The Biggest Takeaways of AmericanaFest 2024
The 2024 installment of AmericanaFest transpired in Nashville last week, giving fans, members of the industry, and fellow artists an opportunity to check out much of the talent in the independent side of country and roots music. Though the crowds felt thinner than normal—perhaps due to all the competition in the region like the massive Bourbon & Beyond festival just north in Kentucky—a strong contingent of folks made their way to Nashville to take it all in.
Sure, there were big performances by Neko Case and Nathaniel Rateliff among others, and the awards show saw a lot of big names and performances as well (read recap). But the true spirit of AmericanaFest is is discovering the next big artist in the pipeline, and supporting the grassroots performers who don’t always get the big opportunities they deserve.
It was ahead of the 2019 AmericanaFest when Saving Country Music first showcased Sierra Ferrell. This year she was the Americana Music Association’s Artist of the Year. So in that spirit, here were some important artists Saving Country Music caught over the week.
Please understand, there are literally dozens of different venues, and many hundreds of artists who performed over the week. So not everyone could be highlighted. For more coverage from AmericanaFest 2024, check out Saving Country Music’s Instagram page.
Noeline Hoffman
A merciless, discriminating search for authenticity in country and Western music will lead you strait to south Alberta’s Noeline Hoffman who traded in working on ranches to become a Western singer and songwriter. After Zach Bryan got a hold of her song “Purple Gas,” she’s shot up the depth charts, and all of a sudden is on deck to be the next great cowboy country star.
Noeline made her Nashville debut at The 5 Spot Thursday evening as part of AmericanaFest—a big career achievement that was soon eclipsed by making her Grand Ole Opry debut Saturday night. There’s more age and wisdom behind this woman than expected, and she earned bonus points with the audience by performing “The Bullfighter” by Luke Bell (RIP). The future of Western music is bright. The future of Western music is Noeline Hoffman.
Shawna Thompson
By far, the biggest surprise release in country music in 2024 so far has been Shawna Thompson’s new album Lean on Neon. You want country? You damn well better, and bring your appetite, because Shawna Thompson is serving up heaping helpings of it. There’s no shrinkflation in twang happening in Shawna Thompson’s universe.
Thompson took the stage at the historic EXIT/IN in Nashville during AmericanaFest with an eight piece country band and brought the house down. All the hipsters were in East Nashville listening to indie rock in cowboy hats, but Shawna Thompson brought the classic country goodness. This is your warning: Ignore Shawna Thompson and Lean on Neon at your own peril.
Caitlin Cannon
Few if any songwriters have the fearlessness to plumb into the deepest regions of human emotion, and express them with such brutal and bursting honesty as Caitlin Cannon. A performance by Caitlin Cannon is hilarious, heartbreaking, and even a little bit uncomfortable as she goes places polite society tells us are forbidden, but are essential in addressing the vast array of human frailties.
Also working with prison inmates and soldiers with PTSD, Caitlin Cannon isn’t a song writer, she is a song warrior, using the medium to vanquish deeply embedded demons in the human consciousness to enact healing and resolution that often chemicals and therapy are ineffective against. And yes, that is the great Misa Arriaga (fmr. Kacey Musgraves bandleader/love interest) performing with her.
Taylor Hunnicutt
You want an “Outlaw” ?! Get yourself a snootful of Taylor Hunnicutt. There might not be another person out there on the planet—man, woman, or beast—with more grit, guts, and attitude than Taylor.
She showed up to her official AmericanaFest showcase at The Cannery in Nashville with her voice half gone from having to play half a dozen shows in a few days, and the monitor speakers mercilessly feeding back in her face while the doofus on the sound board played Candy Crush, not to mention the terrible lighting and muddy sound the audience experienced.
Madder than a wet cat, Taylor didn’t bitch into the microphone, she channeled all of her anger and frustration straight into the music in one hell of an impassioned, Porterhouse steak of a Southern rock performance.
Rachel Brooke
Some call Rachel Brooke the Queen of Underground Country. Others compare her to a modern version of Hank Williams in the way her voice carries so much pain. A couple of years ago, she was called the Ameripolitan Outlaw Female of the Year.
