Festival Review- Highlights from AmericanaFest 2024
You could get a pretty good taste of the breadth and depth of Americana music by hopping around the three stages of the Cannery Hall complex in Nashville on Friday night of AmericanaFest.
There, you’d find the dean of Americana, Jim Lauderdale, resplendent in a glittery purple suit. You’d find the soulful afropop-folk of Ugandan immigrant Jon Muq and the swaggering, high-octane country rock of Jason Scott and the High Heat. You’d hear the fiddle forward country-with-an-edge of Kelsey Waldon and the funk-soul-gospel of the McCrary Sisters. You’d find the thrilling vocal runs of R&B singer Major and the muscular soul of Amythyst Kiah.
What is Americana? Maybe it’s simply a melting pot, like America.
Here are some of the best things I saw at the 25th anniversary edition of AmericanaFest.
A slew of stars came out to sing the praises of - before singing the songs of - Mary Gauthier on opening night. “Growing up in the Midwest, when I found Mary Gauthier, I found a part of myself,” said Aaron Lee Tasjan, before singing a thrilling, soaring “Evangeline.” Before a tender “Slip of the Tongue,” Creekbed Carter Hogan said: “As you can see from the mustache, I’m a little trans person... Mary doesn't just open the door for people like me, she opens the door and widens the door frame and invites us all in.”
Steve Poltz found the humanity but also the humor of “Drag Queens and Limousines.” Rodney Crowell noted that he discovered just that day that “Where Are You Now” was written about a friend of his. The stars kept coming: Gretchen Peters, Lori McKenna, Odessa Settles and the immortal Emmylou Harris.
Then Gauthier came out with Jaimee Harris to sing a few songs from that seminal Drag Queens and Limousines album, celebrating its 25-year anniversary. “Bill Morrissey said folk music is meant to be endured, not enjoyed,” Gauthier joked, saying the night’s performers “picked the saddest shit I've ever written!” The duo cheered things up with “Thank God for You,” seemingly singing it to each other as much as to the audience.
The ANTI-Records showcase was maybe the hottest one in town. Literally. A sweltering Basement East was jammed with fans to see some of indie rock’s top acts. Madi Diaz has a sneaky best album of the year contender in Weird Faith, and her striking and intimate songs seemed even more poignant live. MJ Lenderman hit the heavy Neil Young chords harder than on his acclaimed new album, Manning Fireworks. Waxahatchee played the thrilling Tiger’s Blood in its entirety. Neko Case, who has a memoir coming out in January, was sublime, letting out a piercing scream during “Hell-on” that sounded like Mother Nature herself.
Two glorious kinds of chaos came together at the Secretly Distribution and Oh Boys Records Independents’ Day showcase at the Vinyl Tap. Dan Reeder seems like your favorite grandpa: kind, gentle and a little timid. His songs seem like children’s tunes until you realize they’re very much not. “Work Song” had the crowd immediately singing along to its one and only lyric, “I got all the fuckin' work I need,” repeated 22 times. While the audience claps a beat and sings along, it somehow becomes profound, this collective experience, as the song seems to shift in meaning, from “I’m sick of this crap” to “it’s good I’m gainfully employed,” from “take this job and shove it” to “work is good and essential to the human condition.” I swear I wasn’t high.
Charismatic 82-year-old legend Swamp Dogg cut an exceedingly unprepossessing figure in a Swamp Dogg T-shirt and shorts. But he and his tight five-piece band performed with such infectious joy that the packed crowd of fans and jaded industry types whooped and hollered. Given the OK to add just one more song after hitting his time limit, he launched into a 30-minute Funkadelic-type jam on John Prine’s “Sam Stone.” In his hands, it was a gospel-style church funeral service, then a boozy bar-time remembrance, a bass freakout, a plea to help current-day Sam Stones, and finally a five-minute walkabout through the crowd while chanting “give him some help.” We wanted even more.
India Ramey honkied the ever-living tonk out of Nashville’s favorite new/old honky tonk, Dee’s Country Cocktail Lounge. She concentrated on songs from her terrific new album, Baptized by the Blaze, including two that she introduced as being “about whoring around.” They’re deeper than that, as is the album, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a good ol’ time along the way to finding meaning in life.
I may be a full-on atheist, despite (or maybe because of?) 12 years of Catholic school, but even I couldn’t resist going to church with the McCrary Sisters. The gospel of the sisters McCrary – Ann, Regina and Alfreda – isn’t staid choir music but rather infectious soul and funk that dare you not to move. When they’re singing so gloriously, heaven – if there is one – seems not so far away.
Amythyst Kiah has a new album coming out next month. From what we heard, the album may be a shift in sound something like the one Brittany Howard made with her last album, exploring adventurous new ground. Like “Black Myself,” the new stuff is powerful and intense.
There was much more, but here are a few other things I loved:
– A.J. Lee and Blue Summit’s sultry, smoldering “He Called Me Baby,” and Molly Tuttle joining the band for a fiery, quick-picking “Weary Lonesome Blues.”
– The exceedingly high energy of the Vandoliers – a.k.a. the best live band in Americana – playing as if performing live music for you, right here in this place at this moment, was the most important thing in the world.
– Leyla McCalla’s bouncy, tropical flavored “Take Me Away.”
– Kimmi Bitter’s Patsy Cline-esque “My Grass Is Blue,” with that last note carried out a very long way.
– Rissi Palmer’s seriously funky new song “Sip N Sing,” about a little juke joint back in the woods where everyone comes together – saints and sinners, black and white – to drink a little, dance a little and sin a little on Saturday night before cleansing yourself Sunday morning.
– Emily Scott Robinson’s glorious, witchy harmonies with Alisa Amador and Lizzy Ross.
– Everette’s countrified cover of “Bennie and the Jets”, with a slow stomp and a big backbeat.
– The driving organ and guitar of “Let’s Rock” by J. Isaiah Evans and The Boss Tweed.
