The Best of AmericanaFest 2015

You may have already read about Lucinda Williams sitting in with Buick 6 at The Stone Fox on Thursday, and you may have heard about Shakey Graves celebrating an Americana Emerging Artist of the Year win with an unannounced Mercy Lounge appearance Wednesday night, or Jenny Lewis turning in a loose after-hours set at The Basement on Sunday.

It was a weird and (mostly) wonderful weekend in Nashville that, even outside of the 16th Annual Americana Music Festival taking over venues citywide and showcasing 175 rootsy artists, included Steven Tyler surprising a capacity Cannery Ballroom crowd by jumping onstage to sing "Sweet Emotion" with countrified American Bang offspring The Cadillac Three, and Tom Morello joining forces with the likes of local Lilith Fair poet laureate Jewel and real-McCoy soul man Sam Moore to rock out at a Kings of Leon-founded food festival.

Indeed, it was one of those New Nashville weekends so rife with live music events that taking it all in was like trying to drink from a fire hose. The Spin hit the town to take in as much heart-worn Americana as our hard hearts could handle. Find some of the highlights after the jump. 

Old-guard vets dominate Americana Awards performances

Pedal steel master Robert Randolph kicked off the Wednesday night's Americana Honors and Awards performances at the Ryman with help from Nashville vocal groups The Fairfield Four and The McCrary Sisters, who provided foot-stomping harmonies on the gospel standard “Bosom of Abraham." Randolph played a teasing intro, while the ensemble — backed by the awards show house band — rocked the song something fierce.

Don Henley, who received a lifetime achievement award (presented by singer-songwriter Rodney Crowell), demonstrated his vocal chops on a rendition of “Praying for Rain,” a soul-inflected shuffle from his new full-length, Cass County. Unfortunately, Henley, noting it was his first time on the Ryman stage, did not mark the occasion by playing an Eagles classic. Bummer. Henley's fellow lifetime achievement honoree, folkie Buffy Sainte-Marie, performed her anti-war classic “Universal Soldier” in a confidently idiosyncratic vibrato. Along with Henley and Sainte-Marie, guitarist and song archaeologist Ry Cooder offered links to the past — Cooder took a turn on banjo while performing in a group that included Ricky Skaggs and country singer Sharon White.

Meanwhile, young Texas vocalist and 2015 Americana Awards Emerging Artist of the Year winner Shakey Graves sang harmony with Esmé Patterson on a strange, coy novelty-folk tune, and Carolina Chocolate Drops member Rhiannon Giddens proved herself a powerful blues singer during her rendition of “Waterboy.” Country star Lee Ann Womack brought glamour to the show with a rendition of Julie Miller’s “Don’t Listen to the Wind,” while country-rocker Nikki Lane brought some grit, singing her outlaw homage "Right Time."

Still, it was the veterans who made the strongest impact of the night. House band leader Buddy Miller traded licks with famed avant-garde jazz-rock guitarist Marc Ribot on a superb version of Hank Williams’ “Cold, Cold Heart.” Another well-traveled performer, guitarist and singer (and, at 62 years old, Emerging Artist nominee) Doug Seegers, decked out in a baby-blue Nudie-style suit, looked something like a cowboy in a David Lynch film and sounded great on his “Angie’s Song.” But it was Los Angeles legends Los Lobos — who took home a Lifetime Achievement Award in the Performance category — who demonstrated the greatest degree of mastery at the awards show. Singer and guitarist David Hidalgo gave one of the best performances of the night, and the band played the show’s final number, “One Time, One Night,” with casual confidence. They were joined by Mavericks frontman Raul Malo, whose vocal prowess is on a par with Hidalgo’s. Youth got its props at the show, but the old-school musicians fearlessly took the traditions of this country’s music into new areas, and that’s Americana for you.   

Sturgill Simpson triumphs again

On the road doing a string of makeup dates, Sturgill Simpson wasn't on hand to accept the Americana Association's top prize, sending vanguard producer Dave Cobb up on the Ryman stage to accept his Artist of the Year award and a Song of the Year award for "Turtles All the Way Down." But the beloved so-called savior of country music did impart more words in absentia than he did at the podium last year when accepting the Emerging Artist of the Year award. “Thank you very much to the Americana Association and everyone who voted for us," Simpson said in statement sent out the next day. "We are extremely grateful and humbled this morning. We must also apologize for our absence. ... It’s very nice to be recognized by our peers. All the awards in the world are worth nothing without the people who support us.” Other big winners in non-lifetime-achievements at the Jim Lauderdale-hosted awards show (which airs on PBS as an Austin City Limits special later this fall) included Lucinda Williams taking home Album of the Year for her acclaimed Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone LP, The Mavericks taking home Duo/Group of the Year, Shakey Graves nabbing Emerging Artist of the Year and John Leventhal claiming Instrumentalist of the Year. 

