Rejoice you motley ranks of roots music aficionados, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences at its annual spring meeting added a new category to the growing roots music field, Best American Roots Music Performance.
So with a tile like that I have to ask, what is it?
The GRAMMY site states matter-of-factly that the category was added but gives no insight to how it’s distinct this new category from Best American Roots Music Song or Best Americana Album.
So let’s take a look at the the already existing Best Metal Performance or Best Rock Performance categories
Best Rock Performance doesn’t provide music. It was basically an exercise in consolidation of 3 categories – Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance, Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal and Best Rock Instrumental Performance because “any distinction between these performances is difficult to make.†Fair enough, but no insight to our task.
Best Metal Performance is a little clearer. It is awarded “..for works (songs or albums) containing quality performances in the heavy metal music genre.†It, along with
Best Hard Rock Performance, was created as a separate distinct categories from the original Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance. this original category resulted in the famous Jethro Tull/Metallica fiasco of 1989.
So there you have it. Best American Roots Music Performance celebrates just that, quality performances. Of course that is ambiguous enough to lead to years of grumbling about which Best American Roots Music Performance was better then another Best American Roots Music Performance.
I say let’s just give it to Chris Thile for the first few year until things settle out.
“Take Me Home” is the second track from Memphis-native and member of The Trishas Kelley Mickwee upcoming solo effort “You Used to Live Here” (July 22nd)
A softly sweeping acoustic ramble that accounts and pieces together memories of love, laughing and pining for where you began.
I guess you can go back home, and Mickwee’s lovely song makes it even more enticing to do so.
“Take Me Home” was co-written with Phoebe Hunt and features Eric Lewis on pedal steel.
That deafening roar heard from the Heart of Texas Saturday night was not a natural disaster. It was a fitting send-off for the reigning king of country music George Strait.
The last show of the two-year, cross-country Cowboy Rides Away adios tour for te fans featured a custom revolving stage set center field only used twice before, in Houston and San Antonio. The stage was dwarfed by the world’s largest high-definition LED video display looming above it.
The sound was as good as to be expected for being played at the bottom of a cavern. Lots of echoes and bouncing around.
That said, Texas legends Asleep at the Wheel was in fine form as they opened the show with a heavy dose of their inspiration and the King of Western Swing, Bob Wills.
Then it was time.
104,793 rapturous fans help set a new record for largest indoor concert in North America, putting to bed the popular myth that country music can’t have an ear to tradition and still sell tickets.
All made their voices heard as Asleep at the Wheel’s Ray Benson, like a contemporary vaudeville barker, lent his signature baritone to a lengthy list of the awards and accolades collected by Strait over his career.
None of those rewards resulted as airs as the pride of Poteet, TX (due south of San Antonio) moseyed onto the stage spotlight, blue-checked Western shirt, jeans, boots, trademark black hat and shining that warming 1000 kilowatt smile.
If Strait was daunted by the outpouring of deafening admiration it didn’t show. Appreciation certainly. After all, he was surrounded by friends.
And that what you feel like at a George Strait show. He makes you feel comfortable, right at home, take a seat. Like he’s performing right for you. Right from the opener , the 1995 classic “Check Yes or No,†you settle in and enjoy the ride.
And what a ride. Over three hours and nine guest appearances, including his son and recent song co-writer George Jr., aka Bubba. Strait treated the crowd to songs from his entire 30 plus year career. From his first 1981 hit single “Unwound†to “That’s What Breaking Hearts Do†from hi saltiest ‘Love is Everything†there was something from every era and for everyone.
Current chart toppers Jason Aldean, Eric Church and Miranda Lambert and Strait’s contemporaries Martina McBride, Alan Jackson and Vince Gill all took turns supporting Strait on his signature honky-tonk classics.
All displayed proper reverence to their host and mentor but still were able to supply unique dimensions, without showboating, to the songs.
Backed by his excellently seasoned Ace In The Hole Band, there was no stage gymnastics. No fist-pumping theatrics were needed to amp the crowd. Just a wave, a shake of the head and an occasional arm raise. Oh, and that smile.
How does a 62-year-old performer that can no longer crack hit radio format of mainstream country radio sell thousands of tickets and piles of merch? How did he garner 5 entertainer of the year awards and win a 2009 Grammy for best country album for 2009’s Troubadour while never adhering to Music Row’s rules? Rules having just been celebrated in Nashville at the CMA Awards?
