Festival Review- Highlights from AmericanaFest 2023
Lawd a-mighty – AmericanaFest is a giant buffet of good music. Every year, I duck under the sneeze guard and shovel great, heaping handfuls of it in my face.
Three of us from The Amp attended AmericanaFest 2023. Here are some of my favorite moments – we’ll post Melissa’s and Jolene’s soon.
3rd and Lindsley was a magical place to be Wednesday night. Just 90 minutes after Jessi Colter introduced Margo Price during the Americana Honors & Awards at the Ryman Auditorium, Price sat in on Colter’s triumphant set. (Up for three major awards, Price struck out: “I lost three times, but Bonnie Raitt told me I’m cool, so that’s all right.”)
Together they sang “Fine Wine,” a track from Colter’s new album, Standing on the Edge of Forever, which is coming out Oct. 27. “It’s about missing someone,” Colter said, noting husband Waylon Jennings “is 20 years gone.”
Price produced the album, coaxing Colter back into the studio for the first time since The Psalms in 2017.
Colter played several songs from the upcoming album, starting with the title track, which sounds like a long-lost outlaw classic. Judging by the tracks she performed on this night – including “I Wanna Be With You,” “Angel in the Fire,” “Secret Place” and “Can’t Nobody Do Me Like Jesus” (“he tells me to pack up and run”) – the rest of the album is going to be just as good.
She mixed in a few of her classics, including “Storms Never Last,” “I’m Not Lisa” and the highlight of the night, a rip-snorting version of “Why You Been Gone So Long,” joined by Price and Colter’s son, Shooter Jennings (who mixed the upcoming album).
The connection is organic – Colter, one of the original country outlaws, working with Price, a modern-day country outlaw – just like young gun Amanda Shires luring Bobbi Nelson, Willie’s sister and piano player, into the studio for this year’s Loving You.
Colter was a tough act to follow, but Jesse Dayton was the guy for the job. Flashing a Waylon “flying W” tattoo on his right wrist, he recalled coming to Nashville in 1996 to play on one of Jennings’ last albums, Right for the Time. And he tore through a set of swaggering, hard-edged country and blues, including “Daddy Was a Badass,” “Hurtin' Behind the Pine Curtain” and a new one, “Talkin’ Company Man Blues.”
More recent country royalty appeared earlier Wednesday, when skyrocketing star Lainey Wilson descended from the heavens (via fire escape stairs from the fourth floor) to play the Peach Jam in the concrete lot behind The Basement. She ripped through a rowdy cover of Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock and Roll” to a sea of cell phone cameras before heading out.
Lainey Wilson-Photo by John Schumacher
Ben Chapman and his girlfriend, Meg McRee, who both toured with Wilson this year, hosted the jam, providing licks as hot and swampy as the afternoon for a string of guests including Sam Morrow, Brent Cobb, JD Clayton, Brit Taylor and Gabe Lee.
I’m a sucker for a meat-and-potatoes four-piece rock band, so the set by Andrew Leahey and the Homestead at The Space at 100 Taylor served up a full meal for me. (That is, once I found it – that Germantown neighborhood is seemingly entirely under construction, destruction and reconstruction.) The band’s crunchy guitars served up a satisfying growl on songs like “Hot House,” “Dial Tone” and a killer cover of U2’s “Zoo Station.”
Lilly Winwood followed, displaying a voice as soulful as that of her father, Steve, but with a band that rocked a little harder, at least on this day. She’s got a deft touch with lyrics that can be amusing in a song about her ex – “If you didn't want to see my face / you shouldn't have let me do laundry at your place” – and touching – “If I die before I wake / at least I will be holding your hand.”
The Watson Twins played my favorite set of the week on Friday at the Blue Room. Unfairly pigeon-holed as backup singers after gaining notice on Jenny Lewis’ Rabbit Fur Coat, they’re busting loose on what should be a star-making record, Holler, released in June. Their set Friday drew heavily from that album. “Honky Tonk Heart” sounds just like the title. “Sissy Said” is a rollicking gallop elevated by the Watsons’ twinned voices and Aaron Lee Tasjan’s deft guitar work. And “Two Timin’” soared to the heavens with Thayer Sarrano’s joyous piano playing.
The Watson Twins- Photo by John Schumacher
A day earlier, the Watsons charmed a lucky couple dozen attendees with a charming rendition of “Rub It In” at Estelle at the Bloodshot Records/Kill Rock Stars Nashville showcase. (Part owners of the venue, the twins could be seen later schlepping ice and equipment while still wearing their stage clothes.) Billy “Crash” Craddock had a No. 1 hit with that song, but it was written by Layng Martine Jr.
Martine has had a long career as a songwriter of hits for a slew of stars, including Reba McEntire and Elvis Presley. But now, at 81, he’s released his first album, Music Man – and this set was just the second live performance of his life. He proved charming, introducing “Little Bit of Magic” as “a song about the hopeless crush I have on my wife.” He sang “Love You Back to Georgia,” then let the Watson Twins and other guests handle a few other songs. The album is a pop-country delight.
India Ramey blatantly ignored the “low volume” part of the Low Volume Lounge sign behind her at Eastside Bowl, and we’re lucky she did. Her combination of honky tonk and western noir hooked the crowd from the opening “WELLLLLLLL” of "Up to No Good" (“Mama told me nothing good happens after midnight / That’s exactly what I had in mind”) to the evil-urges tale of "Devil’s Blood": “I try so hard, oh, not to go astray / But sometimes, sometimes I just got to misbehave / Cause the devil's blood's running in my veins.”
The outdoor stage on a sunny afternoon at Dee’s Country Cocktail Lounge might not be the ideal setting for the dark-tales Femme Noir Friday set – “a bunch of badass women singing sad songs,” as Danni Nicholls aptly put it – but a collection of talented musicians made it plenty moody at 3 p.m.
Kat Jones spun an enchanted web with a voice that zoomed from a whisper to a soar and electric guitar, the notes unplayed drawing the listener in further. Femme Noir founder Laura Rabell cast a dark and alluring shadow with lyrics like “I know where she’s buried,” “misery loves you and me” and “I wanna be your next villain / I want you to hate everything about me because then I know I'll be on your mind.”
The Basement East often provides a rousing finale to AmericanaFest. Maggie Rose did the honors this year. She provided a full-on rock performance, complete with a light show and a set of dramatic, soul-tinged rock. Highlights included two new songs, “Underestimate Me,” a hard rocker with wakka-wakka funk guitar bits, and set-closer “No One Gets Out Alive,” a dramatic rocker that made full use of the light show. In between, “Smooth” began with a keyboard leading into a funky rock jam and backup singers cooing the title, segueing into a chunk of Sly and Family Stone’s “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin).
I’ve never seen an encore at AmericanaFest, but the crowd hoped and cheered for one anyway.
Find out more about Americanafest at the links below:
