report on Americana awards show last weekend

Americana awards celebrate genre-blurring music
Artists from country to gospel, folk to pop
By PETER COOPER • Staff Writer • September 18, 2008
There were rock stars up on the Ryman stage tonight at the Americana Music Association's Honors and Awards show.
And there was a folk music queen, and a gospel-singing soul shouter and some of contemporary music's most acclaimed performers.
And these folks — Robert Plant, Joan Baez, John Hiatt, Nanci Griffith, Levon Helm, Jason and the Scorchers, Jim Lauderdale, Buddy Miller, Steve Earle and so many others — were bound by the amorphous "Americana" designation, by a love of American roots music and by the shared feeling that genre divisions are among the sillier of musical (or anti-musical) notions.
So the Scorchers played throttling, drawling rock 'n' roll and lead singer Jason Ringenberg praised "The founding fathers of Americana, Jerry Lee Lewis and The Ramones."
And The SteelDrivers played bluegrass. Mike Farris sang the washed-in-the-blood "Mary Don't You Weep." Joan Baez, who stole hearts and changed minds as a protest movement folkie in the 1960s, delivered "Day After Tomorrow" and spoke of the musicianship of the late Jerry Reed.Baez, whose time around Bob Dylan, Richie Havens, Pete Seeger and so many others taught her much about stout musical communities, looked at the talent milling about backstage and said quietly: "This is pretty astounding."There were also awards, and the much-lauded duo of Plant and Alison Krauss was a double-winner, taking home prizes for album of the year (Raising Sand) and duo/group of the year. Helm, who spent years as a driving force in The Band, won artist of the year on the strength of his Dirt Farmer album. Miller, who has been out touring with Plant and Krauss, triumphed as top instrumentalist. Farris, surely among Nashville's most impressive and energized vocalists, was named the new/emerging artist of the year.Farris' award for his gospel-drenched music provided an interesting juxtaposition, given that the song of the year prize was awarded to Hayes Carll and Brian Keane for their less-than-reverent "She Left Me For Jesus." Those were the yearly prizes, but many of the night's emotional moments centered on the lifetime achievement awards. The Scorchers won the night's first such trophy, for live performance, as presenter Anthony DeCurtis of Rolling Stone said the band represents "The best of what American music can be" and predicted the Scorchers would "burn this (expletive) place down." The band's original members — Ringenberg, Warner Hodges, Perry Baggs and Jeff Johnson — did not set fire to the hallowed Ryman, but they did provide ample evidence as to just why they deserved such a designation."This was always a community, but it has coalesced," Ringenberg said backstage, as friends including Earle, Hiatt and Todd Snider greeted him.Hiatt won a lifetime achievement award for songwriting. His colorful trophy included the names of some of the songs on which he's built a legacy: "Thing Called Love," "Drive South" and "Tennessee Plates" among them."This 'getting awards' deal is kind of a new thing for me," he said. "Joe Ely presented the award to me, and he's a songwriting hero of mine."Former Bob Dylan band member Larry Campbell, who often performs now with Helm, received a lifetime achievement award for his instrumental work.Tony Brown was there to present a trailblazer award to Nanci Griffith, who had no idea she was getting an award. Griffith knew she was presenting an achievement award for production/engineering to Brown, who had no clue he was getting an award. The surprise lasted right up until they were onstage."She changed my life," Brown said. "She was the beginning of a whole tribe of country artists that were different."Later, Griffith told Brown, "I thought you were talking about Patty Loveless."Griffith told the Ryman crowd, "This was a big surprise that made me cry," and she asked, "Am I still supposed to give Tony an award?"Assured that she was still giving the award — that the whole night wasn't one big ruse — Griffith spoke eloquently of Brown's work in bringing right field artists into the country mainstream in the 1980s and beyond.Another surprise came later, when Plant came onstage not to sing with Krauss (they had been up together to collect awards earlier) but to sing with Miller, a Nashville singer, songwriter, guitarist, producer and engineer. The Led Zeppelin leader and the scruffy Music City troubadour mixed together like peas in some big, weird and fine pod. "It's been such an experience working with this guy," Plant said. "He's spectacular."It was another memory made on what has become an annual showcase of great American music. And if calling a British rock star "Americana" struck anyone funny, it didn't strike anyone as anything less than righteous when the music was being made.
Peter Cooper writes about music for The Tennessean. He can be reached at 615-259-8220, or by e-mail at pcooper@tennessean.com. -