Issue #40: The Titans of Americana (Are Women)

A dispatch from Brandi Carlile's Girls Just Wanna Weekend Festival

By Marissa

It was my second trip to Girls Just Wanna Weekend, Brandi Carlile’s festival in Mexico with a lineup comprising entirely women and gender non-conforming musicians, and the second time I had a revelation in the middle of it all. The first time, I had a radical experience around my own body, something I wrote about on my personal newsletter (shoulda been a DRTI post, oh well). I could basically publish that post again, just change the date, and the entire thing would apply exactly to my experience this year at GJWW: there is indeed something wild that happens when you remove the male gaze from an experience, and focus on creating something safe and inclusive at the top. As I watch festival after festival release lineups this year that are almost entirely headlined by white, cis men (some of whom are my favorite artists! Don’t be annoying!) I have thought a lot about the sheer experience of it all – of not just seeing and hearing, but being. The way you dance, the way you move or even the way you stand at a concert that is either programmed to include you or programmed despite you. Programmed to be financially “safe” but not physically safe. Programmed intentionally and thoughtfully to represent art from all angles and all people.

One thing we don’t talk about a lot, though, is age. It’s inherent, of course, in so many discussions around patriarchy – if women are considered worthy participants in society (and certainly in music, which is what we’re talking about here), it’s only in a very specific timeframe (21 to 35, maybe? And then maybe after 80, when they’re unthreatening). But 50 plus? Dead zone. While I don’t claim that men are exempt from ageism, they are able to, for the most part, enjoy a more graceful ride through midlife to “legendary” status: they are still allowed fluid creativity, allowed space, allowed a voice and the headlining slots to go with it all. I have written about this at length for this newsletter, because I think it’s so important, this whole idea of women in the “middle.” Don’t worry, it’s not the sole focus of what I’m talking about today again, though I could probably write an entire book about ageism and women and music. I am sure publishers would eat that up [insert sarcastic emoji]!

Anyway, it was about halfway through night three - a round called “Titans of Americana,” featuring Mary Chapin Carpenter, Kim Richey, Brandi and Brandy Clark, a set from Sarah McLachlan, an appearance from Prince collaborators Wendy & Lisa and the night’s headliner, Annie Lennox (!!), that I realized I was seeing something I don’t think I ever had. And that was a whole night of women, placed intentionally in their roles not just of legends but as vibrant, still very much in process artists, who were all over 40 – that Brandi, actually, was the baby of the group at 42. They were singing about relationships and children and mothering and growing older alone and having a shitload of fun while they were doing it. This is radical to me, and a radical part of Brandi’s work and what makes her position in the music world so valuable – bringing not just more women into the conversation, but older women. And not only that, but women that have shaped so many future artists and genres of music, not limited to, but definitely including, Americana. A tricky word, and a tricky genre, depending on who you ask.

Was Annie Lennox incredible? Insanely. Was Sarah McLachlan revelatory? Why yes, especially for someone (me) who could never find a friend willing to tag along to Lilith Fair, one of my biggest musical regrets (I’ll tell you that story some day, don’t worry). Wendy and Lisa kicked absolute ass. But what I really want to talk about is another revelation  - one that I think Brandi had herself at some point, which was that in order to help make Americana a more “viable” genre in the broader public eye, or even one embraced by some artists themselves, we need to commit to it. We need artists to commit to it, and, to make things full circle here, we need to center women in this conversation. Why do we continually write women not only out of country music history, but of Americana?

“I wrestle a lot with this,” Brandi tweeted in September, specifically in a conversation about artists claiming the word or not. “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’ve rolled this whole idea around in my head a lot, including on this newsletter. Agism, the meaning of Americana or need for the title in general, leaving behind women in the middle: all of this reached a sort of crescendo moment for me on that night in Mexico. That all of these things are intertwined and exist together, that Mary Chapin Carpenter and Kim Richey are indeed legendary figures of the genre (Americana, I think?), but ones we far too often forget in handy lists of titans of any kind. This Titans of Americana round was doing double work of not just planting a flag in a genre that so many need to find space, but doing it not with the usual names like («insert white male songwriter») but with women, older women, who have pioneered but yet don’t get the same sort of regular name recognition bestowed upon their male peers. Really, the titans of Americana are Kim, Mary Chapin, Lucinda Williams (even though she rejects the label herself), Gillian Welch, Rosanne Cash, Nanci Griffith, Mavis Staples, Emmylou Harris, I could honestly go on. It’s so convenient, though, to get caught up more in the definition of the word than in giving due to the actual pioneers….especially when they are women.

We don’t talk about Kim Richey nearly enough. I don’t talk about Kim Richey enough (calling myself out here). She exists in both the country and roots worlds, which makes her Americana by the recipe: writing songs cut by Trisha Yearwood and Rodney Foster, touring with Wynonna but making records that are folky, lyrical, emotionally evocative and even being signed to Lost Highway. One article from 1995 described her as looking “more like a graduate student than the usual female country star,” whatever the fuck that means (we know, we know, I just don’t really want to say it out loud). Country no longer seems to claim her, because she either didn’t look the part, say the right things or got too old, or any combination of the above. Or (see graduate student comment) her intelligence and talent was just too damn threatening.

And though it feels ridiculous to say out loud, we don’t talk about Mary Chapin Carpenter enough, either. Despite the number one song, millions in album sales, the Grammy awards and the clear path of influence, we don’t talk about her enough. She, too, exists in both the mainstream country and folk worlds and therefore became “Americana,” somewhat in part because country music didn’t continue to do their part in holding up this pillar as they should. Hilariously enough, I stumbled upon an article mentioning her from 1995 - it described Americana as a radio format as for artists who were "too old, too new or simply too country to get played on country radio.” The more things change, the more they stay the same? Anyway, taking ownership of the word Americana and the history of it feels like the most surefire path to a complete version of history.

As I looked around the festival, around to queer couples dancing and plenty of women and non-binary folks well past 40 themselves, to men (yes, there were plenty of men, actually!) who found a more true acceptance of themselves at a place like this festival than whatever sausage outlaw fest du jour, to moms running after little kids tagging along, I thought about how in the process of making space for our Titans, we make space for ourselves. It’s not just about history, or making the record book right - though that’s important as hell. We realize that we are important when we do the work to honor those left out by the same systems that exclude us on a daily basis. There were titans on stage and off that night, in the genre of Americana and in the community of it too, the community of regular people who just want a place to call home. That’s why this festival matters so much to so many people - everyone there has seen Brandi Carlile and many of these artists a million times by now (ahem, me included). It’s what’s being created, not just the music being played.

Brandy Clark mentioned a lyric from a song that Mary Chapin Carpenter played that night, called “The Hard Way.” It goes, “we've got two lives, one we're given and the other one we make.” The same goes for our musical history, and it’s up to us to rewrite it with the rightful titans at the top.

And see you next year, GJWW.