Firstly, who is Tamara Saviano? Her website describes her as “an author, producer and creative ringleader.” Her productions focus mainly around tribute albums, including the excellent ‘This One’s For Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark’ and ‘Looking Into You: A Tribute to Jackson Browne.’ She has also written a biography of Guy Clark, ‘Without Getting Killed or Caught,’ which we really must feature in Paperback Riders soon, as it is one of those books which just sends you off to buy an artist’s whole catalogue, or at least it did for me.
She has more than adequate credentials to be a chronicler of the growth of americana, having been the first woman president of the Americana Music Association and producer of the early Americana Honors and Awards shows at Nashville’s legendary Ryman Auditorium. She uses her own story and encounters with artists and other movers and shakers within country and americana to create the best oral history of the genre yet. She is very much on the country side of the fence, and as her little black book clearly contains mostly people from that world, her view is skewed that way. But what that does mean is that there is still room for a history written from the other side of the rock/folk/country divide.
From a start at Country Music magazine and Country Weekly, where she gets “a ringside seat” for the ‘O’ Brother Where Art Thou’ phenomenon to San Francisco-based radio industry trade publication The Gavin Report’s January 1995 launch of an americana chart which effectively launched the genre as its own separate subculture she follows the developments in the industry as much as the music.
The book is framed by two client relationships, Guy Clark and Kris Kristofferson. It’s almost worth reading the epilogue first, as I found that on a second reading of the book, I found that the development of her business and personal interactions with them took on a different perspective, knowing how working with them shaped her career. And this is, at times, very much a business book, which is what sets it apart from many of the other industry insider biographies, which can become rather tedious lists of tours, albums, deals, and falling outs. Saviano puts it well, “This is more than my story, it is the story of a scrappy group of music business misfits in the 1990s who were crazy and brave enough to build a business around a new music genre. And it worked.”
Each chapter has something to offer. Number 6 ‘The Future of Your Record Collection’, for instance, looks at New York’s WHN radio connection of Gram Parsons to Glen Campbell, and The Eagles to The Everly Brothers on air, which opened up parts of the radio industry which didn’t play country to including material they wouldn’t have considered, because it was now “americana”.
Her early internship at Sundance Broadcasting flows through the book and is clearly another highly influential aspect of her life. It’s from there that we reach the heart of the book. People. Savian clearly loves the people. A quote from author Alanna Nash in the press release rings very true after reading ‘Poets and Dreamers.’ “Tamara Saviano wasn’t just there for the infancy of the americana music scene – she helped birth it. Her deep friendships and professional relationships with Guy Clark and Kris Kristofferson anchor this evocative memoir of a genre’s fight for industry recognition. But in recounting her own scrappy and remarkable life – populated by the likes of Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, and John Prine – she also shows just why she is such a respected leader in a male-dominated field. “
This is not your ordinary music biz bio. It’s an examination of how americana got to be americana. Are we any closer to a definition from reading it. Not really, but what we are closer to is understanding that it comprises a set of artists, producers, journalists and others who love what they do, and do what they love because of the people they get to work and share their passion with.
Saviano worked on Kristofferson’s last album with Shawn Camp. This duet with Sheryl Crow is one of its best songs.
She also took tribute albums to a higher quality level, the best being her work on the songs of Guy Clark.
