Issue #24: AmericanaFest

I hear it's a great place to listen to some country music!

It’s September in Nashville, which means several things: teeny cold bursts that trick you into thinking fall is coming (don’t be fooled, it will be hot until Christmas), back to school colds/COVID/flu etc. (ahem, my house) and AmericanaFest. I’ve attended this festival every year since I lived in town, and probably argued and discussed the meaning of the word “Americana” just about as many times. At the end of the day, it’s one of the best places around to hear country and rock music (and the site of some of the coolest performances I’ve ever witnessed). Make of that what you will. 

I maintain the perspective that it is not my job to decide what genre an artist is. At its core,  genre is a marketing label, and I am not in marketing – I respond to the art in front of me and go from there. That’s not to say I am not interested in these categories, because of course I am, especially from a birdseye, critical perspective - interrogating these genres, contextualizing them, reporting on them. But deliberating over what someone is, after the artist themselves has declared it, is not a primary concern of mine. I’d rather listen to the songs and decide if I like them or not, if they move me, if they tell me something new about my life I didn’t realize or help me understand something I didn’t know before or just make me feel understood, then wonder if it has enough fiddle to be called country.

I am not a musician though, so I have the freedom to say this. For most artists, these labels do matter. Not to provide some sort of bogus framework in which to create their art, and not just for what Spotify algorithm it aligns them with. Because belonging matters. It matters to have a community, a place to land, a way to reach your audience that is organic and right. This is where, for so many, Americana has come in. 

This is an point that Brandi Carlile has made many times, calling Americana “the island of the misfit toys,” and she has been steadfast in her support of the genre - in throwing her very considerable influence behind it in order to grow Americana so it can help its artists and community access the same opportunities allowed to country musicians, or even beyond. This is valuable and impactful work. She even recently addressed some chatter online about folks who seem to attach a less-than sort of stigma to the association. “I wrestle a lot with this,” she posted on Twitter. “Folks want the best shot for their art…for it to reach the most people possible. Americana might not be the most effective platform for that yet. but it won’t ever be if its titans don’t own it like the country stars own the C word.” I think this is dead on - if you want a garden, you’re gonna have to sow the seeds. And Music Row spends just as much energy doing that yardwork as anything else. 

The key to all this, and to Americana functioning as it should, is its artists ending up in its ranks out of choice - whether that’s for a community, a sound, or a way to define themselves by what they don’t (or do) want, or want to be associated with. It shouldn’t be a way for Music Row to preserve its own whiteness and straightness by siloing artist out of their ranks.

If an artist wants to be country, by way of impact on country radio and country festivals and Music Row and all that entails, then then should be able to do so. I’ve had people suggest to me in conversation that certain artists - Black artists, or queer artists - would “do better” in Americana or “belong better” in Americana, while their music remains more country than almost anything on country radio. This, to me, is using the genre not as a community for people who don’t quite belong elsewhere, but for Music Row to reject things according to their white, hetero standards. 

I thought Adeem the Artist encapsulated this very well in a great interview with Brittney McKenna. “As a genre, it’s a really expansive idea conceptually,” they explain. “To me, it feels really frustrating in a lot of ways. As a fan of D’Orjay the Singing Shaman, as a fan of Amythyst Kiah — they’ve been told for so long that they’re not country because of the color of their skin. And having that wrapped up in, “Oh no, you’re really soul,” or whatever dog whistle gets thrown around, there’s a frustration to it. The idea that protecting the monolithic view of country music and the tradition of country music as a sort of white, cis-male-dominated thing doesn’t feel good to me. I don’t know that it adds to the greater discourse to have this sort of subgenre. I make country music. My records are pretty explicitly that. But people correct me when I say that; they say, “Well, it’s more Americana.”

All that said, there’s so much amazing music out there to be seen if you happen to be in Nashville this week (including probably most of the artists currently on our DRTI playlist). And I am trying to follow Steacy Easton’s lead, after our great talk with them on Monday about Tammy Wynette: we discussed how their book doesn’t have to have the definitive answer on anything to be valid, and I think that’s such an important lesson. We are learning what it looks like to create a world outside of mainstream country music - where everything and everyone can thrive. It’s not perfect yet. But let’s keep talking about it - we invite you to join in on the comments below, and let us know what you think and what’s on your mind when it comes to the world of Americana - and what you plan to see this week.

-MM