Call her what you want, Rachel Brooke continues to build a legacy of songs and performances any artist should be proud of, even if the rapacious vultures in the country “industry” are perfectly ignorant to her entire existence. Regardless, she is an Underground/Independent/Outlaw heroine of country music whose voice begs for a greater audience.
Rachel was the highlight and the headliner of California-based grassroots promoter Grand Ole Country Bunker’s Saturday day showcase at the Nashville Palace.
Kristina Murray
Kristina Murray is the muse of East Nashville and independent country music. Her eyes hold the pain of 100 nations, her smile could launch 1000 ships, and her songs and voice are the envy of many, inspiring her fellow artists to tap even deeper into their reserves of talent.
It’s performers like Kristina Murray that remind us that as great as the strides in supporting country music on a grassroots level have been to where it’s risen to challenge the mainstream, there is still work to do to ensure ALL the greatest artists of our time are given their opportunities, and flowers. Make no mistake about it, you talk to her fellow musicians, and they’ll all say that Kristina Murray deserves all the opportunities and flowers she can get.
She played some new songs from a new album at AmericanaFest that we hopefully get to hear in full in 2025.
Kimmi Bitter
Witnessing Kimmi Bitter and her band Westside Twang perform is like being lost in a daydream world of rotary telephones, chrome bumpers, Go-Go boots and gingham, and dreamy surf guitar. You’re transported to a world 70 years in the past that you never want to leave. Kimmi Bitter is a generational singer stuck in a throwback country/Mod surf rock band, while guitar player Willis Farnsworth can conjure the licks of Dick Dale or Merle Travis if the song calls for it.
This is a show not to miss while it’s still in tiny clubs, which it might now be for long if they keep this up. She’s pictured here at Honky Tonk Tuesday Nights at Eastside Bowl. Kimmi Bitter’s new album Old School is out now.
More Takeaways:
September 24, 2024 @ 9:58 am
Great article. Caitlin Cannon is one of the truly phenomenal Americana songwriters and nowhere near enough people know about her. Amarillo And Little Rock is a phenomenal song as is the rest of her last release and her work in her previous band.
Taylor Hunnicutt has one of my album of the Year contenders and the only problem with it is that it was released so early in the year that most people won’t remember it in this amazingly packed year full of great releases.
So many of the other folks on your list really need to blow up.
September 24, 2024 @ 10:11 am
Trig, numerically, was there a major majority of female artists compared to males, or were you just going to see more females? No judgment meant in my question, just curious.
September 24, 2024 @ 11:34 am
I didn’t really notice that the majority of the performers I was seeing were women until I started composing this. AmericanaFest is probably one of the few events that does offer a close to equal share of men/women ratio. But it’s also an event for emerging talent as opposed to established talent. I think this tells us that there’s a lot of top women coming up at the moment, but they’re also still struggling to be established enough where they continue to need to play these events as opposed to some of the bigger festivals that were happening over the last couple of weeks.
September 24, 2024 @ 2:38 pm
At least 80% of all the new GOOD artists I see popping up are women.
We seem to be having an 80’s resurgence of every dude on the block buying a guitar so they can go on tik tok and show how fast they can play Eruption (just the tappy part of course – they would never learn an entire song…). Just a bunch of nonsensical shreddery.
I follow all people making good music – but right now…it’s mostly women.
September 24, 2024 @ 2:47 pm
Thanks for commenting on Grace Bowers in the recap article! I never heard of her but checked out a lot of her stuff the day I read your comment and have been watching a video or two of her everyday on YouTube since. She’s great!
September 24, 2024 @ 10:12 am
Love Kelsey Waldon! she almost stole the show opening for 49 Winchester
September 24, 2024 @ 10:30 am
Kelsey and Hannah made a pit stop in Elkton MD this past year . Solid double bill show.
September 24, 2024 @ 10:19 am
Trig – I know others have given you due credit for your photo’s in the past but I just wanted to shout it out again. They are fantastic.
