The Americana and roots music authority

A pity about Lucinda and the AMAs

The thing was, I really wanted Maggie -- who is now officially six, and has mastered the wagging index finger -- to listen to the Tractors new album, Trade Union (Koch). She claims to love rock 'n' roll, by which she presently means it's fun to jump off her tiny trampoline and onto her bed whilst listening to a childrens' remake of "Wipeout." Repeatedly. But I figured since her grandfather and her father were both spending a certain amount of time with farm equipment, and since both J.J. Cale and Leon Russell make more than guest appearances on the latest Tractors album, maybe she'd see the fun in it. Plus the opening track is called "Up Jumped The Boogie," which seemed like a pretty good kids song all around.

Now, to be clear, I don't hold any particular brief for the Tractors, who hail from Oklahoma and have had a country career, best I can recall, that I can't really recall. But my friend Al pressed a copy on me and told me it was a fun record, and I guess it is possible to make a Texas swing version of Harlan Howard's "Pick Me Up On Your Way Down" and have it play for fun, but that wouldn't have been my choice. But it was the only new CD in the truck when I picked Maggie up from school and so...

...but, NO! We must listen again to the newest Lucinda Williams album, to Little Honey one more time. She asks for the tracks by number, cutting certain songs off midway when she's heard her favorite bits. She is, after all, six.

That was, I guess, a day or so before official announcements of the Americana Music Association's assorted nominees, a process in which I have some kind of obscure ghost role as a past president and whatever. And so I was struck by the complete absence of Lucinda from the nominee list.

She was, I believe (Peter will doubtless correct me if I'm wrong) the only artist to appear on our magazine's cover three times. Which isn't to say that ND was Americana, exactly, because we weren't. Not exactly. But Lucinda and Steve Earle and John Prine and Guy Clark and a goodly other handful of artists certainly were both, and important to both realms.

So it seems odd to me, odd that Lucinda made a fun, gleeful (and, I would argue, courageous, given her reputation for perfection and gloom) album about being in love and gotten no love from the AMA. A really good album. An album I can still listen to despite the fact that my daughter has obliged me to wear it out.

The argument, I suppose, is that she has given the AMA no love, having declined repeated invitations to perform, to be honored, to join us. Doubtless she has her reasons, and her priorities, and I begrudge her none of that. And I do think the AMA has earned the right not to go begging to artists of her stature; and that she has more than earned the right to do whatever the hell she wants.

Past that, it is quite possible those nominating for these awards simply didn't like her record as much as Maggie and I do.

But it still seems a list made incomplete by her absence.

ALBUM OF THE YEAR
Real Animal, by Alejandro Escovedo
Written in Chalk, by Buddy & Julie Miller
Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit, by Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit
Midnight At The Movies, by Justin Townes Earle

ARTIST OF THE YEAR
Alejandro Escovedo
Buddy Miller
Justin Townes Earle
Raul Malo

INSTRUMENTALIST OF THE YEAR
Buddy Miller
Gurf Morlix
Jerry Douglas
Sam Bush

NEW & EMERGING ARTIST
Band of Heathens
Belleville Outfit
Justin Townes Earle
Sarah Borges

SONG OF THE YEAR
“Chalk,” written by Julie Miller, performed by Buddy Miller & Patty Griffin
“Country Love” by the Gourds
“Homeland Refugee,” by Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, and Butch Hancock, performed by the Flatlanders
“Rattlin’ Bones” by Kasey Chambers & Shane Nicholson, performed by Kasey Chambers & Shane Nicholson
“Sex And Gasoline,” by Rodney Crowell, performed by Rodney Crowell

DUO GROUP OF THE YEAR
Buddy & Julie Miller
Flatlanders
Kasey Chambers & Shane Nicholson
Reckless Kelly

Tags: alden, ama, lucinda, tractors, williams

Comment by JC Shepard on May 22, 2009 at 9:32am: I love having the AMA around not so much because they define Americana, but because it gives us a baseline to argue about what Americana isn't. Kinda like that line about porn and the Supreme Court. As you observe, Lucinda made a nice rock album. Lucinda dances with the muse that brought her, and that muse these days is playing rock and roll. Whatever Americana is, Little Honey isn't it. Just doesn't fit.

