Great article heading to Nashville for the Americanafest for the 5th strait year that they've had it. Always a highlight of the year for me and my wife. We live in Seattle and will make note to see the many acts we see over the course of the event when they play at Tractor Tavern or Neptune Theater in Seattle. Probably 15 to 20 performances a year. Nashville has so many great venues for the Americanafest, The Bobby Hotel, some random parking garage off Broadway one year, the Speakeasy at the Virgin Hotel. Good stuff.
As usual, there are more great acts spread all around town than anyone can possibly get to. It’s a good problem to have, but always makes for some difficult decisions. I usually don’t decide what I’m going to see until the conference sessions are wrapping up for the day. But I’m looking forward to the Northern Lights show tomorrow, and I’m excited to see Carter Faith at Basement East tomorrow night.
You know, S.G. Goodman could be called “traditional country,” but I can’t imagine her music ever being aligned with country radio. I have now seen her at AmericanaFest, two years in a row, and I’m really glad to find others who she has found community with. I also saw Sista Strings in ‘22 & ‘23 (thank you, Brandi). I can’t imagine S.G. and Sista Strings ever finding a place on pop-country radio, which is why I don’t listen to what the programmers program and I’m happy that AmericanaFest helps me find a community of like-hearted listeners.
Interesting piece. I come at all this from the angle of working as the Music Director of an indie radio station - going through tons of press material/one sheets for new music releases. For me, it started to feel like 'Americana' was a term promo companies used to describe guys from Brooklyn wearing $4000 overalls, whose music involved a lot of hand clappin', foot stompin' and yelling "HEY!" (Every Noise at Once identifies this genre as 'Stomp and Holler'). In my mind, I drew a distinction between alt-country and Americana. In reality, though, I feel like that distinction doesn't really exist outside of my head. Americana seems to be a broad tent that includes lots of very different music... which is great, but also makes it less than useful as a genre descriptor.
Great article heading to Nashville for the Americanafest for the 5th strait year that they've had it. Always a highlight of the year for me and my wife. We live in Seattle and will make note to see the many acts we see over the course of the event when they play at Tractor Tavern or Neptune Theater in Seattle. Probably 15 to 20 performances a year. Nashville has so many great venues for the Americanafest, The Bobby Hotel, some random parking garage off Broadway one year, the Speakeasy at the Virgin Hotel. Good stuff.
As usual, there are more great acts spread all around town than anyone can possibly get to. It’s a good problem to have, but always makes for some difficult decisions. I usually don’t decide what I’m going to see until the conference sessions are wrapping up for the day. But I’m looking forward to the Northern Lights show tomorrow, and I’m excited to see Carter Faith at Basement East tomorrow night.
You know, S.G. Goodman could be called “traditional country,” but I can’t imagine her music ever being aligned with country radio. I have now seen her at AmericanaFest, two years in a row, and I’m really glad to find others who she has found community with. I also saw Sista Strings in ‘22 & ‘23 (thank you, Brandi). I can’t imagine S.G. and Sista Strings ever finding a place on pop-country radio, which is why I don’t listen to what the programmers program and I’m happy that AmericanaFest helps me find a community of like-hearted listeners.
Interesting piece. I come at all this from the angle of working as the Music Director of an indie radio station - going through tons of press material/one sheets for new music releases. For me, it started to feel like 'Americana' was a term promo companies used to describe guys from Brooklyn wearing $4000 overalls, whose music involved a lot of hand clappin', foot stompin' and yelling "HEY!" (Every Noise at Once identifies this genre as 'Stomp and Holler'). In my mind, I drew a distinction between alt-country and Americana. In reality, though, I feel like that distinction doesn't really exist outside of my head. Americana seems to be a broad tent that includes lots of very different music... which is great, but also makes it less than useful as a genre descriptor.