For Americana UK, this year’s Nashville experience ended where it pretty much started – at Robert’s Western World on Lower Broadway. Hotfoot from arriving in the city around 7pm our assembled scribes headed straight downtown to see Joshua Hedley and the Hedliners. These showcases at Robert’s are something of a Nashville institution for both discerning locals and tourists – performing classic country sets from the 1950s and 1960s, Hedley’s velvet croon and stellar backing band which includes Buck Owens’ drummer and a long standing pedal steel player with Merle Haggard, demonstrate their encyclopaedic knowledge of country music and musical chops over a set spanning three and a half hours. Continue reading “AmericanaFest, Nashville, September 10th-15th, 2019”
We leave you with this for this week which is quite exciting if you’re anywhere near London next week. The beckon call of live music, complimentary Jack Daniel’s and what’s described as “an immersive multisensory experience” will entice Waterloo Station travellers to delay their evening commutes and take a brief holiday in Tennessee at a special exhibit entitled “The Sights & Sounds of Tennessee” which takes place next week from 4th-17th June. The exhibit is part of a month-long campaign featuring the Tennessee destinations of Nashville, Memphis and Knoxville that follows British Airways’ introduction of its five-days-per-week nonstop service from London Heathrow to Nashville, the capital city and centre to the state. The Sounds of Tennessee exhibit at Waterloo and digital boards throughout London are to feature custom Spotify playlists that will serve as a formal invitation to British holidaymakers to visit Tennessee, one of the world’s top travel destinations for music lovers. 
Black Deer Festival which takes place in Kent towards the end of June has announced some new additions to the already impressive line up that includes top-three finalist on E! Entertainment Television’s ‘The Entertainer’ Sarah Darling along with Jess and The Bandits, Robert Vincent, Steak, O&O, Noble Jacks, Jay Scott, Ilona, Tally Spear and Katy Hurt. 
Wrapping up a ten date tour, this caravan of rootsy singer/songwriters pulled into Glasgow for their final gig on a night that saw sub zero temperatures outside. Happily, a hardy bunch came out to see the line up – A Scot, A Scouser (their words) and the London based up and comers The Worry Dolls. Despite nursing a cold Owens led off the night which consisted of each act performing a song before handing the baton to the next one. It’s a concept popular in Nashville and indeed Owens got the idea for the shows while over there for along with The Worry Dolls and Vincent (the Scouser). 
On the banks of the Tyne stands the silver bauble that is the Sage, its otherworldly structure home this weekend to some world class performers, surely covered elsewhere on these pages. The bit that always interests me is the free stuff, not just because I’ve been living in Yorkshire a long time, but because it’s always a source of some of the most interesting and new bands. 
Of late fortune has smiled on Liverpudlian Robert Vincent. He was the first recipient of The Bob Harris Emerging Artist Award at the inaugural Americana Association UK Conference and Awards last year. He was also invited to be a showcase UK artist for Nashville’s Americana Fest in September and ended up in Rolling Stone’s list of “20 Best Things We Saw at Americana Fest”. On top of positive reviews for his debut album Life In Easy steps it seems it’s onwards and upwards for Mr. Vincent and consequently expectations for this album are quite high. Recorded in Liverpool and mixed in Nashville (with Ray Kennedy at the controls) I’ll Make The Most Of My Sins certainly meets these expectations although it’s an album that has a few surprises up its sleeve.