By staying true to himself and his craft. If you were a Strait fan in the 80’s odds are you’re still a fan. He’s been loyal to his their expectations and those expectations play to his strengths. He’s made a career out of being who he is and dancing with those that brung him.
Like a premier pitcher, or since we’re in AT&T Stadium a premier quarterback (sorry Romo), Strait makes each nailed effort look effortless. A man, a guitar and simple stories reflecting life without breaking a sweat. And we all relate and we trust without irony or cynicism. We trust the messenger.
The realness of Strait cannot be overemphasized. He appears to become what he sings. World-weary or heartbroke. Sanguine and with a rascal spirit.
Though the vast majority of his songs are written by other people he is a master interpreter of other people’s work. His realness makes you believe.
Whether this is starts actual last show remains to be seen. Strait hasn’t said there won’t be any more concerts, just that he’s quitting touring. Odds are he’ll play the occasional gig in the Lone Star state. He’ll probably return to AT&T Stadium in April 2015 for the 50th anniversary Academy of Country Music Awards. That would be just. As far as music events AT&T Stadium is from now on Strait’s house.
Though not exactly a cowboy’s swan song it was one hell of close to a chapter of one of country music’s greats.
Check Yes or No
A Fire I Can’t Put Out
Lovebug (George Jones cover) (with Vince Gill)
Does Fort Worth Ever Cross Your Mind (with Vince Gill)
River of Love
Lead On
Fool Hearted Memory (with Jason Aldean)
Nobody In His Right Mind Would’ve Left Her (with Jason Aldean)
Arkansas Dave (with Bubba Strait)
I Saw God Today
Cowboys Like Us
(with Eric Church)
Easy Come, Easy Go (with Eric Church)
That’s What Breaking Hearts Do
Marina Del Rey
Here for a Good Time (with Sheryl Crow)
When Did You Stop Loving Me (with Sheryl Crow)
I Can Still Make Cheyenne
Drinkin’ Man
Jackson (Billy Edd Wheeler cover with Martina McBride)
Golden Ring (George Jones & Tammy Wynette cover with Martina McBride)
Give It Away
I Got a Car
A Showman’s Life
(with Faith Hill)
Let’s Fall to Pieces Together
(with Faith Hill)
I Believe
Blame It On Mexico
Amarillo By Morning (with Alan Jackson)
Murder on Music Row (with Alan Jackson)
The Chair
Give It All We Got Tonight
How ‘Bout Them Cowgirls (with Miranda Lambert)
Run (with Miranda Lambert)
You Look So Good in Love
I’ll Always Remember You
Ocean Front Property (with Kenny Chesney)
The Fireman (with Kenny Chesney)
Troubadour
Unwound
Encore:
All My Ex’s Live in Texas (with Gill, Aldean, Church, Crow, McBride, Hill, Jackson, Lambert, Chesney, and Ray Benson of AATW)
Folsom Prison Blues (Johnny Cash cover) (with Gill, Aldean, Church, Crow, McBride, Hill, Jackson, Lambert, Chesney, and Ray Benson of AATW)
The Cowboy Rides Away
When Bryan Simspon walked away from the new-grass quintet Cadillac Sky in 2010, writing that “The vision for my life post C-Sky is still coming together†few could imagine that he meant this.
The fruit of his vision is the newly released The Whistles & The Bells. ‘Skeletons’ is a twitchy dark gem that menaces with ripping guitars and slithers with scattered banjo to build into a sound that owes much to the garage and southern varieties of rock. It’s quite the dark boot-stomper.
The stop-motion video, directed by Joe Baughman, is an excellent accompaniment to running down things that get out and just won’t stay hidden no matter your puny efforts.
Pick up the The Whistles & The Bells self-titled release here)
Elizabeth Cook appeared on the Americana-friendly David Letterman Show last night to perform a song requested by Letterman himself. The song was a stirring, bluegrass-tinged version of the Velvet Underground classic “Pale Blue Eyes.” She premiered the song live on the Grand Old Opry last month.
Cook is quite the VU fan having covered the pivotal band on her “Balls” (“Sunday Morning”) and Gospel Plaw (Jesus) releases.
It’s been a while since we’ve heard from roots chanteuse Lera Lynn, but it’s been worth the wait.
This video for the title cut from her new ‘Lying In The Sun’ EP is set in a moody residence brandishing an acoustic guitar. monogrammed tooled leather strap and semi-retro dress and hair. she stands alone as the band is filmed playing part until the room fills. All the while Lynn delivers the song directly to us.
The song is a moody work flecked with shimmering harmony and guitar much like the light pouring through the window drapes. This song both yearns and burns.
