Today is International Clash Day

[Machine Head]

Going down a road with who Dylan was 'influenced' by we are

 

[Machine Head]

And I say that as a son of the Iron Range

 

[Neutral Corner]

If occurs to me that a prime contributor to what Americana sounds like seldom gets mentioned as a contributor, and they flat owned the airwaves from '69 to '71. Creedence Clearwater Revival.

Proud Mary. Bad Moon Rising. Green River. Down on the Corner. Fortunate Son. They fall in there sort of in between pure Rock 'n Roll and Americana. They mine the Chuck Berry/Little Richard rock sound, Hank William's country sound, then wrap it in a California version of the Louisiana swamp. Looking back with the perspective of the years, they pretty much invented roots rock, but it always had that broader Americana flavor.

 

[Jake from State Farm]

On the other hand, maybe y'all have not heard Ry Cooder's soundtrack to "The Long Riders", or even of Ry Cooder at all.

 

[justgladtobehere]

I love these music threads.

 

[justgladtobehere]

If occurs to me that a prime contributor to what Americana sounds like seldom gets mentioned as a contributor, and they flat owned the airwaves from '69 to '71. Creedence Clearwater Revival.

Proud Mary. Bad Moon Rising. Green River. Down on the Corner. Fortunate Son. They fall in there sort of in between pure Rock 'n Roll and Americana. They mine the Chuck Berry/Little Richard rock sound, Hank William's country sound, then wrap it in a California version of the Louisiana swamp. Looking back with the perspective of the years, they pretty much invented roots rock, but it always had that broader Americana flavor.

I know this is all subjective and picking nits, but I think CCR is too heavy and bluesy to be considered a great part of Americana. The Byrds and Flying Burrito Brothers were around the same time and doing stuff more recognizable as Americana.

For me, Americana is a blend of punk and country that ended up focused in Chicago in theid-1990's.

 

[2muchcoffeeman]

I know this is all subjective and picking nits, but I think CCR is too heavy and bluesy to be considered a great part of Americana. The Byrds and Flying Burrito Brothers were around the same time and doing stuff more recognizable as Americana.

For me, Americana is a blend of punk and country that ended up focused in Chicago in theid-1990's.

Americana is also a blend of acoustic country, rock and bluegrash that ends up focused in East Nashville rather than Music Row. It's a big tent, but there are no bros.

 

[Neutral Corner]

For me, Americana is a blend of punk and country that ended up focused in Chicago in the mid-1990's.

I consider Americana to be something of a musical version of a refrigerator clean-out stew. You take whatever is good and to hand, mix it all together, spice up until it is tasty and savory, and maybe you dip the dishrag for extra flavor. I don't know that I really consider punk as a genre to be a significant part of it, as to me at it's heart Americana comes from a place of roots rock, folk, and non-Nashville country. OTOH, I consider garage band rock as roots rock, and there can be a fine line between that and punk. Still, I'm a fan of Jason and the Scorchers, who I have listened to since they were Jason and the Nashville Scorchers, and they were initially described as cowpunk... and I don't really consider them Americana.

I'm not sure I get the punk/country/Chicago nexus. I would appreciate an expansion on that.

CCR was a rock band for certain, but it was an intentional fusion of rock, country, R&B, and blues, and that tracks the Americana line for me. Some of it is pretty pure rock, but a song like "Lookin' Out My Back Door" fits in my Americana space.

 

[Machine Head]

Before the pandemic I was subjected periodically to 'Country'music as it stands today by an friend. His house, his music. Like the bro sound.

Suck doesn't quite capture my feeling about it, doesn't go deep enough into the pit of poo it is.

 

[Neutral Corner]

Cooder has done a number of soundtracks for movies. They are quite diverse, as he has delved into many aspects of world music for many years. An easy sampler of that that would be "Music by Ry Cooder", an anthology double album that draws from most of them. Included is music from "The Long Riders", "Southern Comfort", "The Border", "Streets of Fire", "Paris, Texas", "Alamo Bay", "Blue City", "Crossroads", "Johnny Handsome", "Trespash", and "Geronimo: An American Legend".

 

[PCLoadLetter]

For any Americana fans I highly recommend the annual Americanafest in Nashville. I did it back in 2016. For a week they have bands playing hour-long sets in bars all over town. Off the top of my head, saw:

Dwight Yoakam
Kasey Chambers
John Paul White
Grant Lee Phillips
The Bottle Rockets
Green River Ordnance
Tony Joe White

It was a good time. And I'll take a "stand in a bar" festival over a "stand in a giant, dusty field" festival any day.

 

[Neutral Corner]

Before the pandemic I was subjected periodically to 'Country'music as it stands today by an friend. His house, his music. Like the bro sound.

Suck doesn't quite capture my feeling about it, doesn't go deep enough into the pit of poo it is.

I grew up in Georgia as a rocker, but country and folk and bluegrash was all around me and I absorbed a love for it - the kind that I liked anyway. The old school overproduced Nashville "Country" with a bunch of weeping strings set my teeth on edge. Waylon and Willie's "Outlaw Country" was right down my alley, though. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm not exactly a purist, but that in general mainstream Country is not my cup of tea.

You want country music, real country music? Dig up the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's triple album "Will the Circle be Unbroken". The Dirt Band took their California country jug band sound to Nashville in 1971, as a bunch of long haired California musicians, and they recorded very traditional country music by playing with and featuring Nashville old timers, legends like Mother Maybelle Carter, Roy Acuff, Earl Scruggs, Merle Travis, Doc Watson and the like. They also got some of the very best session players in Nashville to sit in as well, guys like Vashar Clements, Charlie Daniels, Junior Huskey. It completely rejected the slick "Nashville Sound" for a purer form of Appalachian folk/country, and it was excellent. Several generations of players who set aside their generational differences and "longhaired dirty hippy" prejudices to record fine music - even if Bill Monroe flatly refused to have anything to do with it.

Try this on for size. Doc Watson, flatpicker extrordinaire.