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Setting aside the matter of base economic survival as touring artists, venues and booking agencies struggle through the Covid crisis, the most pressing story in roots music these days feels to me like the investigation of structural racism in country, bluegrass and Americana. My cringy joke for years about bluegrass/Americana has been that it has a very diverse audience – all kinds of white people. I repeat that here only because it’s gotten bigger laughs than I thought it would over the years, perhaps because we’re all conflicted (and vaguely complicit) and we know it. I’ve long noticed the dissonance. American popular music, a commercial and cultural colossus, was built on a foundation of the blues and the creativity of African Americans. Yet the genres that became the modern branches growing from those roots have been overwhelmingly made by white people for white listeners. The exceptions – Charley Pride, Taj Mahal – tended to illustrate the rule. Recently however – by which I mean the past decade – things have begun to change in ways that make the music richer and more honest. History is being reframed, and patterns of exclusion are being aired out in a new way. The organization Nashville Music Equity is presenting a series of online events spotlighting the past and present of black aspirants to the business culture of Music Row. The Americana Music Association facilitated a panel on how Americana got so far without a clear accounting of its debts to Black music.
Last week I visited by phone with producer and songwriter Shannon Sanders about how this educational moment is unfolding. He was part of two of the Music Equity panels and he’s a Grammy and Emmy award winner with amazing credentials in the business. One of the things he mentioned was that because his terrain is more pop, soul and gospel, he was interested in learning about the people of color who are making waves in Americana and traditional music. And as I got a list going to send him, it grew into a kind of mini-anthology of artists, articles and playlists that have emerged recently to illuminate the deep if oft overlooked diversity of Americana music. This list breaks no new ground. Many others are championing these musicians. It’s also a work in progress, but perhaps it will be illuminating.
The collective Our Native Daughters (photo above) is an essential band and nexus point for the black women rocking our world. Rhiannon Giddens has become a founder, a godmother, a mentor and intellectual light of the New Black Wave. When she pulled together this super-group for a 2019 album, she invited old-time country folk singer Amythyst Kiah, Birds of Chicago’s Allison Russell and Hatian American artist Leyla McCalla, whose 2019 album The Capitalist Blues is a favorite of mine for its integration of street sounds and traditional horns into her activist folk. Kaia Kater is a young songwriter/banjo player with a distinctive point of view. A huge star of the last three years has been England’s Yola, who’s rewriting the history of country soul. Same story with The War & Treaty, a duo that (like Yola) has made love with the Americana community as it got a footing in the indie music business. They’re family. So are The McCrary Sisters, who entered the Americana universe in support of Buddy Miller and others but who’ve become staple featured artsits. Other stars in the constellation and the must-know category include country blues songwriter Valerie June, Alabama Shakes singer Brittany Howard, folkie Chastity Brown, blues star Shemekia Copeland, jazz influenced Liz Vice, Austin star songwriter Ruthie Foster and the woman who’s become royalty for the Americana community, Mavis Staples. The fascinating indie-rock “gothic blues” artist Adia Victoria has critiqued Americana’s gatekeeping system while pursuing an indie-minded career. Yes, there are guys too: Keb’ Mo’ is of course a blues/rock star who has leaned toward Americana, including the title of an album. Dom Flemons founded the Carolina Chocolate Drops with Giddens and launched a revolution of consciousness before going solo. Nobody’s brought more more blues horsepower to Americana in recent years than Mississippis’ Cedric Burnside. Also see the very young but amply awarded blues guitarist and songwriter Kingfish.
Mr. Sanders, who produces and develops artist, was curious about emerging talent, including those with country and old-time stories to tell. I just wrote about DC’s fast-moving Jake Blount. Here in Nashville we’re loving Kyshona Armstrong’s funky Odetta kind of sound and piercing songwriting. Kamara Thomas I heard of first through the recent AMA-hosted panel and discovered she’s great and lives in my hometown in NC. I love old-time fingerstyle country blues, and a new blazer in that terrain is Jontavious Willis. In similar throwback terrain is Jerron Blind Boy Paxton. Amber Woodhouse is an established singer but she’s relatively new to the country rock and soul band Trigger Hippy. Nashville’s Joel Levi is finding a vibe that could win over fans of Radney Foster or his pal Darius Rucker. WV native, KY-based Scott T. Smith was produced by Ben Sollee. Folks may be sleeping on Wendy Moten, who’s a veteran singer but who recently joined western swing stars the Time Jumpers and who released her first country album this year (so good). Bay Area artist Hannah Mayree is centering the banjo’s black heritage with an educational project that’s raised more than $20,000.
To hear the sound of these artists and more, bookmark this playlist by publicist and music champion Rachel Hurley:
The 2020 edition of Shout & Shine at World of Bluegrass was online, so that means it’s archived here. It includes some of the artists mentioned above and some emerging talent, including banjo player and event curator Brandi Waller-Pace.
Also, a note to say that while many struggle to grasp the definition and boundaries of Americana music (admittedly that has been a moving target) there are dozens of key figures who weren’t “Americana” in their time but who any half-sentient fan of good music will naturally include in an Americana outlook on our cultural history, similar to the the way we regard Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton. Just to name a few: Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Taj Mahal, Otis Redding, Bobby Rush, Solomon Burke, Booker T. Jones, the Staple Singers, Robert Johnson, Buddy Guy, Arthur Alexander, Nina Simone, and etc. If you don’t feel in your gut that these artists are Americana, then you’re missing the point, at least as I’ve felt it over these decades.
Further Reading:
Marcus K. Dowling covered A Brief History Of Black Country Music for The Boot.
The snarky Saving Country Music published this list of country/folk/blues artists ‘better for country than Lil’ Nas X’ in 2019.
In 2007, I defended Americana’s diversity efforts in The Color Of Americana.
More to come. Leave suggestions in the comments if you have them.