Americana/Alt-County whatever

[BallochSonsFan]

I could probably post about 60% of my iTunes song list.

Glasgow gets some brilliant Americana/alt-country gigs. Thats in no small part because of the excellent Fallen Angels Club running gigs and Louden Temple doing a lot of promotion work for bands. Would also recommend Mike Ritchie on Sunday on Celtic Music Radio in the Glasgow area as a source for an awful lot of brilliant music. Or the Americana UK website (I wrote a handful of live reviews for it, but havent done so for a few years now).

I'll stick some stuff on the thread over the next day or two.

[BallochSonsFan]

Americana is a relatively new term. If you ask people in the industry what it is then you'll be met by general confusion. In a few cases you'll be met with open hostility - Tyler Childers used his Americana Music Association award acceptance speech to complain that he didnt know what Americana was and that he was a country musician. Alt-Country is a little clearer as it came about in the late 80s/very early 90s with bands like Wilco, Uncle Tupelo, Red House Painters and a few others. Even then it wasn't a particularly new idea because there have been musicians making country music that didnt fit nicely into Nashville commercial country for decades. You can't really talk about alt-country without thinking about the outsiders from the 60s and 70s, so I'd probably start with the likes of:

Gram Parsons might sound like a traditional country singer, but he wasn't. In an era of Johnny Cash and George Jones, Gram was making outsider music. He was a member of The Byrds. He went on to form the Burrito Brothers. He was friendly with the Rolling Stones and was a big influence in them making songs like Wild Horses and Dead Flowers.

That takes you onto a triumvirate of outsiders: Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark and Steve Earle. All 3 were friends, Earle being the youngest having as much a hero worship of the other 2 as a friendship. You can find their Bluebird Cafe recordings pretty easily.

 

I'd also throw in the likes of Blaze Foley. Another outsider singer/songwriter.

 

[BallochSonsFan]

Then you get a guy like John Hartford. Hardford was a really well respected session musician for a lot of country musicians and was the original writer/performer of Gentle On My Mind. But thats not really reflective of a lot of his own stuff. He was a riverboat pilot who worked the tourist boats in the summer and he'd collect old instrumentals. A lot of his stuff was also pretty funny. Steam Powered Aereo Plane never fails to put a smile on my face. Or something like Julie Belle Swain

 

You could also throw in John Prine. Prine was the forerunner of guys like Jason Isbell and it's clear how influential he was with the genuine outpouring of sadness when he died.

 

[BallochSonsFan]

Its not a male dominated genre. Folk like Gretchen Peters, Lucinda Williams and a fair few others came onto the scene and made some great music:

 

 

 

[BallochSonsFan]

The kind of stuff people associate with alt-country can probably be summed up by a few bands:

 

[BallochSonsFan]

There are loads of really great musicians bringing back older styles of music. Bluegrass is a relatively recent invention - wasn't a thing until the late 40/early 50s when Bill Monroe signed Flatt and Skruggs to play in his band and the 2 of them started playing faster than anybody had before. Prior to that it was called "old time" or "hillbilly" music, even within the industry. So you get great acts playing older styles of music like:

 

 

[BillyAnchor]

Great stuff Balloch Sons fan, cheers. I love Kathleen Edwards especially.

I saw Jason isbell this year at Red Rocks, a great show. This song has a real pivotal moment when he sings about getting sober, the woman in front of me who had been drinking and smoking weed all show jumped up to cheer and fell forward causing a great people spill.  Fun times!

 

 

[BillyAnchor]

new album out from American Aquarium who are just getting better and better. Called Chicamacomico which is a place that was renamed as the Post Office couldn't pronounce it, every song Ive heard so far is very good. This is the title track about the not so wonderful topic of losing a child.

 

 

[Dan Steele]

Amanda Shires (Jason Isbell's partner) has a belter of a new album out - Take It Like A Man. Tremendous stuff. Isbell is there and it was produced by Lawrence Rothman.

[pozbaird]

I’m into lots of bands who may or may not fit the bill ‘Americana’, or ‘Alt Country’. Maybe they do. Don’t want to ruffle any feathers! Maybe these are just ‘country’, or ‘modern country’, or who the hell knows what box (if any) they actually fit in. Anyone else like any of these?… hopefully someone else out there does!

A Thousand Horses

Zac Brown Band

Green River Ordinance

Micky & The Motorcars

Chance Anderson Band

Eli Young Band

Cross Canadian Ragweed

Lanco

No Dry County

Robert John & The Wreck

Old Dominion

Whiskey Myers

Sam Riggs & The Night People

Will Hoge

 

Edited August 2, 2022 by pozbaird

[Detournement]

On 28/07/2022 at 20:47, BallochSonsFan said:

 

Gram Parsons might sound like a traditional country singer, but he wasn't. In an era of Johnny Cash and George Jones, Gram was making outsider music. He was a member of The Byrds. He went on to form the Burrito Brothers. He was friendly with the Rolling Stones and was a big influence in them making songs like Wild Horses and Dead Flowers.

