Jewel, JD Souther, and more kick off Americanafest 2015 at City WineryThe Americana Music Festival officially kicked off on Tuesday night with AMA Showcase performances in three Nashville venues. This is the first year that a slate of Showcase performances were held on Tuesday, extending Americanafest into a six day festival.
The evening began at the Americana Music Festival Kickoff at City Winery. Before the official Showcases began, Platinum selling singer-songwriter Jewel held a signing for her new memoir “Never Broken: The Songs Are Only Half the Story.” Not technically an Americanafest showcase as the event was open to anyone who bought a copy of the book, it drew a significant portion of its crowd from people with Americanafest lanyards or wristbands.
While billed as a “Book Reading and Signing”, what gathered fans got was a 30 minute session of songs interspersed with personal stories that inspired Jewel's work and life. From her childhood as the daughter of immigrants in rural Alaska to her life as a homeless teenager in California to her struggle to maintain her integrity as a singer-songwriter in the face of record labels that wanted instant commercial payoffs, Jewel's stories were told with a good humor that flowed easily into songs from her new album, “Picking Up the Pieces”, as well as hits like “Hands.”
Later that evening, Jewel took the stage at City Winery for her official Americana Showcase performance to a significantly larger, near capacity crowd. Her 45 minute set began with an a cappella rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” from “The Wizard of Oz.” Her voice was as strong as ever and she nailed the oft-covered Judy Garland classic. From there, Jewel picked up her guitar and gave a solo performance interspersed with more stories. While Jewel is the latest in a string of commercially successful artists who have found a home in the Americana community as they matured, she had a shorter trip than most, having started as, in her words, “a folk singer”. Judging from the audience reactions, the Americana Music Festival audience is ready to welcome her back home.
But before Jewel took the stage, the night started with a set of acoustic blues rock from JD and the Straight Shot. It's usually a bad sign when someone tells a singer “don't quit your day job”, but in the case of JD and the Straight Shot frontman James Dolan, it's not an indictment of his musical skills but more of a nod toward financial security. Dolan's “day job” is CEO of Cablevision and Executive Chairman of Madison Square Garden. But don't mistake JD and the Straight Shot as a CEO's vanity project. Dolan's band consists of artists who have toured with Robert Plant, Rosanne Cash, Martina McBride, and more. They are a tight group and Dolan holds his own, delivering just the right shot of gravel to anchor the blues rock his band produces. Performing songs exclusively from their forthcoming album “Ballyhoo”, a copy of which was given to all City Winery showcase attendees, JD and the Straight Shot made a number of new fans at Americanafest with their swampy blues offerings.
Following Jewel was a pair of shows from two of Americana music's biggest unsung heroes, JD Souther and Donnie Fritts. Both known more as songwriters and sessions players than as performers in their own right, the two artists showed they can keep up with their more famous peers.
First up was Souther, who has showcased at Americanafest before and always packs the house. It's hard to remember just how many hits Souther played a part in until he's up on stage and you realize that '70s radio staples like “New Kid in Town”, “Heartache Tonight”, and “Prisoner in Disguise” came in whole or in part from his pen. Souther also spent a lot of time praising the Americana music community, saying that it was the one place that didn't put music into artificial genre labels, loving all “good music” as its own genre. He then spoke of his childhood love of pop standard artists like Tony Bennett, culminating in a spot on performance of Fats Waller's “Ain't Misbehavin'.”
The final performance of the night belonged to Donnie Fritts. Like Souther, Fritts is not a name most casual music fans will recognize, although they have likely heard his words in the songs of the likes of John Prine, Dusty Springfield, and Dolly Parton. Joining Fritts on stage for the night was a man who represents the modern music of North Alabama, John Paul White. Formerly one-half of The Civil Wars, White has kept his live performances pretty limited since that group's demise, so it was a rare treat to watch him share the stage with Fritts. In between songs like “Oldest Baby in the World” and “We Had It All”, the two talked about meeting one another during the press tour for White's Muscle Shoals documentary and bantered like old friends. While White mostly stuck to harmony vocals and guitar, he did step out front for one song, a searing rendition of “Breakfast in Bed”, co-written by Fritts for Dusty Springfield.
But City Winery wasn't the only venue hosting AMA Showcases on Tuesday. At The Basement, rising stars Della Mae performed, followed by the Bluegrass Situation's Late Night Windup hosted by Punch Brothers' Noam Pikelny. At Basement East, it was Sin City vs. Guitar Town with The Bottle Rockets, Aaron Lee Tasjan and Friends, and Campfire Propaganda.
Americanafest 2015 begins in earnest on Wednesday, with the annual Americana Awards and Honors show at the Ryman auditorium, followed by a full slate of AMA Showcase performances from the likes of Watkins Family Hour, Los Lobos, Patty Griffin, and Nathaniel Rateliff.
