During AmericanaFest week in Nashville, even the key figures representing Americana Music Association admit to the difficulty of defining Americana music. Is it a genre, a subgenre, or as Brandi Carlile suggested “country music for liberals”?
This week Americana seems more like big tent welcoming a diverse range of artists and styles. On the schedule at the iconic Station Inn, the Americana music closing out Thursday night was unquestionably bluegrass. Even as the show ran past midnight, the lively crowd was hollering for more. Led by founder CJ Lewandowski on mandolin, the band traded out lead vocals as the whole band contributed harmony.
They played several songs from the band’s most recent album Never Slow Down, nominated for IBMA 2022 album of the year. Jereme Brown, who plays banjo, sang lead on “Mason’s Lament from that project. Lewandowski described “Take My Ashes to the River,” also from the album, as “a song about cremation” written at MerleFest. Noting that they always included a George Jones, they performed “Where Grass Won’t Grow,” one of the deep cuts from Jones extensive catalog.
They also performed another favorite “Hickory, Walnut, and Pine,” from their 2019 Toils, Tears, and Trouble. Fiddler Laura Orshaw, whose first solo album is topping the bluegrass charts, sang “Old Time Angels,” with references to all the tragic heroines of old time music: Little Maggie, Pretty Polly, Darline Cory, and more. Written by Jim Lauderdale, the song got Lewandowski called a new spin by Orshaw.
Jim Lauderdale, a singer and songwriter who is ubiquitous in the Americana world, stopped in, calling them “bluegrass on steroids.” He joined them on two of his songs, “The Deep Well of Sadness,” written with Robert Hunter, and “Lost in the Lonesome Pines, written for one of Ralph Stanley’s final recordings.
Lewandowski sang “I’m gonna build a bar in the back of this car and drive myself to drinking.”
They took time to acknowledge guitarist Josh Rinkel’s birthday, with the crowd breaking into “Happy Birthday,” before finishing with “Always Late with Your Kisses” and “Eastbound and Down,” asking the crowd to sing along.