September 24, 2024 @ 10:46 am
Good seeing ya around! Caught a lot of these great sets as well. Taylor Hunnicutt, Shawna Thompson, Noeline Hofmann, Kelsey Waldon, Caitlin Cannon, Kimmi Bitter, Jade Marie Patek and India Ramey were great all week. Keystone Artist Connect put on great events all week.
September 24, 2024 @ 11:45 am
I’m going to start some discourse here so bear with me:
Why is everyone a signer songwriter now?
That’s the first question. Merle haggard never called himself that.
And the breathy, chubby vocals women love to employ in their songs that all make them sound like Taylor swift clones? From Courtney Marie andrews to sierra ferrell they all sound breathy and don’t hold a note
Not a criticism as much as a “I hear this trend and wonder why it’s taken over everything”
Second thing: why is everyone WRITING songs?
Aren’t there enough great songs already out there?
Don’t you think there’s room for a Louvin brothers cover band who does all the Louvin and acuff-Oswald songs?
A classic country act that does all the great hits of cowboy copas and Mel tillis?
Is no one doing that or are they not getting any coverage?
Because sometimes I want something new but don’t want to digest heavy material and I’d love to hear familiar songs in new ways
Is there a market for tribute and revival acts at all? And is this ‘singer songwriter’ term just current jargon or reflecting a deeper trend?
And does the singing style I described begin with artists like Taylor swift and are artists aware that it’s just a widespread trend the way so many artists tried to sing like lefty for a while? Is it just a style that’s pppular or is it portending a deeper market and influence?
Basically what gives?
Because people who go to a bluegrass festival are guaranteed certain things:
At least one performance of foggy mountain breakdown
One performance of uncle pen
One performance of another earl breakdown, usually earls breakdown sometimes shucking the corn
At least a half dozen early folk songs like pig in the pen and foggy mountain top
At least as many fiddle tunes and waltzes
Like… is there an accepted country music canon the way all jazz players know A train and ain’t misbehaving?
Because I see a trend in modern country music that everyone is just writing their own stuff and some familiar songs would go a long way towards making a country music event a unifying experience
September 24, 2024 @ 12:42 pm
I won’t address the singing style thing because I don’t have an answer.
Regarding why today’s new artists don’t play old country songs like what happens in jazz and bluegrass:
I would venture to say that most independent artists (notice, I said “artists”, not singers) are looking to break new ground in some way, while still harkening back to the old stuff. I think another reason is that country has a much wider spectrum than jazz or bluegrass (as a matter of fact, most would say bluegrass is a subgenre of country). Anyway, within those more narrow genres there are standard songs that are given reverence due to the fact that they pretty much define the genre. I don’t think country has that, again because of the wide diversity within the genre. While country does revere it’s artists, songs, not as much. At least not like jazz and bluegrass.
My two cents.
September 25, 2024 @ 7:13 am
Most might say bluegrass is a subgenre of country, but they’d be wrong. The reality is more complicated, the subject of a number of published histories which anyone sufficiently interested ought to read.
I’ve listened to (and written about) bluegrass all my long life, and I can attest that it’s more akinJe to what rockabilly is to mainstream rock: an ever more distant cousin. Country jettisoned bluegrass from its mainstream in the early part of the 1960s, and it would exist today only as a curiosity (think rockabilly, Western Swing, Ernest Tubb-accented honky tonk) if it had not been absorbed into the then-ongoing folk boom (which is how Bill Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs, Osborne Brothers, and others of the founding generation replenished their income and found a new audience more loyal than listeners to country radio hits).
Decades later, bluegrass stands on its own, with its own culture, periodicals, record labels, and a committed following and body of musicians. A fusion of different sounds (traditional Appalachian music and 1950s Opry, mixed with blues and jazz), it is now very much its own independent style.
September 24, 2024 @ 12:53 pm
If you want classic covers go to Ameripolitan. The whole point of Americana as a genre name is that it’s new/unusual/experimental/nontraditional folk/blues/indie-leaning original music.Literally.
