Why Allison Russell Should Win All the Major Americana Awards

After a two-year wait due to Covid, my wife Leslie and I are finally going to Nashville next week for the Americana Music Association's Americanafest. It's four days of nonstop keynotes, panels, and music performances all around Nashville, plus the 21st annual Americana Honors & Awards.

I've been a big fan of Allison Russell since her time in Our Native Daughters (the group she formed with Rhiannon Giddens, Leyla McCalla and Amythyst Kiah, four Black female banjo players) and her first solo album, Outside Child, released last year and  produced by Dan Knobler, has just blown me away. Her personal story of  survival from and triumph over a decade of abuse at the hands of her stepfather (see this NPR piece), coupling that with the survival of enslaved people (she wrote Quasheba about her enslaved ancestor for Our Native Daughters), is reflected throughout this powerful album.

Three songs from Outside Child stand out for me:

Persephone (written with her husband Jeremy Lindsay aka JT Nero) is Russell's homage to her first love, a girl with whom Russell would take refuge from her stepfather. It's a rockin', toe-tapping, great to sing along with, joyful song of overcoming adversity and first love:

Blood on my shirt, two ripped buttons

Might’ve killed me that time, oh if I’d let him

He’s slow when he’s drunk, and he lost his grip on me

Now I’m running down La Rue St. Paul

Trying to get out from the weight of it all

Can’t flag a cop ’cause I know he won’t stop

I’ll go see Persephone 

 

Tap tap tappin’ on your window screen

Gotta let me in, Persephone

Got nowhere to go, but I had to get away from him

My petals are bruised, but I’m still a flower

Come runnin’ to you in the violet hour

Put your skinny arms around me, let me taste your skin  

 

Mouth to mouth, mouth to flower

Salty sweet, you give me power

I feel you shake under my lips

Your fingers tender find my secrets

Don’t make a sound, don’t cry out, love

Your parents are sleeping just above

I kiss you once, I kiss you twice

Fall asleep looking in each other’s eyes

But the night must end and then it's

Back to the cold’s bite, back to the hard life

Back to the harsh bright street 

Nightflyer's chorus echoes two great rock songs:

Yeah, I'm a midnight rider

Stone bona fide night flyer

I'm an angel of the morning too

The promise that the dawn will bring you, you

The verses are filled with lush imagery celebrating her triumph over the abuse:

His soul is trapped in that room

But I crawled back in my mother's womb

Came back out with my gold and my greens

Now I see everything

Now I feel everything, Good Lord

What the hell could they bring to stop me, Lord?

Nothing from the earth, nothing from the sea

Not a God Almighty thing 

 

I'm the wounded bird, I'm the screaming hawk

I'm the one who can't be counted out

I'm the dove thrown into battle

I can roll and shake and rattle hm-mm, hm-mm

I'm the moon's dark side, I'm the solar flare

The child of the Earth, the child of the Air

I am The Mother of the Evening Star

I am the Love that Conquers All

Nothing is going to stop Allison Russell! 

4th Day Prayer is another empowering song about rising up against hate:

Father used me like a wife

Mother turned the blindest eye

Stole my body, spirit, pride

He did, he did each night 

 

From the coast of Africa

To the hills of Grenada

To the cold of Montreal

That whip, that whip still falls

The chorus exhorts us to stand against the hate: 

One for the hate that loops and loops

Two for the poison at the roots

Three for the children breaking through

Four for the day we're standing in the sun

So I'm definitely rooting for Allison Russell to win Album of the Year for Outside Child, Song of the Year for Persephone (it could have been Nightflyer, which was nominated for Grammys in Best American Roots Song and Performance) and Artist of the Year. Let's take a look at her competitors.

Album of the Year

Outside Child's competitors for Album of the Year are:

• "In These Silent Days," Brandi Carlile; Produced by Dave Cobb and Shooter Jennings
• "Raise The Roof," Robert Plant & Alison Krauss; Produced by T Bone Burnett
• "A Southern Gothic," Adia Victoria; Produced by Mason Hickman and Adia Victoria, Executive Produced by T Bone Burnett
• "Stand For Myself," Yola; Produced by Dan Auerbach

I think Brandi Carlile will be Russell's main competitor in all three categories. In These Silent Days is a great album, like we've come to expect from Carlile, with several excellent songs like Right on Time. I was glad to see Adia Victoria and Yola, two new Black women singers, recognized. I never got the Robert Plant/Alison Krauss pairing. She can do a lot better! Several great albums but I'm gonna go with Outside Child.

Song of the Year

The other nominees for SOTY are:

• “Canola Fields,” James McMurtry; Written by James McMurtry
• “Diamond Studded Shoes,” Yola; Written by Dan Auerbach, Natalie Hemby, Aaron Lee Tasjan and Yola
• “Juanita,” Sturgill Simpson feat. Willie Nelson; Written by Sturgill Simpson
• “Right On Time,” Brandi Carlile; Written by Brandi Carlile, Dave Cobb, Phil Hanseroth and Tim Hanseroth

Right on Time, a powerful ballad in the style of her songs The Story and The Joke shows off Carlile's vocal range and songwriting ability. Yola's Diamond Studded Shoes is a strong conciousness-raising song. I love Sturgill and Willie but they've each done better songs than this. And I actually like Canola Fields, from an artist I've never enjoyed, despite his being from Austin and the son of Texas royalty. Persephone beats these fine songs.

Artist of the Year

For Artist of the Year we have Russell and:

• Brandi Carlile
• Jason Isbell
• Billy Strings
• Yola

Either Carlile or John Prine has won this award for the last five years and she could quite well win it again. Jason Isbell is my favorite current singer but his main contribution in 2021 was the release of Georgia Blue, a record of covers of Georgia songs that Isbell promised if Georgia went for Biden, with proceeds going to voting registration organizations. Major props to him for the courage to cover Otis Redding's I've Been Loving You Too Long! Yola and the multi-instrumentalist Billy Strings are up-and-coming stars and will have their day. But this is Allison Russell's year!