Recommended for Americana Fans: Amanda Ann Platt and the Honeycutters

Steve Earle: "Shania Twain is the highest paid lap dancer in Nashville."

A good joke, but I enjoyed (past tense) Shania for what she was: Pop music with a hint of Country mixed in. Plus production by Mutt Lange, also producer of some AC/DC albums, Graham Parker's Heat Treatment, and Shades in Bed by The Records, all in my collection. Shania is just an entertainer, not an artist (to me at least), so I cut her some slack.

@stuartk: Your comment about mine regarding Americana and the South had me reconsider the matter. Perhaps instead of using the term Southern, "rural" is more of what I'm taking about.

I've thought in terms of Southern for a number of reasons, first and foremost because that part of the U.S.A. is after all where the Hillbilly, Rockabilly, Bluegrass, and Blues first fermented. Also because when I started meeting and being around some musicians from the South, I noticed that they not only spoke English differently than do we Northerners, Westerners, and Easterners, but they also even walk differently. And when I played music with some (Bill Pitcock IV from The Dwight Twilley Band, Evan Johns), they played with a feel very different from what I was accustomed too, being a California boy.

But now that I think about it, one problem I have with the younger, Alt-Country guys is that they play in a way that feels very much of what I call "suburban". I grew up in and started playing in San Jose, California, which is not really a city, but rather one big suburb, very much like the San Fernando Valley of Southern California (San Jose is in the Santa Clara Valley). Not a city, and not at all rural. I have for years viewed The Swampers as the prime example of the Southern feel in music, but perhaps their style and feel are a result of the rural influence, not the Southern.

In a related matter, whenever the subject of the "best" American songwriters, singers, and musicians comes up, many consider Canadians not eligible for consideration (no Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, or The Band?!). I disagree. Canada is, after all, part of North America. Close enough, ay? And now that the stable genius has declared he wants to make Canada the 51st state, perhaps the matter is moot. 

@stuartk: Rodney Crowell first became a National name as the leader of Emmylou Harris’ Hot Band. He played acoustic rhythm guitar and sang harmony with her, and her band included the likes of Tony Brown (later becoming a major Country music producer), Albert Lee (everyone’s favorite Tele player), Emory Gordy, Jr. (later in Dylan’s band), guitarist/mandolinist/singer Ricky Skaggs, and pedal steel master Hank DeVito (and writer of "Playing With The Queen Of Hearts", the best version being that of Dave Edmunds). Buddy Miller now serves Emmylou Harris as her bandleader.

It is my opinion that to qualify as Americana, the music has to have the "Southern" feel, as does Country. I don’t know how to characterize "Southern", but I know it when I hear it, and know when I don’t. It is conspicuously absent in the music of many of the Alt-Country artists and bands. To hear it, listen to the music containing the playing of The Swampers, the renown Muscle Shoals studio band.

There is a good book entitled Country Music: White Man’s Blues, written by John Grissim and published in paperbook in 1970. Highly recommended.

John Hiatt is almost a genre unto himself (as is Dylan, Richard Thompson, Van Morrison, and other unique and unclassifiable artists). John Hiatt’s Bring The family was for years my favorite album, and is music making at the highest level. Hiatt isn’t Country, being more of a Blue-Eyed Soul singer and writer. But remember, in the 1950’s Blues was considered a form of Folk music. In the South, all musical forms tend to get integrated. Elvis’ five Sun singles (and 78’s) contained a Blues on one side, a Hillbilly on the other. Hank Williams learned to play guitar from a local Blues street musician.

@stuartk: Alt-Country was to me guys who grew up on Rock, and at some point suddenly discovered Gram Parsons. Then Merle Haggard, Buck Owens, and Hank Williams. Thinking you can suddenly play Country music after growing up on Rock is delusional. The two require completely different approaches, different attitudes, different feels (many Rock drummers can't "swing"). The drummers in the original Alt-Country bands simply did not understand what the music calls for from their instrument (and not just them. Gene Parson's tenure with The Byrds is a glaring example of inappropriate drumming). I certainly didn't when I heard Music From Big Pink. The playing on that album was a foreign language to me. For about a year. Once I "got it" (the music), I dove in head first, basically starting over on how to play the drumset. As in what the music calls for, and how to play as a member of an ensemble.

