This is America
Although, the Americana Music Festival was over a month ago the concert broadcasted by the Austin City Limits series. What a concert! There were some many guitars and banjos. If you were looking at the guitars like I was you could see almost everyone there had a L style Gibson blues guitar. Emmylou didn’t have a guitar but if she did she would be packing a J-200.
My favourite performances of the night were Justin Townes Earle singing his gospel single ‘Harlem River Blues’ and ‘I’ll Fly Away’ with Alison Krauss, Emmylou Harris and Buddy Miller. I really dig the gospel and soul style in “Harlem River Blues’. The organ makes for a strong, driving melody. ‘I’ll Fly Away’ is another gospel song that has a simple powerful message and the banjo really makes this song. It gives an old time feel that is the embodiment of Americana.
I also liked The Civil Wars performance ‘Barton Hollow’ is a great song and it reminds me of ‘Copperhead Road’ by Steve Earle. It has that haunting quality to it that really makes a powerful impact. I personally, I would throw a banjo is there but that’s my bias.
Joy Williams and John Paul White of The Civil Wars perform at the Americana Music Association awards show in Nashville
These were the performers and later on I will probably put some more info about them.
Emmylou Harris
Greg Allman
Buddy Miller
The Civil Wars
Jessica Lea Mayfield
Robert Plant
Justin Townes Earle
Alison Krauss
Amos Lee
Jim Lauderdale
The Avett Brothers
Elizabeth Cook
The Secret Sisters
There are a lot of You Tube clips you can see the individual performances and below I have a link for the Americana Music Association homepage.
http://americanamusic.org/acl-presents-americana-music-festival-november-19-pbs
