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With roots in Appalachia, the Mississippi Delta, New Orleans, the Piedmont, Memphis, and the prairies of Texas and the American West, the musical genre called Americana can prove difficult to define. Nevertheless, this burgeoning trend in American popular music continues to expand and develop, winning new audiences and engendering fresh, innovative artists at an exponential rate. As Lee Zimmerman illustrates in Americana Music: Voices, Visionaries, and Pioneers of an Honest Sound, “Americana” covers a gamut of sounds and styles. In its strictest sense, it is a blanket term for bluegrass, country, mountain music, rockabilly, and the blues. By a broader definition, it can encompass roots rock, country rock, singer/songwriters, R&B, and their various combinations. Bob Dylan, Hank Williams, Carl Perkins, and Tom Petty can all lay valid claims as purveyors of Americana, but so can Elvis Costello, Solomon Burke, and Jason Isbell. Americana is new and old, classic and contemporary, trendy and traditional. Mining the firsthand insights of those whose stories help shape the sound—people such as Ralph Stanley, John McEuen (Nitty Gritty Dirt Band), Chris Hillman (Byrds, Flying Burrito Brothers), Paul Cotton and Rusty Young (Poco), Shawn Colvin, Kinky Friedman, David Bromberg, the Avett Brothers, Amanda Shires, Ruthie Foster, and many more—Americana Music provides a history of how Americana originated, how it reached a broader audience in the ’60s and ’70s with the merging of rock and country, and how it evolved its overwhelmingly populist appeal as it entered the new millennium.
Includes previously unpublished interviews and photos: “His research is extensive, but the overall pace through these two hundred pages is breezy and entertaining.” —Vintage Rock At a time when acid rock and heavy metal dominated popular music, The Band rebelled against the rebellion with tight ensemble arrangements, masterful musicianship, highly literate lyrics, and a respect for the musical traditions of the American South. Comprised of Canadians Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, and Garth Hudson, and Arkansas-born Levon Helm, The Band sparked a new appreciation for America’s musical roots, fusing R&B, jump blues, country, folk, boogie-woogie, swing, Cajun, New Orleans-style jazz, and rock, and setting the foundations for the Americana that would take hold thirty years later. The Band: Pioneers of Americana Music explores the diverse influences on the quintet’s music, and the impact that their music had in turn on contemporary music and American society. Through previously unpublished interviews with Robbie Robertson, Eric Andersen, Pete Seeger, and the late Rick Danko, as well as numerous other sources, Craig Harris surveys The Band’s musical journey from sidemen for, among others, Ronnie Hawkins and Bob Dylan to rock legends in their own right. Touching on the evolution of rock and roll, the electrifying of folk music, unionism, the Civil Rights Movement, changes in radio formatting, shifting perceptions of the American South, and the commercializing of the counterculture, as well as drug dependency, alcoholism, suicide, greed, and the struggle against cancer, Harris takes readers from The Band’s groundbreaking albums, Music from Big Pink and The Band, through their final releases and solo recordings, as well as their historic appearances at Woodstock, the Isle of Wight Festival (with Dylan), Watkins Glen (with the Allman Brothers Band and the Grateful Dead), and the filmed final concert known as the Last Waltz (with an all-star cast). Sixteen previously unpublished photographs, by the author, are included.
From the poems of Anne Bradstreet, Phillis Wheatley, and Emily Dickinson emerges what the author calls FemPoetiks, a discourse of female empowerment. Situating the work of these poets in their historical eras, Linda Nicole Blair considers a sampling of their poems side-by-side with a number of song lyrics by singer-songwriters Brandi Carlile, Rhiannon Giddens, and Lucinda Williams, having found commonalities of theme, motif, and language between them. Blair argues that while FemPoetiks has continued to develop in various ways in American poetry by women, the fact that this discourse finds expression in songs by Americana female artists indicates a matrilineal line of influence from the 1630s to today. In order to show the omnipresence of this powerful feminist discourse, she closes this book with eleven interviews she conducted with female singer-songwriters from around the United States. The phenomenon of FemPoetiks is not limited to the arts but extends into all areas of American life, from the domestic to the political. FemPoetiks is a woman’s truth.
(Piano/Vocal/Guitar Songbook). 45 roots favorites in arrangements for piano, voice and guitar. Includes: Broken Halos (Chris Stapleton) * Copperhead Road (Steve Earle) * Hurricane (The Band of Heathens) * If I Had a Boat (Lyle Lovett) * If We Were Vampires (Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit) * Live and Die (The Avett Brothers) * Mykonos (Fleet Foxes) * Pancho & Lefty (Merle Haggard & Willie Nelson) * The Story (Brandi Carlile) * Wagon Wheel (Old Crow Medicine Show) * and many more.
