(A Few) New Kids on the Block

Jason and the Scorchers may be nearing middle age, but they'll still be the wildest act yet to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Americana Music Association. (Theirs, not surprisingly, will be given in the "Performance" category.) And on that occasion, they'll play together—drummer Perry Baggs' health permitting—with their original lineup for the first time in over a decade.

"In typical Scorchers fashion—and I don't know how people will take this—we're not going to even rehearse," says frontman Jason Ringenberg. "The '80s vintage Jason and the Scorchers hardly ever rehearsed. I don't even think we really knew what the word was."

Guitarist Warner Hodges will probably whirl maniacally and flip his guitar over his shoulder while Ringenberg yowls and stalks the stage, hallmarks of the electrified performance style they forged in their 20s. And all that will serve as a vivid reminder that they shook up audiences not just by mixing two styles of music treated more or less like oil and water at the time—hard-edged rock and country—but also by doing it with enough raw energy and youthful exuberance to throw sparks.

When the Scorchers released Fervor, Lost and Found and Still Standing during their 1980s heyday, they had a sound that was either too heavy on the shredding or too hillbilly, depending on who you asked, and—despite being on a major label—they lacked a fitting industry home. The Americana Music Association was still more than a decade away.

Ringenberg can't clearly recall the band's last major award: "I guess the closest thing before that would have been at the Nashville Music Association Awards we got Band of the Decade or something at the end of the '80s." (The rumor spread that the Scorchers had been inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame—not true—but they do have an exhibit there.)

When the band played a few dates in Europe this summer—without Baggs and original bassist Jeff Johnson—audience response to news of the AMA award was animated. "I think a lot of people are more frustrated about the band's lack of commercial or industry recognition than we were," Ringenberg says. "I think a lot of our fans took it more personally than we probably did. They [would say], 'We were right. You guys were good.' "

But in a genre enriched by enduring and influential "heritage artists" (Levon Helm kicks off the festivities with his second Ramble at the Ryman, and Glen Campbell is the centerpiece of Sin City's Starspangled Rodeo tribute) and whole generations of acts who blend rock and country, young groundbreakers like the Scorchers only come around so often these days. And—to be fair—youth appeal hasn't necessarily been the Americana Music Festival and Conference's strongest suit in the past.

But AMA board member (and co-owner of Grimey's New and Pre-loved Music) Doyle Davis was already envisioning indie singer-songwriters as potential new blood for the festival last year. And he's not alone. There are signs that things are starting to change a little. "I can tell you for sure that on that [showcase] committee—which I was a member—there were several like-minded people with that in mind," says Davis. "We had a wish list of acts that we wanted to invite."

Indie-minded Los Angeles- and Indianapolis-based music blogs Aquarium Drunkard and My Old Kentucky Blog are co-sponsoring a showcase at The Basement with acts like Murfreesboro's sassy country-punk trio Those Darlins, Southern rocker Jason Isbell and New York's acoustic thrashers O'Death. Indie-folk singer-songwriter Langhorne Slim opens for the Scorchers at Mercy Lounge.

That's in no small part because of a new addition to the AMA's board of directors—John Turner, head of marketing and new media at Thirty Tigers. "I think they elected me because of my role in new media marketing for the Avett Brothers," he says. "They were just kind of like, 'He's young, he's on the Internet and he's dealing with a cool band.' "

Roots audiences are used to the Scorchers and alt-country early birds like Uncle Tupelo. So it's a taller order for a band today to deliver the kind of jolt that the Scorchers did almost 30 years ago with their then-subversive hybrid sound and look. "In those days—this is God's honest truth as I live and breathe—I really was serious when I wore that stuff," he says. "I didn't feel like I was making fun of anybody. I'm sure a lot of people thought I looked completely ridiculous, but I thought I looked really cool. It just doesn't seem [strange] now for anybody in any genre of music to throw on a cowboy hat or some sort of fringe-y kind of rhinestone-y shirt."

But Those Darlins—with their combination of girlish, Carter Sisters simplicity, ragged playing and spitfire attitude—carry on the spirit of the Scorchers at least in some small way. Songs like "The Whole Damn Thing" (as in drunkenly devouring a whole chicken) and "Snaggletooth Mama" might be less fun if the Darlins weren't actually from Kentucky, Virginia and South Carolina and hadn't actually experienced some of the backwoods escapades they sing about. But as it is, the songs are an uncomplicated, danceable good time.