As far as the breathy vocals you say you hear, maybe you should get your ears checked? Especially when it comes to Sierra, that word is literally the opposite of how she sings.
September 24, 2024 @ 12:54 pm
Folks write songs because its a timeless way to express yourself and process through emotions. It’s an art form, and like all good art forms, it needs to express the time in which it was created.
There is still plenty of room for older songs too. Kelsey Waldon, who is highlighted above, just released an album of old classic country and bluegrass songs, including “Uncle Pen.” Many of the performers above regularly perform classic songs too.
I understand your appeal for older music. But that is your appeal. Different things appeal to different people.
September 24, 2024 @ 2:29 pm
Would you believe I still haven’t bought a quebe sisters band cd? It’s not that I don’t want to, I just haven’t gotten around to it.
I do like newer music. I saw 49 Winchester and Jason isbell within like two weeks of each other this year and Charley Crockett last fall
But in the other genres there’s more of a… sense of continuity that seems built on having a shared relationship with the history of the music
Dropkick murphy’s are a far cry from the Clancy brothers but they’ve done some of the same songs.
I saw del mccoury band a couple weeks ago and they did earls breakdown
But out of all the contemporary shows I’ve been to, I can name one time I heard a classic country song: Charley Crockett sang act naturally
There are Beatles and Herman’s hermits and ZZ Top tribute bands. I think there’s room for a Maddox brothers and rose tribute band.
And to use your room at the table expression, I just want to see the industry more open to the idea of keeping the old stuff beside the new stuff not behind it
September 24, 2024 @ 1:20 pm
I’ll offer two possible reasons:
1) Novelty – as fun as it to play old songs, not to mention the importance of keeping the tradition alive, there is sort of a sacred bond between a writer and their music, expressing what they feel versus what somebody from the past felt, For being recognized for your own music versus your take on somebody else’s song.
2) Economy – As a Singer, songwriter type, one can have more control over the output of material and how the finances work out. For a traditional ‘band’ where things are more or less even, that requires a more democratic approach. If you look at a lot of the biggest names in music, it’s usually a singular person, even if they do have a consistent backing band. Ultimately, being a singer songwriter type can give you more creative freedom control and a bigger cut of the pie.
September 24, 2024 @ 1:41 pm
Fuzzy,
My honest thoughts on your comment:
Americana organization seems to favor women over men in general, for many reasons which I won’t elaborate on. Its been discussed to death.
Why all the emphasis on songwriting? Because a lot of people in the Americana scene did not come out of the trad country radio world, where it was the norm to be a singer and performer, and even a bandleader, but primarily cover songs written by others. From the downright disparaging comments in this blog every time a story on George Strait is written, Ive deduced there is a growing group that has a condescending atittude about any performer who is not a songwriter. These folks see such performers as of “lesser importance and talent.” Its the kind of fan that loves to wax about how great Blaze Foley and Townes were, and in their mind the real superstars are Guy Clark and the like. Theres a lot of that sentiment in Americana circles. The thought seems to be you should write all your own material, play at least one instrument, and sing to be considered relevant. Thats the rub.
As for why these women all sound the same? I don’t think they all do. Sierra Ferrell doesnt sound like anyone Ive ever heard. She has an undeniably unique style that morphed out of a mix of Appalachian and Jazz. Kelsey Waldon sounds unique to me as well. Nikki Lane has a cool sassy southern drawl that I think works well for her. I could go on. Truth be told, most of us listen to male singers more frequently, myself included. But I make exceptions for a great live performance. Going to Ameripolitan Weekend has given me the opportunity to see many of these gals close up, in the live setting, and its widened my perspective. ( Though, truth be told, my music collection is much more guys than gals) Its clear that Trigger aka Kyle really does love the female songwriters and he tends to focus a lot on them, perhaps because there are so many out there.
You would like a band called The Cowpokes. They only have one or two albums available. They play primarily in Nashville, and are at Roberts, Acme Feed and Seed, and Eastside Bowl every week. They only play covers and its Mel Tillis, Ray Price, Webb Pierce, George Jones, Faron Young and the like. They are everything you are looking for. Killer fiddle playing and a pedal steel to boot.
