ Emotionalism covers a wider range of sounds and feels, from the earnest Weezer-esque hooks of “Die Die Die†to the barre-chorded banjo and ’60s pop tinges of “Will You Return?â€â€”none of them overly polished. Acts like this—not to mention Gillian Welch and David Rawlings—appeal to a slightly younger crowd than Americana typically draws, a point not lost on Davis, who’d like to see more left-of-center indie folk acts brought within the fold. “From my perspective at the independent record store, one of the absolutely hottest trends going in indie music is singer-songwriters,†he says. “I mean look at Sufjan Stevens and Iron and Wine, and even outsiders like Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom. There’s certainly nothing remotely twangy about those people. I think if you sat somebody down and put the blindfold on them and played them an Iron and Wine record and asked them to name the genre, they’d be just as likely to say Americana as anything else.†“There’s definitely a proactive element within the AMA organization to branch out and welcome more new and younger fans into the folds,†he notes. “There is a perception that our conference is a lot of the usual suspects every year, and there are people trying to work to change that. But it’s tough. You do your submissions and, yeah, the same people that submit [showcase applications] every year submit again.†Davis’ own indie-folk overtures haven’t met with much success so far. “It’s been pretty discouraging trying to reach out to some of these artists to be a part of our events or to be on our sampler CDs,†he says. “I was on the committee that did [This Is] Americana II. Other than Clem Snide and a couple of others, almost everybody I approached in the worlds of Sub Pop and Matador and the like pretty much just said, ‘No thanks.’ †Still, Davis takes heart in the fact that Jenny Lewis and Neko Case have gotten spins on Americana radio. Visions for growth aside, this year’s pool of prominent Americana releases and AMA award nominees already spans three generations. If anything, ageism is inverted in the genre. Acts that were popular in mainstream country and rock decades ago aren’t relegated to state fairs and best-of retrospectives as they might otherwise be today. Charlie Louvin, Porter Wagoner and Levon Helm—who each have new albums out—are all cases in point. Waggoner recently graced the cover of No Depression, and Helm’s Ramble at the Ryman—with Sheryl Crow, John Hiatt and Emmylou Harris among the musical guests—was a high point of the AMA’s year. “We’re not just giving lip service,†Hilly says, sitting in the AMA’s unassuming offices in Berry Hill. “We’re honoring Willie Nelson and we’re listening to Willie Nelson.†Sonically, there’s a bit of a generation gap between marquee female Americana singer-songwriters such as Williams, Griffin and Mary Gauthier, and a rising crop of female acts such as Elizabeth Cook, Sunny Sweeney and Amy LaVere, all three of whom are up for an AMA award. Cook’s and Sweeney’s albums—Balls and Heartbreaker’s Hall of Fame—are steeped in traditional country, with Cook favoring fiddle and close harmonies to Sweeney’s Texas imagery and prominent steel guitar. LaVere’s Anchors and Anvils is closer to a torchy Bohemian-jazz-and-country amalgam, with LaVere ably handling standup bass. All three sing with girlish, deceptively demure voices, but turn feisty on occasion. Cook’s tough-talking honky-tonk anthem “Sometimes It Takes Balls to Be a Woman†and LaVere’s coy, slinky murder ballad “Killing Him†are good examples. On Williams’ latest, West, her voice sounds more seasoned, but no less raw. Children Running Through shows Griffin newly uncorking the power of her voice. The prickly sinister edge doesn’t completely fall away from Gauthier’s warm, whiskeyed drawl on during Between Daylight and Dark, even during the album’s many quieter moments. Beyond robust singing, both Williams and Steve Earle—the latter another core act who currently sits atop the Americana chart—are working from more experimental, less tradition-bound sonic palettes on their latest recordings. Washington Square Serenade is Earle’s “I’m shaking the dust off my feet and moving to New York City†album, with electronic drum loops here, tribal-sounding percussion there and everywhere romantic revelry in his new home. For older and newer acts alike, the appeal of Americana is intertwined with notions of authenticity. There’s room made for longevity—hell, longevity’s even expected—and a premium placed on original voices, believable songwriting and immediacy over perfection. “I don’t think that anything in Americana would be overly produced,†says Jim Lauderdale, a bluegrass- and country-straddling singer-songwriter and several-time AMA award winner and show host. “There’s a lot of innovative stuff being made, but at the same time, it’s not like a trend or a short-lived musical style that is due to any type of production or beat or groove or instrumental lineup that might only last for a few years.