It is now 25 years since a bunch of music executives got together in Austin, Texas, and lamented on the fact that country radio was not playing the type of music they wanted to hear. And to do something about it, they formed a non-profit trade group and decided to call it the Americana Music Association!
So Americana music was born. But in those 25 years, one major issue has continued to dog the association. And it is quite plainly one of identity. What exactly is Americana music?
There was no better illustration of trying to define the genre than at the AMA’s 23rd Awards – it took them a couple of years to establish an annual show-biz event – which was held at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville on September 18. As in previous years, the AMA anointed established stars in the genre with a Lifetime Achievement Award and a profile of these artists only serves to illustrate the issue of music identity.
At one extreme was a gospel ensemble, the acclaimed Blind Boys of Alabama, first formed 85 years ago at an Alabama home for the blind and infirm. And, as the group roster evolved through the years, most of its members are or were either blind or vision impaired. While they stuck to their gospel roots over the years, the Blind Boys would find mainstream success recording and performing with such artist as Prince, Bonnie Raitt and Peter Gabriel.
And another blind gospel/blues artist, the Reverend Gary Davis, was honoured with a posthumous award.
Then at the other end of the musical genre accepting a Lifetime Achievement Award was Shelby Lynne, an artist seen as more contemporary country, with pop rock overtones.
In between these artists were three big names who could attach their achievement awards to a wide range of musical genres. There was Dwight Yoakam, essentially a country artist who helped pioneer the so-called Bakersfield Sound; legendary producer-musician Don Was, whose work with the likes of the Rolling Stones, John Mayer, Elton John and Kris Kristofferson has traversed many musical spectrum; and finally, Californian legend Dave Alvin, who, one minute might be blasting out roots rock on a loud stratocaster, the next in an acoustic duet with Americana doyen Jimmie Dale Gilmore.
And as each of these lifetime achievers was introduced at the 2024 honours by different hosts, there were constant references to the much-disputed recognition of Americana music. These jibes ranged from being labelled as “misfits” to finally finding a genre they “could call home.”
As has been the case in previous awards, the event was kicked off by lead emcees The Milk Carton Kids (Joey Ryan and Kenneth Pattengale). And Ryan soon cut to the chase:
“It was 1999, Y2K was coming and a lot of us were preparing for the end of the world (audience laughter). But not these people. These people looked to the future with a hopeful eye and said: ‘ What we all need is a small trade group for an obscure music genre with just the music that we like in it’ (more laughter).”
He went on: “And once they figured out they weren’t going to call it Alt Country or No Depression music, which were some of the options floating around at the time, they decided on Americana. And I’m happy to report 25 years later they were absolutely right. It was exactly what was needed.”
It was no surprise that the affable Texan Gilmore was chosen to present the Lifetime Achievement Award to Alvin. The pair have known each other for 30 years and have collaborated musically since 2017, releasing two widely-acclaimed albums together, the latest TexiCali, released a couple of months ago.
Gilmore has been a long-time supporter of the Americana music and in 2020 he told Crossroads that the output of his original West Texas group, The Flatlanders, proved somewhat as an inspiration for the formation of the genre as such. But on the night, the broad strands of music that Gilmore, quite rightly, associated with Alvin may have only confused the uninitiated even further.
“His love and his knowledge of American popular music seems boundless – country, blues, bluegrass, folk, jazz, gospel, rock – all of it. Dave is an American troubadour, a songwriter, a storyteller, a poet. He is also a wild blues blaster with a loud Stratocaster (laughter). He sings about America and Americans, about characters and places he knows and reveres - from “Marie Marie,” now a Cajun-zydeco standard, to his American classic “Fourth Of July.”
All bases covered in the genre stakes!
As a final gesture, Gilmore departed from the teleprompter to again add his own endorsement of Americana: “I want to go off script for one second, I want to say something. Because this award is being given to all these people, including the Blind Boy and Dave Alvin, this has elevated my feeling for the term Americana (applause).”
So what was the response from Alvin, never one to fully embrace the said name of the genre. His immediate reaction: “I’d like to thank the Americana Music Association for this amazing and very unexpected honour (laughter). But, I have to admit that I’m not quite sure what the term Americana truly means (more laughter).
“But perhaps the vagueness of the definition of Americana is a good thing (applause)? The fact that an oddball, outsider, bar-room blues guitar basher, sad-songwriter like me, who not only loves blues and rhythm and blues but folk, rockabilly country, doo-wop, psychedelic bands as well as jazz, from New Orleans to the avant-garde, can find a home in the open-minded world of Americana is an incredible thing that I treasure.”
Enough said.
It was not surprising that, on the night, an intellectual interpretation of this identity crisis would come from the very person who probably did the most to introduce Americana music itself to the musical stratosphere.
A year after the AMA was formed, producer/musician T Bone Burnett produced the soundtrack to the quirky Coen Brothers O Brother, Where Art Thou? film, starring George Clooney. There never has been – and perhaps never will be – a better album to define Americana music. It would win Best Album of the Year at the 2002 Grammy’s. And suddenly introduced a world-wide audience to alt-country – by now Americana. There would be a spinoff U.S. tour – titled Down from the Mountain – by many of the artists on the original soundtrack.
Burnett was rewarded with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the inaugural AMA Awards & Honours in 2002 and on the AMA’s 25th anniversary he fittingly returned as a special guest. His words of wisdom proved the highlight of the night.
He began: “If you want to know what is good about the United States, listen to our music (applause). It is in our music that the promise of the United States is realised. It is in our music that people from different countries, different cultures, different religions, different ethnicities, different tribes with different languages, different dreams, different experiences have come together, listened to each other and made harmony (prolonged applause).”
Burnett added: “It is in our music that the dream of our democracy, the hybridisation, often called the melting pot, achieves peace and become a reality. The extraordinary library of music of the United States, American music is by a long distance our greatest gift to the world.”
And it was left to someone who could be considered the greatest gift to Americana music to end the evening.
It is usual for the AMA Awards to wrap with the various artists returning to the stage for a joint encore. But to mark the 25th anniversary of its founding, the AMA chose to end the show with Emmylou Harris, who has done more than any other artist to promote – and perhaps define – Americana. There was no better introduction than by Margo Price who proclaimed: “If there were a founding voice or patron saint (of Americana), it would be Emmylou Harris.”
Harris waltzed onto the stage with long-time friend and collaborator Rodney Crowell to perform the Gram Parsons classic “Return of the Grievous Angel,” backed by the perennial Buddy Miller backing band.
The pair were the icing on Americana’s definition cake. Harris, like Burnett, was an inaugural Lifetime Achievement inductee, while Crowell is credited with once offering perhaps the most insightful definition of the puzzling genre when he told an AMA gathering that “Americana music was as much a musical mind-set than a simple music categorisation.”
Winners at 2024 AMA Awards & Honours:
Artist of the Year: Sierra Ferrell
Album of the Year: Trail of Flowers – Sierra Ferrell. Produced by Eddie Spears and Gary Paczosa
Song of the Year: “Dear Insecurity” – Brandy Clark (featuring Brandi Carlile). Written by Brandy Clark and Michael Pollack
Duo/Group of the Year: Larkin Poe
Emerging Act of the Year: The Red Clay Strays
Lifetime Achievement Awards: The Blind Boys of Alabama, Shelby Lynne, Don Was, Rev. Gary Davis, Dave Alvin, Dwight Yoakam
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