Digging Deeper for Roots Music

The annual conference of the Nashville-based Americana Music Association has had its share of battles over how to define American roots music and which directions the group should take it. What no one disputes, though, is that the music finds its lasting power in songs that are both tied to tradition and fresh enough to surprise, songs rich enough to be delivered by a variety of performers and groups in affecting ways.

As performers, promoters, publicists, radio programmers, record labels and journalists with a stake in the Americana music scene congregate in Nashville this weekend for the third annual AMA conference, many who attend the nightly artist showcases will be keeping an eye out for sources of just such material. Trouble is, some of the most promising exponents of Americana won’t be on view—that’s because acts of uncommon ability and passion face the all too common practical problems in gaining broad visibility.

The record company and radio honchos who appear on AMA panels regularly advise performers to come up with material that’s distinctive, to get out and play it, to hit the road and build an audience. They also urge artists to find a way to move units and seize every opportunity to be a “partner” in evangelizing Americana music. From doing all that, they say, comes recognition and a sustainable career.

What follows is a report on five uniquely talented acts who seem to have taken as much of that advice as possible, people who make strong, enduring music, yet haven’t attracted the attention they deserve. All five artists fall within the generally recognized parameters of Americana. Each has also written a body of original songs that could be mined not just by mainstream country (where Americana-associated writers like Bruce Robison, Jim Lauderdale, Darrell Scott and the husband-and-wife team of Buddy and Julie Miller have had marked success), but by other Americana or even pop acts in search of strong roots material. In short: Attention should be paid.

One of the most credible fusions of honky-tonk, post-Velvet Underground punk and Southern rock this side of Jason & the Scorchers is the music of Tim Carroll, a longtime denizen of Nashville’s rock and alt-country scenes. Carroll’s lead guitar work alone sets him apart—whether he’s backing his fiancée Elizabeth Cook on the Grand Ole Opry, his buddy Lonesome Bob in a rock club or fronting his own band. Developed and refined over the past 20 years, Carroll’s music features a hard-kicking rhythm as recognizable as the one patented by Waylon Jennings. Carroll has released four CDs under his own name; his latest, Always Tomorrow (Sideburn), is the first, however, that’s actually come out an American label.

Despite receiving scattered airplay on college and Americana radio for years, Carroll’s music has been heard less than his story. The arc of that story looks something like this: Kid brings Indiana punk band to New York, becomes a leader on the neo-honky-tonk scene there and then heads to Nashville, where he starts gigging out several nights a week. Seymour Stein, the man who introduced Madonna and The Ramones to the world, eventually signs him to Sire Records, but amidst the usual music business runaround, never puts out his CD. Carroll in effect bootlegs the album under the title Not for Sale and the disc goes on to become something of a hit via sales on the Internet and at the merch table.

Meanwhile, Carroll’s songs, which run the gamut from honky-tonk and rock to modern country and pop, haven’t gone unnoticed. They’ve been covered by writers as gifted and discerning as Robbie Fulks (“Every Kind of Music but Country”) and John Prine (“If I Could”). The latter song has been picked up across the alt-country spectrum—by Australian sensation Kasey Chambers and inveterate Western swingers Asleep at the Wheel. There are dozens more, such as “Open Flame” and “The Honky-Tonks Called Her Away,” where those came from, all of them built on catchy conceits fleshed out with hook-rich tunes and witty lyrics.

Carroll’s songs also chronicle what it’s like to be a guy with the permanent twang-rock flu, plugging away for the love of it, outside all sense (as if sense were the question). In “A Lotta Rock and Roll,” the opening track on his new album, Carroll admits that his limited success on the world stage “is great exposure—but I can die from that.” Indeed, it’s not like whatever attention he’s received has afforded him, or anyone else in his position, health insurance.

Austin’s Damon Bramblett, whose Lloyd Maines-produced CD for the Antone’s label was a stunning sleeper of 2000, defies preconceptions about what a “Texas singer-songwriter” should sound like and sing about. Bramblett’s first recording since that self-titled disc is a simple, standout contribution to Dressed in Black, the new forthcoming Johnny Cash tribute CD on Dualtone. Bramblett’s knowing turn on “I’m Gonna Sit on the Porch and Pick” proves why the Man in Black is the one established artist to whom he’s most often compared.