All the performers in the Honky-Tonks in Nashville play covers primarily. Josh Hedley, Sarah Gayle Meech, Timbo, John England, BrazilBilly all play vintage country music every week at Roberts. That is the epicenter of what you are talking about. Yet, I know of no one covering Louvin Brothers much, save for The MalPass Brothers which I think you would appreciate, they do a mix of old-timey sounds.
There was a lot of focus on bluegrass at the Americana Fest this year with showcases from folks like Po Ramblin Boys and Rhonda Vincent and The Rage and many others. Its impossible to cover it all, basically you go to a venue and you see the lineup there, meanwhile at a half dozen other venues around town there are other acts going on that you miss. Thats why I don’t do Americana Fest. Its not easy to navigate. Also, Americana Fest is way too concerned about trying to be a huge blanket organization covering multiple genres, that they end up out of touch with the masses, in my opinion, and ultimately fail to do justice to the true country music they once claimed to represent. But I digress.
September 24, 2024 @ 2:33 pm
Hiya Kevin. Thanks! I’ll check out cowpokes!
As for the singing thing; I saw hailey Hendricks open for Andrew bird opening for nickel creek (it was like six hours of music I was done and left early during nickel creek since I saw them once before plus Chris thile and Bela fleck together once and jarosz while she was with I’m with her)
I also saw zandi holup open for 49 Winchester
And Courtney Marie andrews open for Jason isbell
And they all have a very similar singing style… to my ears! And lots of other contemporary women singers in songwriter and acoustic music spaces sing in a similar way
I love guy Clark and Townes, and I’ve written plenty of songs (mostly instrumentals)
When I perform, I might only do an original or two. Because there’s so many existing great songs I know are better than anything I’ve done
Of course, I also love everything from dream theatre and nightwish to lefty frizzell and even Charlie Poole and Fred van eps so I may be biased
September 25, 2024 @ 11:26 am
Sierra Ferrell “sounds breathy – doesn’t hold a note” ?????????????????????????????
Dwight Yoakum, Raul
this is ur lucky day, Fuzzy TwoShirts – i hit CANCEL REPLY accidently – so u are spared my detailed, contrasting opinion of Sierra Ferrell. “breathy”? – what you meant was “clear as a bell” right? “doesn’t hold a note” ?????? [<<<that's the short version. ur welcome] '
That's so off – makes me question myself – 'coz I agree with many of your points.
September 24, 2024 @ 11:53 am
A few of my favorite showcases…
Dave Alvin & Jimmie Dale Gilmore… That’s some badass Texas blues. First time seeing ’em.
Harper O’Neill… she has an amazing voice. One to keep an eye on.
Greenwood Rye… new bluegrass band with youthful energy and catchy songs.
Brooke Hatala (in the new Somewhere Blue duo)… love her vocal tone and slight rasp.
Lindi Ortega… no one else like her.
And last but certainly not least … the powerful & unforgettable Tami Neilson!!
Also my 1st time seeing the Kody Norris Show. Very talented old-style bluegrass musicians and you get to hear some gawdawful dad jokes.
All-in-all a wonderful time. Except for getting my car towed from an AT&T lot with no signage. (TRAP!) 🙁
September 24, 2024 @ 12:00 pm
When you get a chance, check out Seth Walker.
September 24, 2024 @ 2:54 pm
WYATT FLORES AT STATION INN
September 24, 2024 @ 2:59 pm
Heard from a lot of folks that was a lit show.
September 24, 2024 @ 3:21 pm
Correcting the record: You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere is a Dylan song, covered by the Byrds (and Nikki Lane).
Yeah, complain all you want about the boomers need to correct the record, but it’s gotta happen.
September 24, 2024 @ 7:56 pm
I don’t like to see “Former” member of the Trishas, they were a wonderful band. Hope Savannah is doing well.
September 25, 2024 @ 8:23 am
I remember Shawna Thompson from her days in Thompson Square. Glad she’s back!