My wife Leslie and I finally got to Nashville in September for the Americana Festival and Awards. We've been planning to do this since 2020 with our friends Donald Cohen and Madeline Janis. I'm kinda glad we waited because our new favorite singer, Allison Russell, won Best Album for her first solo album, Outside Child (see my blog post about her).
Overall the festival was a ton of fun, made even more special by Donald's knowledge of the music and relationships with many of the fine musicians present, including Alisa Amador and Ali McGuirk. We spent a few enjoyable days in Nashville prior to the fest, catching up with old friends and touring the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Johnny Cash museum.
Diversity was a strong theme of this year's fest, with Allison Russell and The War and Treaty winning awards, and Al Bell of Stax Records receiving a Lifetime Achievement award. A panel on Indigenous Americana, led by Shoshona Kish and Amanda Rheaume of Ishkode Records was eye opening and led us to attend their showcase later where Kish's band, Digging Roots, and Rheaume rocked!
Another fascinating panel, at the Country Music Hall of Fame, featured the Black Opry, a group of African-American country music lovers under the leadership of Holly G, with Aaron Vance, Nikki Morgan, Julie Williams and The Kentucky Gentlemen. All of the artists played a few of their songs, representing the range of roots music from blues to soul to indie rock to pure country.
Musically the highlight of the week for me was my discovery of Amanda Rheaume, a member of the Metis (Indigenous/French) Nation of Canada. She sings with a compelling intensity, with eyes that seem to make contact with you, even when you're at the back of the hall. Her songs combine the history of Indigenous people with her own personal experiences. One Hundred Years deals with awakening of Native people in response to, among other things, the recent revelations of the Canadian government's treatment of Native students, with thousands dying in residential schools:
Can you feel the heatUnderneath your feetRising on the land, stirring in the streetWaking from a hundred years of sleepA hundred years of sleepA hundred years of sleep
In Do About Her Rheaume sings forcefully about her experiences growing up with both Indigenous and settler lineage and not being accepted by either:
She's not quite an Indian girlShe's not quite a white girl eitherHer heart beats in both worldsWhat we gonna do about hеr?Put a bullet or a blanket out for her
And I got a chance to chat up the fabulous Marissa Moss, author of the recent book Her Country on the struggles women have faced breaking through in country music and getting played on country radio (see my blog post about this great book). We talked about why many of these stars had to leave Texas for Nashville (the three singers she focused on - Kacey Musgraves, Maren Morris and Mickey Guyton - plus others like Miranda Lambert and Amanda Shires are all Texans!).