Liz Longley and Darlingside sound wicked good

Liz Longley and Darlingside both have ties to the Boston music scene, although they traveled in from an Oregon festival just in time for back-to-back showcases at The Basement on Wednesday night. Now based in Nashville, Longley played solo, yet she held the crowd’s attention thanks to solid guitar playing and well-constructed tunes about regrettable decisions (like “Bad Habit”). To be fair, she did have one love song about an Irish fellow she met at the East Nashville dog park. Meanwhile, Darlingside is composed of four nice New England guys who sing around one microphone while trading out a variety of acoustic instruments. With well-matched vocals, cool songs and funny banter, they should charm Nashville listeners when they open for Patty Griffin at the Ryman next month.

Abigail Washburn and Béla Fleck raise hell at Downtown Presbyterian Church

Thursday started slow for The Spin, as we were nursing a slight hangover (courtesy of The Black Lips at Exit/In the previous night), but Abigail Washburn and Béla Fleck's early-evening set at the ornate Downtown Presbyterian Church set us right. Bound together by banjos and wedding rings, the folk super-duo was welcomed with massive applause, which concluded with Washburn chiming, “Well, Fleck, you better not suck," before breaking into a moving version of “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad." We noted a number of English accents in the crowd, because #Americana. The high point of the set came when the hotshot a row ahead of us decided to take off his massive hat so The Spin and our pew neighbors could see.

We proceeded to Fleck and Washburn rip through traditional songs and contemporary originals alike during their 90-minute set at Downtown Presbyterian Church tonight. The near-capacity crowd in the cavernous 164-year-old sanctuary would almost assuredly agree that the married folksters didn’t suck.

The 13-song set included a Fleck original fleet-fingered concerto, several of Washburn’s original roots-rooted songs (perhaps sweetened slightly for modern ears) and one that she wrote and sang in Mandarin Chinese, reinterpretations of traditional folk songs (such as “an anti-capitalism protest that spoke to the plight of Kentucky’s coal workers). They also worked a couple of audience participation numbers into the set, including “Divine Bell.” Washburn hiked her floor-length dress to her knees during that one and clogged on the altar serving as a stage. The duo closed out their set by calling up opener Darrell Scott and acclaimed hand-percussionist Kenny Malone for a little pickin' party finale.

Cooder White Skaggs shreds 

The Spin arrived Thursday at 3rd & Lindsley in time to watch Portland, Ore.'s Caleb Klauder, a stringbean who wouldn't have sounded out of place in a 1940s Texas dance hall, lead a top-notch band through a fine set of loping Western swing, string-band gospel and hardcore hillbilly music. Their straw hats and down-home outfits might have seemed an Americana affectation if the music weren't so non-selfconscious and free of musty revivalism, and we figured that if a good hillbilly outfit from back in the day were time-warped into the here and now, it'd probably get written off as a bunch of hipsters.

But glory hallelujah, that's something nobody's ever going to say about Ricky Skaggs, Sharon White and The Whites, joined by no less a ringer than Ry Cooder on a succession of gorgeous old instruments (even a banjo). They've been touring together as a gospel quartet with legendary artist-sideman-film composer Cooder singing bass, providing the single degree of separation between the Grand Ole Opry and the Buena Vista Social Club. It sounds like one of those experiments that might work better on paper; instead, it left the crowd stamping and shouting for encores, thoroughly energized by the spirit in those performances.

Technically, Cooder's name comes first in a tour billed as "Cooder White Skaggs," but although everyone got a turn at the mic, he seemed pleased to let Skaggs handle most of the frontman duties. Grinning from beneath his trademark shock of swept-back white hair, the 61-year-old Skaggs seemed genuinely tickled to be wowing a rock-club crowd with his mandolin mastery. He looked almost dour, however, compared to the ebullient Sharon White, whose celestial sibling harmonies with sister Cheryl White drew glances of admiration from Cooder even as he pored over his instrument.