Based on numerous interviews with leading musicians and music industry professionals, this book explores the illusive genre and movement that is Americana. From its historical roots in Country, Folk and other rebel music, the story of Americana music is told by those who are taking it in new directions today. With so many music venues closed and incomes reduced, musicians speak of their hopes and fears for the future of the industry in challenging times. Interviews with: Emily Barker, Yola, Troy Cassar-Daley, Kasey Chambers, Dave Cobb, Paul Kelly, John Murry, Lindi Ortega, Wildwood Kin and many more. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Ralph Brookfield trained as a molecular physicist, worked as a freelance writer and software engineer, ran his own software business then became a director of technology in the digital television industry until 2012. Since then, he has pursued his passions of writing and music which he combines in his songwriting, playing regularly with his band in the Ealing area, the crucible of RnB music in the UK, where he also manages and promotes grassroots music. He is married, has two grown-up children, and is a founder member of the infamous Hanwell Ukulele Group. REVIEWS: “This book is the story of the richest tapestry of music ever found in one country... So join in with the author on this journey of discovery, from coast to coast, from around the world, this wonderful music... this is Americana!” – Pete Clack, Blues in Britain Magazine. “This is a great and informative read for any fan of the world’s coolest music genre, Americana.” – Nash Chambers, award-winning Music Producer “A deep, inquisitive dive into the Americana story so far. In the best possible way, Ralph Brookfield’s roots are showing.” -Paul Sexton, Music writer and broadcaster “... it is a volume of varied parts and something of a curate’s egg. The chapters on the history and strands of Americana in America make good reading as do the chapters on Ireland, and the role of women. Perhaps not surprisingly the interest in the other chapters diminishes in proportion to the nature and size of the Americana ‘scene’ found in each country. I did admire his reasoned thoughts on Keith Urban (seemingly someone subject to a degree of derision) and where he sits in the musical cosmos... One real bonus is a huge list of what are called endnotes... Brookfield finishes the book with some brief words on the future, which he sees might take us eventually to the land of Cosmic American Music as described by Gram Parsons. Presently he identifies a retro movement as exemplified by Pokey le Farge. He also recognises Kasey Chambers’s work with native Australians, Psychedelic influences, and the work of Gangstagrass and the Alabama 3. Americana remains a very rich stew!” – Gordon Sharpe -Americana-UK.
The Americana Guitar Book introduces you to every essential technique that will enhance your musical palette on both acoustic and electric guitar... from Travis and Carter picking, to slide licks and raucous electric guitar work.
Based on exclusive interviews with over 120 groundbreaking musicians, Craig Harris has crafted what feels like the first truly comprehensive history of bluegrass. His research and never-before-seen photos make Bluegrass a new authority on the genre's strongest influencers. It is arranged chronologically from Bill Monroe in 1927 to the Earls of Leicester today. Highlights include entertaining facts and anecdotes about Flatt & Scruggs, Del McCoury, Doc Watson, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and more. Casual readers and mountain-music buffs alike will come away with a rich understanding of the roots and evolution of this uniquely American sound.
The ideal handbook for every rock-n-roll pilgrim, Music USA tours the musical heritage of America, from New York to Seattle, stopping at all the shrines of sound in between. Coverage includes background on the development of local music styles, with details on clubs and venues, radio stations and record stores nationwide.
Americana is a music that defies definition. It isn’t rock, although it does encompass rock. It isn’t folk, but folk is there. It isn’t Celtic, but it is woven with Celtic threads. It is a blend of forms, music that draws on a wide range of influences. Gathering these many genres together, Americana continually reinvents itself and actively tells the story of its origins and its future. The Americana Revolution: From Country and Blues Roots to the Avett Brothers, Mumford & Sons, and Beyond is an informal social history that describes Americana as both a musical genre and a movement, showing what it is, where it came from, and where it is going. Musician and historian Michael Scott Cain examines how the idea of genre, especially Americana, affects the creation and consumption of music. He tries to discern the formulas of this slippery genre and seeks out the places where artists have broken or bent those formulas in the name of creativity. Through anecdotes and interviews, Cain provides a firsthand view into the creation of Americana to clarify how the genre can be categorized and defined. Through the stories of its creators both long gone and new to the scene, Americana music comes alive as a diverse melting pot of creative genius. With this book, Cain grants music lovers from all backgrounds an unparalleled view into the future of a music that embraces new influences but never forgets its roots.
Full-tilt, hardcore, down-home, and groundbreaking, the women of country music speak volumes with every song. From Maybelle Carter to Dolly Parton, k.d. lang to Taylor Swift—these artists provided pivot points, truths, and doses of courage for women writers at every stage of their lives. Whether it’s Rosanne Cash eulogizing June Carter Cash or a seventeen-year-old Taylor Swift considering the golden glimmer of another precocious superstar, Brenda Lee, it’s the humanity beneath the music that resonates. Here are deeply personal essays from award-winning writers on femme fatales, feminists, groundbreakers, and truth tellers. Acclaimed historian Holly George Warren captures the spark of the rockabilly sensation Wanda Jackson; Entertainment Weekly’s Madison Vain considers Loretta Lynn’s girl-power anthem “The Pill”; and rocker Grace Potter embraces Linda Ronstadt’s unabashed visual and musical influence. Patty Griffin acts like a balm on a post-9/11 survivor on the run; Emmylou Harris offers a gateway through paralyzing grief; and Lucinda Williams proves that greatness is where you find it. Part history, part confessional, and part celebration of country, Americana, and bluegrass and the women who make them, Woman Walk the Line is a very personal collection of essays from some of America’s most intriguing women writers. It speaks to the ways in which artists mark our lives at different ages and in various states of grace and imperfection—and ultimately how music transforms not just the person making it, but also the listener.