†Then there’s the independent ethic, the notion of an artist following a self-determined path insulated from commercial concerns. “There’s always been this sense that if you get too commercial, you’re selling out—you’re no longer soulful, you’re no longer being true to yourself,†says Yuval Taylor, co-author of Faking It: The Quest for Authenticity in Popular Music. “If you’re making your own decisions and releasing your own records, obviously you have more control over them, and therefore there’s more personal authenticity going into it than if you’ve got this huge staff and your songs are being co-written by the Matrix. It makes a lot of sense that people who are taking alternative routes would think of themselves as more authentic.†Most importantly, Americana music stakes it claim to authenticity by leaving its roots exposed, by explicitly tapping into musical traditions that developed in various regions of the United States. It’s ironic that something so intrinsically American would be such a popular export to Europe and Canada. The music’s international appeal isn’t easy to explain. “I sit there and do my radio show and I’m playing some Tom Russell track about the Rio Grande—I’m sitting on a fifth floor of a big building in Brighton with absolutely no connection whatsoever with the plains or traveling,†says Del Day, a publicist, music writer for Americana-UK.com and roots country radio show host. “In all honesty, I really don’t know what it is about it. The U.K. has always been fascinated with American culture. “I’d much rather put on a Richmond Fontaine album than I would put on a key British band like The Streets,†he continues. “For some reason, I just don’t seem to be able to connect to it. I went to Austin a few years back and was in the Continental [Club] watching Mojo Nixon and it all just kind of fell into place for me—a cold beer and the barbeque out back and Mojo playing a few tunes. And I just thought, ‘Yeah, this is it, really. Maybe I’m living in the wrong place.’ †Jed Hilly and AMA director of operations Danna Strong—the organization’s only full-time staffers—and a small army of volunteer committees planned their eighth annual festival and conference with more in mind than just filling 60 showcase slots. Several of the events suggest a clarification of the genre’s priorities and identity. It’s Americana as educational (with Janet Reno on hand to discuss her three-disc musical American history lesson, Song of America, and the Champions of R&B showcase highlighting vintage R&B performers that recorded for a Nashville-based label decades back), Americana as conscientious (singer-songwriter/agricultural activist Adrienne Young is spearheading a two-day green panel), and Americana as well-connected (the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Country Music Hall of Fame are co-sponsoring public interviews with Lyle Lovett and Emmylou Harris). In addition to generic categories present at any music awards show—album of the year, artist of the year, etc.—the AMA gives the “Spirit of Americana†Free Speech Award. After all, what could be more American than the First Amendment? “To me, the [Freed Speech Award] is the ultimate Americana award,†Hilly says. “We’re the only [music organization] who does something like that.†The award’s first few recipients—Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, Steve Earle and Judy Collins—brought little eyebrow-raising in the politically open climate of Americana. But when Charlie Daniels—responsible for songs like “Simple Man†and a pull-no-punches indictment of Iraq war protesters titled “An Open Letter to the Hollywood Bunchâ€â€”got the “Spirit of Americana†award last year on the same night that James McMurtry’s barbed political epic “We Can’t Make It Here†was named Song of the Year, there could be little doubt that the AMA meant freedom of all kinds of speech. Mavis Staples—whose new protest album, We’ll Never Turn Back, drives home her longtime commitment to civil rights activism—will be this year’s “Spirit of Americana†recipient. In its current incarnation, Americana music is home not only to distinctive core acts with proven music-making abilities, but also to a heap of paradoxes and varying visions that can make who or what else belongs less than clear. “You can’t be everything to everybody or you become nothing,†Hilly says. “But [Americana] is a welcoming genre of music in a different sense. You can make, I believe, an argument that this genre of music is accepting. What is roots music? It’s an amalgam of African field music that meets Gaelic whatever and comes into this new form that becomes more contemporary with each layer that’s added on.†But the tensions between rootedness and expansion—between trying to articulate a coherent identity and adopting a “you’ll know it when you hear it†approach—can be productive. And music fans themselves can do some connecting of the dots. Says Doyle Davis, “I mean, if you love Neil Young, you’re probably going to get into My Morning Jacket if you’re exposed to them.†http://www.nashvillescene.com/Stories/Cover_Story/2007/10/25/Americana_Dream/
