This is a banner year for the wide-armed “Americana” music brand. An Americana category has been added to the Grammy Awards, Elvis Costello followed the duo of Allison Krauss and Robert Plant into the loosely defined genre with his Secret, Profane and Sugarcane, and Billboard published the debut Americana sales chart as part of its first supplement devoted to the category.
So this year’s 10th annual Americana Music Association Festival and Conference in Music City, sponsored by the Gibson Foundation, was more than a music biz confab. It was also a celebration of Americana’s wider recognition by the world at large.
The festival brought more than a thousand artists and various music biz types together plus a plethora of fans who bought wristbands to attend the club-hopper’s dream array of shows that occurred during the event’s four-night run. But the celebration unofficially began the evening before the fest’s September 16 start with a special concert by Rosanne Cash previewing songs from her new CD The List. The album plucks its set from a list of songs her father Johnny Cash gave her to learn when she was a teen. For the show, held at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, Cash was backed by a five-piece group led by her producer/arranger/guitarist and husband John Leventhal.
The next musical highlight was an unannounced concert by John Fogerty on the festival’s first night at the 500-capacity Mercy Lounge. Although he was expected to play less than an hour’s set dominated by tunes from his new Blue Ridge Rangers album, Fogerty revisited his Creedence Clearwater Revival catalog as well. For nearly two hours he peppered his performance with the classics “Lodi,” “Fortunate Son,” “Who’ll Stop the Rain,” “Green River” (with a Les Paul Gold Top reissue with P-90s strapped across his chest), “Proud Mary,” and more.
But the apex of the festival was the 8th Annual Americana Music Association Honors & Awards show, where Fogerty, the year’s top award winner songwriter-guitarist Buddy Miller (who swept the “Artist,” “Album,” “Duo/Group”, and “Song” of the year categories), Justin Townes Earle (“New and Emerging Artist”), the Bellville Outfit, the Flatlanders, Asleep at the Wheel, Rodney Crowell, John Prine, Nanci Griffith, and others performed. The nearly four-hour spectacle — hosted by Grammy winner Jim Lauderdale — ended with an all-star jam on Little Feat’s “Dixie Chicken” in tribute to the group’s late guitarist Lowell George, who was honored with this year’s President’s Award for pioneering contributions to Americana.