The 2011 Americana Music Festival began last night with an event that illustrates the genre’s greatest strengths: outstanding performances and a respect for what has come before. The 90-minute concert celebrating the Muscle Shoals sound was equal parts energy and nostalgia, with legendary figures like Dan Penn, Spooner Oldham, Jimmy Johnson and David Briggs sharing the stage with some of…
Category: Americana Music Festival
Jayhawks, Will Hoge headline Americana Music Showcases
Tonight’s Americana Music Festival in Nashville kicks off with the week’s highlight, the 10th Annual Americana Honors and Awards show. Performers include Lucinda Williams, the Civil Wars, Elizabeth Cook and Buddy Miller, plus many more. Club showcases begin at 10 p.m., with the reunited Jayhawks (currently in the top spot in Americana radio with “Mocking Bird Hill”,) headlining the Cannery Ballroom…
Americana Music Festival opening night: Spanning the decades
There’s plenty of time-tripping to be done tonight as the Americana Music Festival opens in Nashville. It’s a measure of the genre’s wide embrace that performers who first hit their stride in every decade since the ’60s – and songs that were written years before that – are in the mix of showcase performances. At the Rutledge at 9 p.m.,…
Preview: Americana Music Festival 2011 in Nashville
The 2011 Americana Music Festival lights up Nashville this week, bringing a remarkably diverse and talented range of artists to the city’s venues. And of course, it also prompts the question: “What is Americana music?” Peter Cooper of the Tennessean took a stab at it in 2003: American music is “country music that is too rooted and true for contemporary…