The scene-stealer, though, was White's octogenarian patriarch Buck White, whose piano solos sauntered across a century of music from spiritual to honky-tonk to jazz and back. Skaggs tipped the audience that they weren't likely to hear a song written after 1965, and nobody complained as the group found the beating heart of standards such as The Louvin Brothers' "The Family Who Prays," The Stanley Brothers' "Jordan" and Hank Williams' "Mansion on the Hill." If you could isolate a highlight among such a set, it might have been Cooder trading stinging, fretboard-scaling licks on slide guitar with Skaggs on mandolin on a swaggering ramble through Jimmy Martin's "Hold Whatcha Got," with Cooder's son Joachim on drums. It's not often you get to go to church on Thursday night, and rarer still that you wish the service were longer.

Buddy Miller and Marc Ribot also shreds

Later on Thursday night at 3rd & Lindsley, New Jersey-born jazz-rock guitarist Marc Ribot joined Nashville picker and Americana patron saint Buddy Miller on a set of songs that included Williams’ “Cold, Cold Heart” and Bill Monroe’s “Poison Love,” a 1951 hit for country duo Johnnie and Jack. Drummer Bryan Owings and bassist Dominic Davis backed Miller, Ribot and pedal steel all-star Fats Kaplin during a tight set. Ribot’s acerbic, R&B-influenced licks added bite to the material, and Miller matched him lick for lick. It was a great hour of music — Ribot took Americana in new directions, while Miller provided a link to the music’s past. A highlight: The guitarists locked into a waltzing groove on a rendition of Roosevelt Jamison’s soul tune “Thats How Strong My Love Is.”   The audience swayed to the band’s recasting of the song — O.V. Wright and Otis Redding, both of whom cut the song in the ‘60s, would have been impressed.  

Legendary Shack Shakers singer J.D. Wilkes sexually assaults hat

On the way to Cannery Row Thursday night, The Spin hopped on Instagram and came across a potential marketing opportunity after getting “Shake Shack” as a suggestion when searching for “Legendary Shack Shakers." The rockabilly stalwarts' rousing set in the near-capacity High Watt was a delight for those in attendance, with animated frontman J.D. Wilkes dancing wildly around the stage. Though Wilkes wouldn't halt his gyrations to comb his hair, he did at one point break to take a hat from an audience member and shove it down his pants ... before giving it back. It made the guy’s night (we think). Of course, this wasn't the first time Wilkes' trouser antics galvanized a response.

Meanwhile, The Stray Birds, an immensely talented trio from Lancaster, Penn., were on the Mercy Lounge stage providing a pleasant contrast to Wilkes & Co. After stirring covers of “Loretta” and “Blue Yodel #7," they closed with the title track from their recent album, The Best Medicine. Harmonizing, “If the body is a temple / The soul is a bell / and that’s why music is the best medicine I sell" — it was a sentiment shared by many in the room. 

Ray Wylie Hubbard rules

Ahead of the Lighting 100 announcer, Ray Wylie Hubbard ambled out onto the Cannery Ballroom as the intro to “Eleanor Rigby” played over the house P.A. and as the lights dimmed. The singer's early entrance made for a slightly comical scene, one completely appropriate for the set that followed. Hubbard took time to plug his upcoming book, A Life … Well, Lived before a version of his song “Snake Farm" so rousing it made a case for Hubbard as one of the best performers at AmericanaFest.

Luther Dickinson, T. Hardy Morris, Grant-Lee Phillips and Robyn Hitchcock get messy 

If you were one of the 'Festers who spent Thursday night downtown, you missed out on a nice little microcosm of Americana across the river at The Basement East, topped off with some very cool guest appearances. When we walked in, globe-trotting Nashville transplant Grant-Lee Phillips was nearing the end of his set, a generous, nimble, tough-to-pigeonhole blend of folk and rock you might argue is the root of "Americana." Our guess that Phillips' friend Robyn Hitchcock might sit in was right on the money — the pair rocked their way through a song that they hadn't rehearsed, with Hitchcock doing his best blues harp.