That said, there's plenty more opportunity to wonder at missed opportunities in the AMA nominations. If I'd just kept up my dues I might think I had something to say about it....

Comment by Grant Alden on May 22, 2009 at 11:28am: I come from grunge, by which standards Lucinda didn't make a rock album (and, anyway, that's your nomenclature, not mine). If Americana is defined in such a way that her album ISN'T Americana...then I'm lost. Again.

Comment by Easy Ed on May 22, 2009 at 11:35am: It would have been nice for Lucinda to have been acknowledged. I know her significant other/producer, and I think that together they worked hard to come up with an incredibly good collection. With that said, I've never been much a fan of handing out awards for creative output because I think it's not something that needs to be done, nor can it be done very well. And whether it's Hollywood or Nashville, I'm even less a fan of the organizations that give them out. The AMA is probably one of the better of the bunch, but still...

Quite a few years ago I was a voting member of several music academies when I worked at a major label distributor, and I recall the first time I got a ballot in the mail. I sat there and agonized on who to vote for when a call from my boss came in telling me not to fill it out 'cause we were all voting as one company. It was interesting to see how not only did the company vote for our own artists, but that there was some backroom horsetrading with the other majors for specific categories and such. The entire process just left me cold as it felt like just another schoolyard game of "I'm better than you" and it just diminished the artistic process.

The other thing is what JC illustrates above: there is no real category for anything...it's completely up to the individual to define. He thinks Lucinda's album is rock; others may call it country, Americana, Texas or folk. If you lived in Norway, maybe it'd be known as international music.

Anyway...back to the Americana awards. In these tough times, maybe the nominees should all go over to Buddy and Julie's house for dinner and we could watch them on a podcast.

Comment by Grant Alden on May 22, 2009 at 5:42pm: Well...when we started the AMA, I said something to the effect of being violently opposed to the entire notion of an awards show. So the year I was president, that's when we had the first one. I'm still not quite sure how that happened.

I don't have the sense that anybody games the AMAs, in part because I don't think there's a perception among the potential gamers -- the labels -- that it matters that much. Mattering having to do with sales, of course. Mostly.

The other thing about the AMA...I fought against describing the music for years, a view which seems still to hold sway within the organization. The radio format, I suspect, has a working definition. I always wanted it to be a big tent with room for Solomon Burke (we got him on the Ryman stage; thanks, Shout! Factory) and Mavis Staples and Del McCoury and whatever else. Some of which works, some of which has happened.

But the real question is why I stepped into this office on a Friday night to type those words!

Comment by William Michael Smith on May 23, 2009 at 7:43am: Grant, I guess I'm doing something wrong. My 3 year old granddaughter's favorite song is Bad Girl by Donna Summer. Her second-favorite song is the Stone Coyotes' version of Jolene, which she can sing word for word. Kid's just a rocker, sounds like your little girl is too. I agree, too bad Lucinda's record isn't on the Best list.

Comment by Peter Blackstock on May 24, 2009 at 9:38am: Whether or not the first AMA awards show happening under Grant's presidential watch was a good or bad thing, I'll leave him to be the judge .... but I will say that I am eternally grateful that that particular awards show (in the fall of 2002) provided all of us with a very rare and pretty much final opportunity to see June Carter and Johnny Cash sing together onstage.

I don't remember at all who won which awards that night. But I'll never forget that performance.

Comment by Grant Alden on May 24, 2009 at 11:02am: All I remember is that I had to read a speech I'd written about Doug Sahm but nobody told me I was going to have to follow Johnny Cash.

Comment by Andy Moore on May 24, 2009 at 3:52pm: I love the audacity of Maggie's wanting to move on after hearing her favorite parts. Would we could be so unselfconscious in our own listening...!

Comment by Grant Alden on May 25, 2009 at 6:45am: Well, she won't eat her peas, either.

Comment by Rob Taylor-Manning on May 25, 2009 at 7:45am: It just makes me smile to know that Grant is still out of step. What could be more americana than that?