Charles Christian’s Americana HAS AMERICANA LOST ITS WAY? By Charles Christian** I produce and host a weekly syndicated Americana show for FM and internet radio. No big deal about that. And in the course of each week I receive a shed load of new releases and keep track of both the US and UK Americana singles and albums charts. No big deal about that either except… most of the music I see coming my way is not Americana.
listening to madrigals and Gregorian chants on our iPhones. For example I’m so Happy I Cry by Fantastic Negrito on his new album Have You Lost Your Mind Yet? is an up-dated version of an old field holler blues-type song. Then there’s an outfit called Gangstagrass who are producing a mix of hip-hop meets bluesgrass. Check out their new album No Time For Enemies. It sounds like a recipe for total disaster but it really works, it’s pushing the boundaries again and not trying to preserve a musical form in aspic, based on what it was like 70 or more years ago. And then there’s Tobert John & The Wreck – the title track of their new album Last Light on the Highway is almost 70’s Prog Rock.
Now the traditional definition of Americana is too Rock for Country and too Country for Rock but the stuff I’m receiving is neither Rock nor Country. Instead I get a lot of singer-songwriter from people (mainly men) who appear to be oblivious to the fact Tom Paxton and Bob Dylan did it all first, and better, about 60 years ago. However the bulk of the material is what I’d call “Corrs Lite” – The Corrs in this case being an Irish band who were big in the 1990s playing the kind of inoffensive pop you could have in the background at a dinner party. It’s music that’s not pop enough to make the current Top 40 charts. Not country enough to make the country charts. And not edgy enough to make the indie charts. It’s audio landfill all too often sung by delicate boy-and-girl couples who have endless fey tunes about unhappy relationships.
Fantastic Negrito
My own definition of Americana is fairly basic: can you imagine Sheryl Crow or the late Tom Petty playing it? If the
So what is Americana? It’s a huge genre that takes us from the country-rock of The Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers in the late Sixties/early Seventies through to Blues, R&B, Roots, Southern Rock, Rockabilly and even Bluegrass. It can be funny, it can be sad, it can have a serious message – or just be about bourbon and bad decisions. There’s a lot of songs about bourbon and bad decisions. Most importantly, it is a genre that is constantly pushing new boundaries and evolving. Of course it needs to evolve, all music needs to evolve otherwise we’d be
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Rock and Blues International • September 2020
Gangstagrass
