The Gordon Sharpe Americana UK Book Award 2025

We are now into year 3 of our celebration of the best books we reviewed in the previous year. To learn why we have named it for our still missed colleague you can read AUK editor Mark Whitfield’s tribute to him here.

Once again, it’s been a hard choice as the quality of the music writing that we are offered for review is incredibly high. Until late in the year I thought Brian T. Atkinson’s ‘Love At The Five And Dime The Songwriting Legacy Of Nanci Griffith’ would be in the list. His “Songwriting Legacy Of” series always returns interesting reads and a reason to buy more music. But it was eased out by two runners up which having read them again for this piece are books that need to appear on the bookshelves of everyone with even a passing interest in “our sort” of music.

Runners Up:

Rob Miller ‘The Hours Are Long But The Pay Is Low: A Curious Life in Independent Music’
Reviewed by Paul Kerr in October

Like Peter Jesperson’s ‘Euphoric Recall‘ which appeared in last year’s list this is a story from the decidedly non-corporate end of the music business. As Paul says Bloodshot Records was “too rock for country, and too country for punk.” However, their first releases the compilations ‘For a Life Of Sin: A Compilation of Insurgent Chicago Country’ and ‘Hell Bent: Insurgent Country Volume 2’ were key markers for the visibility of alt-country and americana. Miller’s writing style is entertaining and the full throttle approach he brings to the book suggests how it may have felt at the heart of the business. Absolutely recommended as an object lesson in the passion which the best label owners bring to their work.

Pete Kennedy ‘Tone, Twang and Taste: A Guitar Memoir’
Reviewed by Dean Nardi in March

Dean’s review arrived at exactly the right time for me, as I had just discovered The Kennedy’s through their album “Life Is Large.”  This isn’t a new book, being published in 2018, but this is an award for the books we reviewed this year, and I suspect it was as new to many of our readers as it was to me. Pete Kennedy has a very personal approach to guitar playing, although it seems to have evolved from his work with Danny Gatton to some extent. The joy of a book like this comes from realising you are familiar with the writer’s playing, with Nanci Griffith in my case. A book like this should push you to play the subject’s music, and Dean’s review and reading the book has turned me into a Kennedy’s fan. Learning about his guitars including the Rickenbacker 360-12, with a Gibson humbucking pickup that appears on several album covers was just a bonus. Read the book, or just Dean’s excellent review and you will be hunting down their music just as I have been.

The 2025 Gordon Sharpe award winner is:

Geoffrey Himes ‘In-Law Country – How Emmylou Harris, Rosanne Cash, and Their Circle Fashioned a New Kind of Country Music, 1968-1985’
Reviewed by Tim Martin in May

Another book which sent me into my record collection and off to buy more, especially albums by Rosanne Cash. With Emmylou Harris making her farewell trip around Europe this Spring acknowledging her place as one of the catalysts for change in Country Music was timely. Chris Hillman’s voice has often been overshadowed by his bandmates and peers, so hearing from him in this book was interesting. He has some interesting opinions on the true origins of Country Rock. Offering names like Guy Clark, Rodney Crowell, Clarence White, and Townes Van Zandt as shapers of the step change in country which led to alt-country as well as the more rock-based elements which contemporary country uses opens up new ways to listen to those artists and those who followed in the later 80s and 90s. This is our award winner because it challenges received wisdom and presents new ways to listen to and understand the music.

‘The Price I Pay’ by Hillman’s Desert Rose Band, featuring Emmylou Harris, is a good example of how the protagonists in our winning book influenced the direction of country music.