Winging it became the theme of the night. Luther Dickinson (son of the late Memphis icon Jim Dickinson) was up next, joined by drummer Sharde Thomas (granddaughter of Otha Turner and leader of the Rising Star Fife and Drum Band, standard-bearers for the tradition of hill country fife and drum music) and A.J. Croce (son of the late Jim Croce) playing phenomenal barrelhouse piano — even more outstanding since the first song of the set marked the first time Croce and Dickinson ever played together. Each player performed like their instrument was another limb, dipping at will into a deep well of blues and R&B styles — searing country licks mingled freely with syncopated Crescent City proto-funk. While tuning his guitar, Dickinson shouted out to Jason Isbell, with what we understood to be praise for his long-form interview with Scene music editor Adam Gold: "When you have so much time in a public forum, it's hard not to show your ass eventually! And he didn't." As the set wound down, Black Crowes drummer and sportscaster Steve Gorman stepped behind the kit while Thomas pulled out her fife, eventually leading the band on a march through the audience to the tune of "Lay My Burden Down." 

And then things got a bit ugly, in the best way possible. Just after midnight, Hardy and the Hard Knocks, (aka Dead Confederate/Diamond Rugs dude T. Hardy Morris and friends) tore through a set from their new album Drownin' on a Mountaintop for an audience that included co-producer/writer pal Justin Collins, Robyn Hitchcock, us, and maybe 40 other people. Collins razzed them a little, which got drumsticks thrown at him; later, he came up to sing a verse. The group's invigorating marriage of grunge growl and Southern rock reached a fever pitch and then dissolved into the perfect sendoff: the stoned lullaby "Just Like the Movies." 

Rick Hall, Elijah Wald and Mac Wiseman drop knowledge

Legendary R&B producer and songwriter Rick Hall made a case for the auteur theory of pop music Thursday afternoon at his talk at Howlin’ Books. With his magnificent mustache and calm air of authority, Hall’s record as a hit-maker is amazing — the 83-year-old Mississippi native was well-equipped to gave a master class on music-business success. His new autobiography, The Man From Muscle Shoals: My Journey From Shame to Fame, affords a glimpse into the complex racial and social equations that added up to the classic ‘60s records he cut with Aretha Franklin, Arthur Alexander and Bobbie Gentry at his Muscle Shoals, Ala. studio, FAME. Hall told the audience that his 1968 recording of The Beatles' “Hey Jude” with then-session-guitarist Duane Allman and Wilson Pickett that invented a musical genre: “It was the beginning of Southern rock in my recording studio in Muscle Shoals, Alabama,” he said.

Speaking at Grimey’s Too on Friday afternoon, Massachusetts-born writer Elijah Wald gave another kind of history lesson. Wald’s new book, Dylan Goes Electric! Newport, Seeger, Dylan and the Night That Split the Sixties, explores Bob Dylan’s infamous appearance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, which featured the singer’s performance of “Maggie’s Farm” with electric guitarist Michael Bloomfield. Wald played snippets of recordings that demonstrated Dylan’s influence on rock: “It’s the moment when rock becomes intelligent, grown-up music,” he said of Dylan’s Newport performance.

Meanwhile, celebrated bluegrass-country-pop vocalist Mac Wiseman talked about his career during an hour-long interview Saturday with Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum editor Peter Cooper. One of the finest bluegrass singers, the 90-year-old Wiseman spoke about his days playing with Bill Monroe and country avatar Hank Williams, and sang a couple of tunes with guitarist Thomm Jutz. 

Daniel Romano's Midnite Jamboree

Walking into The Basement around midnight on Thursday, the room appeared packed at first glance. Turns out, most everybody just wanted to stand up front to get a jolt of energy from Daniel Romano’s intense, near-intimidating presence. It wasn’t so crowded in the back, which was an ideal vantage to watch the college-age crowd absorb one devastating honky-tonk number after another. Romano sang with more punk attitude than his new album might suggest, but this is unquestionably country songwriting in peak form. In particular, “Old Fires Die” is a divorce weeper that would’ve sent George Jones straight to the studio — or maybe the bar.

Cicada Rhythm sings for the suits

Friday, The Spin's second full day of Americana festivities started as no day in Nashville ever should — with a 4 p.m. walk down Lower Broadto get to Acme Feed & Seed. Sure, we could have taken a less-douchey route to Acme Feed & Seed. But we're gluttons for punishment, and sometimes the novelty of sporting an impressive backpack-shaped sweat stain (straps and all) while walking wide-eyed through throngs of bros cat-calling bachelorette parties struggling to gain momentum on their pedal-tavern journeys is our idea of a good bad time. Anyway, we settled in at Acme a few minutes before Athens-hailing recent New West signees Cicada Rhythm took the stage. Unfortunately, there was more focus on happy-hour specials and group photos than the band, but they turned in an inspired performance nonetheless, winning over the suits at this label showcase with tunes from their upcoming self-titled debut. 