The video was Directed by Bill Filipak with Stephen Shiveley as director of photography.
Attention all Outlaw Country fans. I mean the REAL deal type.
On August 5 the legendary Billy Joe Shaver will release Long in the Tooth on Lightning Rod Records. The album will be release just before his 75th birthday on August 16. Of the album Shaver says it’s “the best album I’ve ever done.â€
“Each song is different with different beats and different kinds of music,†he says. “I even have one rap song. The titles are all so catchy like ‘It’s Hard to Be an Outlaw’ and ‘The Git Go.’ Those are pretty hard to beat. Songwriting is gut wrenching, but if you dig down and write real honest you’ll find something real great. I believe everybody should write. It’s the cheapest psychiatrist there is and, God knows, I still need one.â€
“I’ve written a lot of great songs and I’m still writing great songs, but I felt neglected. I have been, actually. The reluctance to play old people’s music is as bad as it was to play young people’s music. I think it should level out where everyone can hear good art, but it seems like radio doesn’t play older people’s music. Man, it’s like throwing out the Mona Lisa. I don’t understand, but I’m just so proud of Long in the Tooth. This record will be a gigantic step.â€
As lauded a songwriter as Shaver is, he needed some convincing by none other than Todd Snider into making Long in the Tooth. “I didn’t think I had another hope in the world of doing another studio album,†Shaver says. “Then Todd Snider encouraged me to come up to Nashville and I listened. I knew if I didn’t come out with new songs, it wouldn’t be right. I’ve promised hundreds of critics that I would. So, I just buckled down and got the new songs together. Sure enough, it turned out great.â€
I’ve seen Shaver live a few times over the past few years and I’m here to tell you he’s lost none of his fire and wit.
Long in the Tooth. is produced by Ray Kennedy and Gary Nicholson, and features appearances by WIllie Nelson, Leon Russell, Tony Joe White, Shawn Camp, Jedd Hughes, Joel Guzman and others.
Rolling Stone premiered the Billy Joe Shaver and Willie Nelson duet, “Hard to Be an Outlaw” (hear it below) The song is both a nostalgic lament and a swipe at Music Row pop-country. “Some superstars now days get too far off the ground, They sing about the back roads that they’ve never even been down. They go and call it country but that’s not how it sounds. It’s enough to make renegade want to terrorize the town.”
It’s not much of a stretch to imagine the town these texans imagine terrorizing would be Nashville.
Has anyone reached the heights of entertainer as completely as Dolly Parton. Her beginnings as the platinum buxom female talent on the Porter Wagoner show to an international superstar, actress and entertainment entrepreneur Parton is still releasing music and doing loads of media and touring behind it.
Her latest, Blue Smoke is her 42nd studio album. the release doesn’t play it safe. Besides great new cuts are duet with Kenny Rogers and Willie Nelson as well as covers of Bob Dylan (!) and Bon Jovi (!!)
In celebration of this great performer here are some of her most memorable songs from her extraordinary career.
The Americana Music Conference and Festival offers many familiar names. But it’s not often that the name is a star from the Music Row side of the tracks.
In 2012 Lee Ann Womack was there in the thick of it. The multi-Grammy and CMA Award winner shared the stage with Tom T Hall and Peter Cooper to perform “I Love” at the Americana Music Awards. She also shared the Cannery stage with Buddy Miller to do a fantastic all request show.
It takes a lot of confidence to move from the glitter of the spotlight to the more song-centric world of Americana and win over that audience. Womack did it with ease.
On September 23rd Lee Ann Womack will further establish herself in the Americana world by releasing Way I’m Livin.’ The album is not only on the premier roots music Sugar Hill Records label (Marty Stuart, Sarah Jarosz,) it will feature interpretations of stellar artists like Chris Knight, Mindy Smith, Mando Saenz, Hayes Carll, Neil Young, Bruce Robeson, Roger Miller and the aforementioned Buddy Miller.
Womack appears to be doubling down on this new chapter in her life. And she’s done so keeping very fine songwriting company. But I’m certain she’ll ride no one’s coattails.
“I wanted songs that talked about how life really is, the raw spots, the tough places, the meltdowns and messy parts,†“Hard, sad, rough… all the stuff people pretend doesn’t exist! Because once you embrace that, you can figure out what to do; or not do!â€
“And knowing these songs were written to be performed, not pitched, sets a bar! Every songwriter wrote intending to sing’em, to tell these stories, show these postcards, and you can feel the way they built the characters! Bringing that to music was just so incredible for everyone on the sessions.â€
The record will be produced by Lee Ann’s husband, Frank Liddell (Miranda Lambert, David Nail) Womack’s last album, Call Me Crazy, came out in 2008, resulting in one top 20 country single Last Call.
