Americana music : voices, visionaries, and pioneers of an honest sound / Lee David Zimmerman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Zimmerman, Lee, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Americana (Music)--History and criticism.

Americana (Music).

Place of Publication:

Texas A&M University Press

Summary:

With roots in Appalachia, the Mississippi Delta, New Orleans, the Piedmont, Memphis, and the prairies of Texas and the American West, the musical genre called Americana can prove difficult to define. Nevertheless, this burgeoning trend in American popular music continues to expand and develop, winning new audiences and engendering fresh, innovative artists at an exponential rate. As Lee Zimmerman illustrates in Americana Music: Voices, Visionaries, and Pioneers of an Honest Sound , "Americana" covers a gamut of sounds and styles. In its strictest sense, it is a blanket term for bluegrass, country, mountain music, rockabilly, and the blues. By a broader definition, it can encompass roots rock, country rock, singer/songwriters, R&B, and their various combinations. Bob Dylan, Hank Williams, Carl Perkins, and Tom Petty can all lay valid claims as purveyors of Americana, but so can Elvis Costello, Solomon Burke, and Jason Isbell. Americana is new and old, classic and contemporary, trendy and traditional. Mining the firsthand insights of those whose stories help shape the sound--people such as Ralph Stanley, John McEuen (Nitty Gritty Dirt Band), Chris Hillman (Byrds, Flying Burrito Brothers), Paul Cotton and Rusty Young (Poco), Shawn Colvin, Kinky Friedman, David Bromberg, the Avett Brothers, Amanda Shires, Ruthie Foster, and many more-- Americana Music provides a history of how Americana originated, how it reached a broader audience in the '60s and '70s with the merging of rock and country, and how it evolved its overwhelmingly populist appeal as it entered the new millennium.

Contents:

Back to the beginning

Routes and roots

The instrumental essentials

Mississippi and the birth of the Blues

Bluegrass breaks out

Talking with a legend: Dr. Ralph Stanley

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band completes the circle

Byrds, Burritos, and changing times

David Crosby: a Byrd's timeless flight

Chris Hillman: the Byrds and beyond

Richie Furay remembers: seminal member of Buffalo Springfield, Poco, and Souther-Hillman-and Furay shares his story

Poco primes country rock

Timothy B. Schmit: from Poco to the Eagles, still flying high

The Eagles' one time wingman Don Felder shares his story

Graham Nash: past but present

Dwight Yoakam goes back to Bakersfield

Holly Williams: heir to a legend

Sam Bush: from bluegrass to nu-grass, and stopping in Nashville in between

Kinky Friedman: an irascible icon speaks out

Guy Clark's melancholy musings

Billy Joe Shaver: a rebel with a cause

Ray Wylie Hubbard's past perfect

David Bromberg: sideman as superstar

Delbert McClinton peruses the past, while contemplating the present

The transition is complete: Americana today

John Oates takes a rural route off the mainstream mile

Steve Forbert and the art of compromise

A lot to Lovett

No baggage for Bela

Jay Farrar talks about a prodigal Son Volt

Chris Isaak aims for arcane Americana

Shawn Colvin: Covers Girl

The Mavericks: renegade rockers

The Steep Canyon Rangers: bluegrass boosters on a steady ascent

The Punch Brothers get punchy

Yonder Mountain String Band: a testament to Telluride

Greensky Bluegrass: breaking down barriers

The Avett Brothers redefine the template

Amanda Shires emerges on her own

Donna the Buffalo and the populist stampede

A Rose by any other name

Derek Trucks talks multitasking, working with his wife, and lessons learned from the past

Dave Rawlings: man as machine

The Dawes pause: looking forward with a nod to the past

Ruthie keeps it real

Mekons blur the line between past and present

Band of Heathens as a band of brothers

Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band go back to the roots

Americana abroad

Julian Dawson: despite English origins, he's found his Nashville niche

The Dreaming Spires share their search for the "Supertruth"

The Sadies look south

The Falls: love, life, and life on the road

Ireland's Arborist details his circumspect

Jenn Grant channels her mother's inspiration and her own determination

The Henrys' unlikely exposition

Appendix. Essential albums that trace the transition.

ISBN:

1-62349-702-7