Steelism steals the show at Third Man

The crowd at Third Man Records on Friday night was thinner than you’re likely to find at most shows in Jack White’s Blue Room, with badge-wearers — many of them, we noticed again, with British or Australian accents — popping in and out as the night wore on. When The Spin arrived, Iowa’s William Elliott Whitmore was nearing the end of his set, which, frankly, could be accurately described as a mix bag of Americana tropes — which, in light of Slipknot, is still a step for an artist hailing from The Hawkeye State. Sporting a brown hat and knuckle tats, Whitmore stomped at a kick drum on quarter notes and strummed away at his guitar on songs like “Johnny Law” — a blues number about getting hassled by the man, maaaan.

Next, John Paul Keith cranked out Yoakam-esque country music and rockabilly chicken pickin’ over the train beats and bopping bass lines of a lean, tight rhythm section. There’s a mighty broad assortment of sounds on the Americana spectrum, but Keith’s songs fall closer to the end where there’s no artifice or disingenuousness — just unpretentious songwriting, strong chops and a Southern-hewing twang. Didn’t hurt that he covered “Honky Tonk Blues,” either.

As far as we can tell, Philly rock ’n’ rollers Low Cut Connie play every show as though they’re the headliners. With co-frontman Adam Weiner pounding away at his piano (named Shondra, in honor of an Atlanta stripper), the quintet certainly put TMR’s sound system to the test. Even if there’s an argument to be made that Weiner’s tuxedo-panted crane kicks, various Jerry Lee Lewisisms and lascivious crowd-pandering are an over-the-top put-on, it’s all in good fun, and their breed of retro revivalism is far from dusty. Derivative? Maybe. Boring? Never.

And Nashville’s own instrumental outfit Steelism, for all their reverb-ensconced melding of surf rock and country and funk (not to mention their covers of the original Batman theme and Ennio Morricone’s “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”), is different from anything you’re likely to see at AmericanaFest. Or anywhere else, for that matter, if only for their melting pot of chops and agreeable melodies. The band played as a four-piece, with steel man Spencer Cullum Jr. providing pleasant and even-keeled little bits of banter between songs, even when a handful of rowdy bros in Mardi Gras beads hollered and danced and shouted “Skynyrd!” at the mention of Muscle Shoals.

Madisen Ward and the Mama Bear, Corb Lund and John Moreland bring a pensive party vibe to Cannery Row

Pandora was sponsoring a showcase over at Cannery Ballroom Friday night, which meant complimentary drink tickets for everyone. While The Streaming Service for the Indecisive won our patronage with free booze, buzzing Kansas City mother-son duo Madisen Ward and the Mama Bear won over our hearts with music. While getting a ballroom full of festivalgoers liquored up only to treat them to thoughtful acoustic music seems like a bad idea, the crowd miraculously quieted down as Madisen and Mama took the stage. Accompanied by a backing band for most of the set, the duo's soulful folk made quick fans of a packed Cannery, sending a number of people heading to the merch table mid-set to spend that beer money they saved on the band's Glass Note Records debut, Skeleton Crew.

Upstairs at Mercy Lounge, Corb Lund and his Hurtin’ Albertans played to a packed house, charming all with favorites like “Gothest Girl I Can," while also showcasing new tunes from their upcoming LP Things That Can’t Be Undone. As Lund’s set wound down, the room reached capacity as more eager fans piled in to hear Sooner State crooner John Moreland croon heartbreakers from his critically acclaimed High on Tulsa Heat LP. Moreland’s admirers were as serious as he was, raising index fingers and hushing the bar crowd between songs. (Thanks again, Pandora!) Despite the singer's somber appearance for most of the set, Moreland grinned as he returned for an encore, and he didn’t seem to mind most of the room singing along with him.

Margo Price and Anderson East recast the past

Anderson East made it his mission to get a rise out of City Winery's mellow supper club crowd, and he had his work cut out for him. But the young Alabama-born soul man, whose new full-length Delilah was produced by Dave Cobb, wasn't going to shy away from the challenge, and an epic battle to get asses out of seats ensued. East wasn't able to use his full range of dynamics, opting for a full-on righteous growl throughout the set, and it sometimes felt overdone, especially for his cover of Van Morrison's otherwise gentle "Tupelo Honey." But all in all, he and his band made good on their promise to give folks something to smile about. 