In the piece Eric R. Danton takes stock of the current crop of Americana Music Award nominees and concludes that they “…skew largely folky, and largely white, with few artists of color among the awards contenders..”
The WSJ is hardly a bastion of political correctness, but there it is. The conclusion drawn from both of these articles is plain to see. Americana is a hotbed of bigotry and should be ashamed.
There appears to be a trend to cast Americana as a bastion of white (presumably straight) males. Much of the stereotypes typically reserved for Music Row guards like Toby Keith appears to be blowing back on it’s rootier cousin.
I’ve been covering this music for almost 8 years and been to over 100 Americana and roots music concerts and festivals. i’ve also been to 6 Americana Conference and Festivals, where the Americana Awards are presented. I see the artists appearing at concerts, festivals and accepting those awards I am also see the many emerging artists that contact me hoping to join those ranks of working musicians.
Males outnumber female performers and yes, there are more white folks than people of color. So what? Is the conclusion that there’s some Americana gatekeeper keeping woman and people of color out of the field? The lazy answer is that they are being kept out, right? Where’s the outrage? Where’s the Americana occupation?
Or perhaps the answer of more pedestrian, there are fewer women and people of color in Americana because they don’t want to be there. Just as hip-hop has few white men and women and pop music has fewer men some music styles appeal to segments of society. This isn’t societal bigotry, it’s diversity in taste.
And with diversity there is the freedom for some to choose another direction.
I have been a past of the community and a tireless advocate for a long time. I’ve met hundreds of fans, musicians and industry folks that love and advocate for this great music. And save for the occasional GRAMMY-nominee (right Linda Chorney?) there is less racial, gender or sexual bias than any other genre (except for perhaps EDM.)
There is, however, a bias in musicianship. The music draws from folk and county, as well as blues, tejano and zydeco, from the expanse of this country. Other genres have emerged to allow a rich market of styles that appeal to people that self-identify.
But if more blacks self-identify with hip-hop or women self-identify with pop, no one sounds the alarm of racism or gender bias on those genres. It’s just seen as the way of progress and choice.
So a casual survey of Americana might lead you to believe it’s chock full of white boys So what? Is their choice less worthy? More suspect? If there’s something about the music that allows males of the caucasian variety to self-identify with it who’s hurt?
Of course America is not lily white. It’s an open community that draws from our rich cultural past, all of it, while forging a future of brave creativity.
Drawing bias from preferences debases the instances of actual bias that corrodes our world. Painting those of a any group – black, brown, gay or, yes, even white, as racist or sexist because of a gravitation toward cultural definition is bigotry cloaked in righteousness.
Of course in America everyone is entitled to their opinion, no matter how misguided. But I am a member of a great and compassionate community and i take this as a personal affront. I know these fans, I know these musicians.
In practicality, “There is no such thing as bad publicity” the phrase most often attributed to that master of self-promotion, Phineas T. Barnum, applies here. If Americana and roots music wasn’t thriving and growing in influence it wouldn’t be a target for this nonsense. So there’s that.
But personally I believe that those that dare condemn the genre, and by extension the people, can stick their kinder and gentler bigotry where the sun don’t shine.
EDIT: A few days have passed and after some back and forth on the topic I’ve come to realize that the bias against Americana is an extension of a bias of the souther. Sure the contemporary variety of the music comes from all over the world but the form it takes distinctively southern and American (sorry Billy Bragg.)
The style is not only suspect regionally. it’s also so historically. much of Americana draws from the styles from the Antebellum to the early 20th century. We can agree that these were a cultural dark ages past the Mason-Dixon. But it also provided a fertile for folk, country, the blues, jazz, bluegrass, rock and, yes, Americana.
But some folks can’t appreciate a regional style without saddling it with cultural bigotry.
This is the stuff of the culture war that’s been waged since since the signing of the The Civil Rights in 1964. It’s a shame that politicians fan those flames for their own professional gain. But when it’s done against innocent people trying to enjoy some beauty in this rough world, well, there’s just no reason than hate and ignorance.
is her 42nd studio album. the release doesn’t play it safe. Besides great new cuts are duet with Kenny Rogers and Willie Nelson as well as covers of Bob Dylan (!) and Bon Jovi (!!) 
