Yola has amazing timing. Just after her 2019 debut, Walk Through Fire, made an indelible mark on the Americana world, the lack of stage and airtime for Black women in country music became a huge topic among the true artists of Nashville, in large part because women like Yola herself had proven they belonged (and […]
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Dallas Burrow self-titled In all of the varietals of today’s country music, one characteristic is surprisingly lacking – earnestness. With all of the subtlety and poetry found in Americana and the wordplay and outright bombast on radio-friendly country, not many writers choose to come straight down the center line, eschewing metaphors and archetypes for simple […]
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Anna Tivel — Blue World Without touring, promotion, and all of the other busyness that typically go along with being a professional musician, artists have found themselves with all kinds of previously unimaginable time off over the past 16 months. You and I have benefited with an avalanche of brand-new music, but several artists have […]
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The past nine months have been a musical gift for Tom Petty fans. His family, producers and fellow Heartbreakers have culled through virtually everything from the Wildflowers era to release an embarrassing amount of amazing music. Last fall gave us Wildflowers & All the Rest, a multi-volume set of bonus tracks, demos and live cuts. […]
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Even after writing for Americana Highways for a few years now, a piece of music will, every so often, still jump up and surprise me. Katie Pruitt, Brennen Leigh and Cristina Vane are a few of the artists that I had little knowledge of before their most recent records came out, but a first listen […]
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Our Band — “Bright As You” Musical couples in country music run the gamut, from the even-death-won’t-do-us-part eternality of Johnny and June to, well, what actually DID end The Civil Wars? Turns out, putting sensitive, artistic folks in a (frequently literal) box to work together can sometimes cause simmering emotions to boil over. However, that […]
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Amythyst Kiah Wary + Strange Americana music is full of difference makers right now. Age, gender, race and orientation are all becoming less of a factor as boundaries blur and melt away, maybe more so than in any other genre. All that matters is having a story and the ability to tell it. Tennessee’s Amythyst […]
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Way back in early 2019, before publication of a New York Times article which would torpedo his career, Ryan Adams announced the upcoming release of three albums. Part of that promise came out late last year – the late-night-drop Wednesdays was a mishmash of older (unreleased) and newer songs which was neither good enough to […]
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Diana Jones — Song to a Refugee “I believe these women.” It comes from Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) testifying to a Congressional committee about the condition of immigrant detention centers in Texas. That belief – in people’s stories – is the basis of empathy. That moment in history, and the stories of immigrants and refugees, […]
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Korby Lenker — Man in the Maroon You know that type of guy who’s good at pretty much everything he decides to take up, to the point that it’s a bit frustrating? Outwardly, East Nashville’s Korby Lenker is that guy, but it turns out there’s a lot of hard work required to become good at […]
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