Having just inked a deal with Third Man Records, Margo Price had the most reason of anyone to be in a celebratory mood, but she and the Pricetags, augmented by a string trio on a couple of tunes, weren't treating the evening like a victory lap. Instead, they powered through their repertoire for the dwindling City Winery crowd as if they were debuting at Carnegie Hall. The relationship between Price's music and classic country is all about what the style can do for the song, rather than what the song is capable of doing within the limits of the style, and some of her best songs stretched the genre. That's the kind of material that builds a legacy, and we hope we're hearing it long after Midwestern Farmer's Daughter comes out in March.

Lee Ann Womack wows with weepers 

Lee Ann Womack loaded country classics from George Jones, Ray Price and Rodney Crowell into her hour-long, 13-song set at 3rd & Lindsley Friday night. “How country do you like it?” the Grammy-winning vocalist asked the standing-room-only crowd at one point, gesturing to three fiddlers and a standup bassist flanking her. “How country can you take it?” After opening with “Never Again, Again,” from her 1997 self-titled debut, she launched into cuts from her masterful CMA and Grammy-nominated 2014 release The Way I’m Livin’, that includes powerful songs about faith, grief, regret, loss, love and joy. “Look! I made that woman cry!” she said after hushing the crowd with “Send it on Down,” a gentle prayer by a woman overwhelmed by life and trapped in pitiful desperation. “I like to cry, too.”

Henry Wagons makes one helluva first impression

Dressed in a lurid Elvis Presley-style gold coat and sporting massive mutton chops, Australian country-rocker Henry Wagons proved himself a shrewd showman and an equally savvy songwriter and singer in his Friday night set at The Basement East. Wagons performed Steve Young’s ode to the outlaw ethos, “Lonesome, On’ry and Mean,” with conviction, and he put across songs such as “I Fell in Love With a Tomboy” and “Weak Link” with panache and humor. Wagons is a sort of genius of post-Don Williams country song. Much like Nashville's own fellow quirky country-rocker Jonny Fritz, Wagons explores the place where macho, sensitivity and rock ‘n’ roll intersect. He introduced an original song titled “Head or Heart” by saying, “Don’t use your head — you’ll enjoy this set more.” But Wagons makes sly rock 'n’ roll that both intellectuals and pop fans can appreciate. 

Glen Hansard triumphs over adversity with Irish whiskey

Glen Hansard is a king of dynamics, able to go from a whisper to a howl and back again. He mostly kept his cool when constant sound glitches threatened to derail the first hour of his Cannery Ballroom set on Friday night. If he’d been a jerk about the whole thing, it’s unlikely that about 200 fans would have stuck around until 1:30 in the morning, cheerfully singing along to Leonard Cohen’s “Passing Through.” Following Irish tradition, Hansard poured whiskey on his latest album, Didn’t He Ramble, because it was released that very day. The rest of the bottle, of course, did not go to waste.

Laney Jones and the Spirit and ChessBoxer give bluegrass a makeover

The Americana Music Association can deliver star power to the big stages, but they also deserve credit for offering smaller showcases to promising talent like Laney Jones and the Spirits and ChessBoxer, who impressed crowds at Station Inn on Friday night. Both bands are releasing new music this fall, and while casual listeners might categorize them as bluegrass, their arrangements step beyond those boundaries. Jones, who grew up on an exotic animal farm in Florida, writes and sings with confidence, bolstered by her guitarist (and xylophonist) Matthew Tonner. ChessBoxer’s banjo player Matt Menefee and violinist Ross Holmes forged ahead after their adventurous acoustic ensemble Cadillac Sky went kaput in 2011. With upright bass player Royal Masat now on board, they capably tackled choice covers from alt-J and Flatt & Scruggs — which says plenty right there.

Wild Ponies name drop

East Nashville’s Wild Ponies steamed their way through a smoldering slow-build set Friday night at the new Family Wash on. Their short-but-sexy performance featured only songs from their forthcoming album, expected out in early 2016. Not to name drop, but since Telisha Williams, half of the husband-and-wife duo did, we will too … the master of seemingly all stringed-instruments Fats Kaplin will appear on the upcoming release, she said. I know … more sexy from East Nashville’s favorite married rockers.