Gram Parsons was a rich kid with a trust fund, from a military family, with a CIA stepfather who got him a 4F deferment from the draft and into Harvard despite poor academics.

Johnny Cash grew up dirt poor. The only real outsider art either of them made is Cash's 1964 album Bitter Tears: Ballads of The American Indian which he received huge backlash for.

[BallochSonsFan]

Just now, Detournement said:

Gram Parsons was a rich kid with a trust fund, from a military family, with a CIA stepfather who got him a 4F deferment from the draft and into Harvard despite poor academics.

Johnny Cash grew up dirt poor. The only real outsider art either of them made is Cash's 1964 album Bitter Tears: Ballads of The American Indian which he received huge backlash for.

Parsons certainly came from a monied background. Doesnt mean that he made music that was part of the country music norm when he was part of The Byrds, Flying Burrito Brothers or releasing stuff as a solo artist. His music certainly wasn't part of the commercial country sound.

[Jimi Shandrix]

The Sadies are a mighty fine band for the uninitiated. Sadly they lost one of their founding members and a shit kicking 12 string guitar player a couple of months back. So here is Dallas Good and the rest of the Good ol' boys on fine form with a diamond tune from their 13th album "Darker Circles".  Alongside "DC", I'd highly recommend "Favourite Colours" and "Northern Passages" from their weighty back catalogue.

 

 

 

[Jimi Shandrix]

Ryan Adams is a bit of an arse. I  met  Whiskeytown after their gig  at the Cathouse in 1998 and they couldn't have been nicer apart from Ryan who played the tortured soul for all he was worth,  staring at the wall and running his hands through his  hair in that annoying Ricky Ross manner. Anyway, you  can't really argue with "Strangers Almanac", it's an absolute gem give or take a few bum steers. Never again did he come even half  close to recreating it's greatness as  a  solo artist.

 

 

[Detournement]

52 minutes ago, BallochSonsFan said:

 His music certainly wasn't part of the commercial country sound.

Aye but he wasn't working in Nashville or Memphis. He was part of the Laurel Canyon scene which was commercial in it's own way.

[Savage Henry]

On 02/08/2022 at 16:58, The Skelpit Lug said:

Amanda Shires (Jason Isbell's partner) has a belter of a new album out - Take It Like A Man. Tremendous stuff. Isbell is there and it was produced by Lawrence Rothman.

There is something about that pair (and it isn’t the music, bar Isbell’s last atrocious attempt at yacht rock) that riles me up.  They seem like good people, but they come across self-righteous and sanctimonious.  

On 02/08/2022 at 23:15, pozbaird said:

I’m into lots of bands who may or may not fit the bill ‘Americana’, or ‘Alt Country’. Maybe they do. Don’t want to ruffle any feathers! Maybe these are just ‘country’, or ‘modern country’, or who the hell knows what box (if any) they actually fit in. Anyone else like any of these?… hopefully someone else out there does!

A Thousand Horses

Zac Brown Band

Green River Ordinance

Micky & The Motorcars

Chance Anderson Band

Eli Young Band

Cross Canadian Ragweed

Lanco

No Dry County

Robert John & The Wreck

Old Dominion

Whiskey Myers

Sam Riggs & The Night People

Will Hoge

 

I have no idea what Americana is anymore.  I used to think it was slightly melancholy country rock, but this month’s Uncut had the new Lee Bains record as Americana Album of the Month, and he’s as far away from that as you can get. 

4 hours ago, Jimi Shandrix said:

The Sadies are a mighty fine band for the uninitiated. Sadly they lost one of their founding members and a shit kicking 12 string guitar player a couple of months back. So here is Dallas Good and the rest of the Good ol' boys on fine form with a diamond tune from their 13th album "Darker Circles".  Alongside "DC", I'd highly recommend "Favourite Colours" and "Northern Passages" from their weighty back catalogue.

 

 

 

Darker Circles is a terrific album by anyone’s standards.  Probably my favourite of theirs.  
 

Ryan Adams is, quite clearly, an arse.  And now he’s a fat self pitying arse.   Some of his songs are incredible, but I’ll never listen to them again. 

[razamanaz]

Been into Americana a few years now - class it as country/rock with more punk than middle of the road, Eagles etc. Love a bit of Gram, seen Lucinda, prefer Merle to Cash, seen Steve Earle 9 times, seen Ryan Adsms when he was gid, New Riders, Jayhawks, Wilco, Buddy Miller, The Band, Hank III, even the Stones have come awsy with some great raw country tunes! etc. Good it's getting a bigger audience with main street country now pish

[BillyAnchor]

https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/952-why-so-many-punks-grow-up-to-be-cowboys-and-cowgirls/

 

[BillyAnchor]

Ive heard form a few people that Ryan Adams is an arse. I did talk briefly at a dive bar in North Carolina to Caitlin Cary and she was really nice so some of Whiskeytown had merit!

[razamanaz]