Regulars at AmericanaFest learn to expect first-rate performances back to back presented by WMOT Roots Radio. For the second year, the station has set up shop in The Wash at Eastside Bowl, a former big box store turned bowling alley and music venue. With so many late-night shows across Music City, these performances, from noon to five on Wednesday and noon to six Thursday and Friday, offer some of the best of Americana for locals as well as festival-goers from around the world.
Dan Tyminski, the multiple Grammy winner for guitar and vocals, appeared with Gaven Margent on dobro, opening with “Let Me Fall.” Tyminski played several songs from his tribute EP to the late great Tony Rice One More Time Before You Go, including “Why You Been Gone So Long” and “Ten Degrees and Getting Colder.” The latter he said he had played a million times.
“This will make it one million and one,” he quipped.
He referred to “the awesome year we had in 2020,” as he introduced “God Fearing Heathen,” which he wrote after his wife suggested he might want to write a new bio.
He turned the mic over to Margent, who switched to guitar and played “Ain’t Been No Sugar in a Long Time, Honey,” a blues song he wrote in the bleak wintertime. Tyminski joined him on the mandolin.
Tyminski also played for the first time a new song he wrote when he realized he played bluegrass songs but didn’t usually write them, singing “If not for the bluegrass. . . I’d have no song to sing.”
Tyminski wrapped up his set with a crowd favorite, “Man of Constant Sorrow,” arguably the best known song from O Brother! Where Are Thou? He told the crowd that when he first explained to his wife he’d be doing the VoiceOver for the movie, that George Clooney’s face would be on the big screen with his own voice coming out, she told him, “That’s my fantasy!”
As he sang “Man of Constant Sorrow, when he reached the line, “I have no friend to help me now,” he said, “That’s not true,” asking the crowd to join him on the refrain. They sang along with gusto.