Artists like Steve Earle, Marty Stuart, Buddy Miller, Lucinda Williams, Emmylou Harris (in the 70's she had the best band in the world---The Hot Band), Rodney Crowell---and all the other's "we" like---understand the commonality between Country and Rock, as well as what differentiates them, and hire players who also do. It's what separates the men from the boys.

in the below video, listen to and watch how the drummer provides the feel of the song (in the style Levon Helm referred to as the "half-shuffle". Its not a full on shuffle, but has a hint of it. It's a great feel, one elusive to do well), as well as how he responds to what the other players are doing. Then listen to how all the guitars drop out during the piano solo, until the final bar, when they roar back in, the drums leading the way with a perfect single-stroke roll. Superb Musicianship and ensemble playing!

https://youtu.be/KnqBH7jLb0I?si=GEtMTfugdnoSLYwS

When I saw Kelly Willis, Brennen Leigh, and Melissa Carper about a year ago, Brennen started the evening by mocking the term Americana. She said it seemed to her to be a term used by those feeling that pure Country music wasn’t cool, by those who wanted to distance and differentiate themselves from what is called Country music. She said Country was already cool.

But of course Brennen was referring to "Traditional" Country, not the schlock now played on Country radio: "Bro Country". You know, the guys who drive down to the river in their pickup truck to drink beer with their baby. Duh.

There are those who call The Band’s second album---the s/t "brown" album---the first Americana album, and I guess that case can be made, though I don’t do it myself. I think of Americana as an umbrella under which may be collected the artists who combine elements of Traditional Country, Folk, Singer-Songwriter, Rockabilly, Hillbilly, Bluegrass---in other words, basically acoustic music played by whites. Plus maybe some Blues.

Lucinda Williams is a perfect example. Not really Country, only partly Folk, lots of Singer-Songwriter, and a fair amount of Blues. She was one of the first of the "modern" artists to include all those elements in her music, starting back in 1979, with her two albums on Folkways Records. Her later success with her breakout album Car Wheels On A Gravel Road was the first big-selling album in the "Alternative" Country genre. Earlier albums by the new breed of Alt-Country males (Steve Earle, Dwight Yoakam, Randy Travis, Lyle Lovett, Ricky Skaggs, Marty Stuart) is a different matter. They are all more purely Country, without Lucinda’s other influences.

I realize there are those whose introduction to what is considered Americana was with the No Depression gang of young fellas. Sorry, but Uncle Tupelo sounded like little boys trying to sing a man’s music. Jay Farrar of Son Volt is pretty good, but Jeff Tweedy of Wilco leaves me cold. I have a real problem with flat singing .

Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives don’t get nearly enough attention. The current best band in the world!

Good point Stuart. One facet of learning to drum is limb independence, all four playing independently from each other (like rubbing your belly while patting your head, times two). I myself am impressed by piano players, who have to learn independence of all ten fingers (or is it eight fingers and two thumbs? ).

On the other hand Stuart, bass is the natural partner to drums. In the Crowell & Harris clip, the bass player is at the back of the stage with the drummer, right where bassists belong.

In this video, Fishell explains and demonstrates how the pedal steel guitar works:

https://youtu.be/NrbSL92Kz1Y?si=Ri7XuO2_Hwwr9DQf

@stuartk: Starting an Americana thread is a GREAT idea! I’ll be tied up with a coupla matters for a few days, but if no one else has started one by the end of the week perhaps I’ll give it a shot.

For now, here’s a great performance by two Americana artists at the top of my list: Rodney Crowell and Emmylou Harris. They’re performing Crowell’s song "Ain’t Living long Like This", and the band is as good as it comes, just magnificent:

https://youtu.be/KnqBH7jLb0I?si=GxwZpMewKrHOKcHj

And here's an interview Otis Gibbs did with the pedal steel player seen and heard in the clip, Steve Fishell:

https://youtu.be/UZ07dZO5r5I?si=1xjHKm32N7nqLIhf