Under cloudy skies and Ascend Amphitheater’s roof overhang (which, to us, looks like an oversized carport), local alt-country gal Nikki Lane turned out songs from last year’s well-received Dan Auerbach-produced All or Nothin’ while backed by her familiar-faced band of sidemen and women. Lane brought out bitchin’ (her word, but we tend to agree) local luminary Buddy Miller for guitar and vocals on a rendition of he and wife Judy Miller’s tune “Gasoline and Matches.” At one point Lane cited her ex, who has a bar up the road, as the inspiration for a song. Since she didn’t plug the bar by name, we’ll do it: It’s a pretty killer establishment in Five Points by the name of Duke’s.

Up the hill on a little stage, Tift Merritt and sideman Eric Heywood pulled in what felt like a mini-Lilith Fair crowd on the lawn. A few dozen folks gathered round to sway and bob along with gentle heartfelt folks songs, one of which was a Raymond Carver-inspired song about a boat — titled, simply enough, “My Boat.”

If the audience’s supportive response to Steve Earle and the Dukes' AmericanaFest performance of their new single is any indication, the genre may well be “country music for liberals” as it’s sometimes described. Saturday night at Ascend Amphitheater, Earle belted out “Mississippi, It’s Time,” a song that’s as much an indictment against the Southern state’s government for supporting the Confederate battle flag.

“What the hell, Mississippi? / Mississippi, you’re out of your mind / Mississippi, goddamn, even Alabam’ / and South Carolina come across the line.”

As the sun set behind Nashville’s skyline, Earle ground out gut-check muddy, ruddy blues from his 2015 release Terraplane, including the lyrically lush “The Tennessee Kid,” and classics from his decades-deep repertoire, including "Guitar Town" and "Copperhead Road." Earle, known for being a musician who routinely delves into multiple genres, closed his set with a bass-pounding rendition the Jimi Hendrix’s debut single “Hey Joe.”

Loretta Lynn wowed the crowd with her shimmering red-sequined dress that she joked weighs 300 pounds. That was just one of many reliable one-liners the living legend charmed us with during a honky-tonk-tastic headlining set. "Just keep clapping" should the dress fall off, she asked. But the request wasn't necessary. The dress stayed on and the crowd stayed on its feet. And Lynn's attire wasn’t the only radiance she brought with her — her voice, even at 83 years young, was as expressive and lovely as ever, and nearly as strong.

Just as she did when opening for Jack White at Bridgestone Arena in January, The First Lady of Country Music delivered her first two songs standing, then sat center stage in a padded chair for the remainder of her impressive 16-song set — 17 songs, if you count her singing the first line of “Delta Dawn” a cappella at the request of an audience member.

Lynn, the recipient of the Americana Music Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriter in 2014, opened her AmericanaFest show with “They Don’t Make ’em Like My Daddy.” From there she bounced through a hits-stacked set that was akin to cracking open a time-capsule of country music’s glory days, including “You’re Looking at Country” and “She’s Got You,” a Hank Cochran song that Lynn and Patsy Cline each took to No. 1 on Billboard’s charts some 15 years apart.

Lynn closed out her performance with her 1969 autobiographical anthem “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” which became the title song to the 1980 movie about her poverty-stricken early life and her rise to national prominence in country music (as if you really need a primer). Her performance of it Saturday night received a much-deserved standing ovation.

It looked like rain might dampen Gillian Welch and David Rawlings’ Ascend performance two days after the pair won AMA’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriter. But the few droplets that fell after Lynn’s set gave way to a steady, cool breeze before the pair took the stage.

Dressed in rhinestone-encrusted white suits, Welch and Rawlings delivered a crowd-rousing acoustic performance that spanned much of their collaborative repertoire. “It’s really hard to follow Loretta,” Welch said before an opening “Elvis Presley Blues.” “Dave said, ‘We’ve gotta put on our Nudie suites.’ So we just drove home and changed.”

Though their songs are often introspective and somber, Rawlings’ guitar virtuosity and Welch’s gorgeous vocals that, at times, soared, infused vibrancy into their performance. Those who let the threat of rain chase them away after Loretta left the stage missed a festival highlight when Welch hamboned and clogged toward the end of their set. The pair closed the night with “Mr. Tambourine Man” and an audience-participation version of “I’ll Fly Away”—a hymn Welch performed with Alison Krauss on the Grammy-winning soundtrack to the 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou?