Ah, the ever popular, controversial list. We all know these things are totally subjective, but we all love them, largely because we love disagreeing with them; and I’m sure there’ll be plenty to disagree with here! Let me start by saying that this is, most definitely, not a list of the ten best americana songs ever. It is a list of ten very good americana songs that particularly resonate with me. What do I think of as an americana song? Well, it needs to be based on American roots music, containing some elements of country, blues, folk, and rock etc, and it needs to tell a story. To me, that’s the great thing about this music, it tells stories that have relevance to our lives. Some stories resonate more with some than others, so there’ll always be disagreement about what makes a great americana song but, for me, these ten songs tick the right boxes.
It is a task of considerable proportions to get the many great songs from the dozens (hundreds?) of excellent songwriters in this genre down to a mere ten, and as others have said, it is difficult to leave out so many good artists, but I have a play list of songs that I keep in the car and refresh from time to time, and every one of these songs has stayed on that list since it was first put together, while others have been replaced many times over, so they clearly continue to work for me. Looking back over articles I’ve written for the Top Ten Americana albums and Top Ten Americana Artists series, most of these artists have been mentioned in one or more of those articles, so I’m consistent if nothing else!
One other thing I would say; picking a great song for a list of individual songs is very different to picking a great album or a great artist. Albums develop with listening and what you liked the first time round may not be the track that stays with you long term. Similarly, artists develop and grow and take off in different directions with each new experience. So you’re assessing a body of work and a career, complex considerations. An individual track is much more about the moment; a track that stirs something in you when you first hear it, and continues to excite you each time you listen to it. I still enjoy every one of these tracks every time I hear them, and I’ve been listening to some of them for a very long time. My apologies to the many great artists, and their excellent songs, that I couldn’t include. There are way to many to mention.
Number 10: Iron Country Sisters ‘Go Slow‘ from “The Blue Hidden In” (2019)
Writing about americana music coming out of the countries in continental Europe has introduced me to a lot of different and very interesting bands and songs. I think one of the main differences between American and European americana music is that the American version often draws more heavily on country and blues, whereas European americana is more rooted in folk music. Some of the most appealing European americana comes from the Nordic countries and has a cool, slightly detached vibe, and this track is a great representation of that. Finland’s Iron Country Sisters is a band fronted by the three Rautamaa sisters, Julia, Silja, and Paula, along with Simo Kärki on bass, Otto Alahuhtala, drums and percussion and guitarist Eero Nurmela. Being sisters, their vocal harmonies are often exquisite, as you can hear on this track, dealing with faithlessness and misrepresentation, taken from their debut album, “The Blue Hidden In”.
Number 9: Hannah Aldridge ‘Burning Down Birmingham‘ from “Gold Rush” (2017)
I discovered Hannah Aldridge back in 2017, when I reviewed her second album, “Gold Rush”, for Americana UK. It was one of my earlier reviews for AUK and I was blown away by the quality of Hannah’s voice, as well as the quality of her songwriting, and this particular song really stood out for me. It’s a song that has been on my playlist ever since and it has that sense of Southern Gothic about it, a little darkness in a piece of country soul, with just a dash of southern rock added to the mix. Hannah is the daughter of legendary songwriter, musician, and Fame recording studios producer, Walt Aldridge, and she was born and grew up in Muscle Shoals, Alabama; you can hear that musical pedigree throughout her recordings. She continues to make great music, working collaboratively with other musicians and producers from all corners of the world, and is a shining example of a modern, independent artist.
Number 8: Jason Isbell ‘24 Frames‘ from “Something More Than Free” (2015)
A Grammy winning song from a man who has no shortage of songwriting awards. Jason Isbell will, undoubtedly, feature on many of these lists and it’s a testament to the quality of his work that most of us will choose different songs from his considerable cannon of work. Isbell has that ability to appeal to a wide ranging audience and is just as capable of writing ballads as he is rockers. His work is always thoughtful and intelligently put together and, like all the artists here, he has plenty of other songs that also appeal to me. But this one has a special connection because I worked in TV & Video production for a number of years and the title of this song is a reference to the frame rate used in film production to create a believable moving image. It’s a song about focusing in on the things that are important in your life and about paying attention to the people who mean the most to you. It’s about the details that make up the bigger picture, and it’s a very good song indeed.
Number 7: Roseanne Cash ‘The Way We Make A Broken Heart‘ from “King’s Record Shop” (1987)
This is a ‘twofer’, one of my favourite singers covering one of my favourite songwriters. I love Roseanne Cash’s voice, it has so much depth and expression, and she’s a great songwriter in her own right, ‘Seven Year Ache‘ was another contender for this list, but she’s also a great interpreter of other writers’ work. John Hiatt turns out consistently good songs and this must be one of his best. It’s dark and, in many ways, downright nasty and, for me, Roseanne Cash adds an extra edge to it by singing it from the distaff perspective. A women actively pursuing a short affair to harm a rival, the man being little more than another pawn in her game. Interestingly, Cash had originally recorded this song as a duet, with Hiatt, three years earlier as a potential single for Geffen Records. The label decided not to release it, but the song obviously stayed on Cash’s mind and good that it did, as her 1987 re-recording gave her a number 1 country single in both the U.S and Canada. “King’s Record Shop“, her sixth studio album, would become her most successful album to date and give her a second Golden disc.
Number 6: Kris Kristofferson, ‘Sunday Morning Coming Down‘ from “Kristofferson” (1970)
One of the very best when it comes to americana singer-songwriters, Kris Kristoffferson has written so many great songs but, in the final analysis, it came down to this or ‘The Silver Tongued Devil & I’, and ‘Sunday Morning’ wins by a nose. He paints such a perfect picture of a dishevelled morning after the night before, and I particularly love the line “Then I fumbled through my closet for my clothes, and found my cleanest dirty shirt”. I think a few of us have been there at one time or another.
The song comes from his debut album, “Kristoffferson“, but like a lot of tracks on the album, it had already been recorded by another artist. Until he signed a recording deal with Monument, he had been a jobbing songwriter and had never been allowed to record his own demos. It was first recorded in 1969 by Ray Stevens, who had a minor hit with it, reaching 55 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart. A year later, Johnny Cash would release his version, topping the Country chart and winning the Country Music Association award for Song of the Year, 1970.
Kristofferson himself said of this song, “I’m just real grateful for that song because that opened up a whole lot doors for me. So many people that I admire, admired it. Actually, it was the song that allowed me to quit working for a living”, and while, like many of his better known songs, it has been covered by a considerable number of other artists, no-one does it quite as well as Kristofferson himself.
Number 5: Shelby Lynne & Allison Moorer ‘Not Dark Yet‘ from “Not Dark Yet” (2017)
I first became a fan of Shelby Lynne when I heard her 1999 album “I Am Shelby Lynne”. It was her 6th album in a career that had already been going for 11 years and I wondered why it had taken me so long to discover this superb singer. A good contralto voice always grabs me, so I was surprised I hadn’t come across her before, but discovered she’d suffered from a common problem for female artists at the time, especially around Nashville, that management and record companies struggled to place female artists in suitable recordings. Shelby Lynne’s first recording was a duet with George Jones, then she made a country album, then a slick countrypolitan album – it wasn’t until she decided to take a stand on her music and recorded “I Am Shelby Lynne”, showing the rock and blues influences that she’d always had, that she finally clicked with a wider audience. At the 2001 Grammy Awards she won the Best New Artist award. As she commented at the time, “Thirteen years and six albums to get here“!
Allison Moorer I discovered through Steve Earle and only learned that she and Lynne were sisters much later. Despite having sung together since childhood, the “Not Dark Yet” album remains their first and only album together. Add to that one of Dylan’s finest songs as the title track, and production (and additional guitar) from Teddy Thompson, son of the great Richard Thompson, and this becomes a landmark song on a significant album. It’s dark, atmospheric and deeply moving. I love it.
Number 4: Gretchen Peters ‘The Matador‘ from “Hello Cruel World” (2012)
I think that more than a few of us will have a Gretchen Peters song in our lists. She’s another outstanding songwriter and she is particularly good at telling compelling stories through her songs. “Hello Cruel World” is my favourite of her always excellent albums and this track emerged as the one I go back to time and time again, despite strong competition from the title track and the superb ‘Five Minutes’, among others. Interestingly, my colleague Graeme Tait recently selected this as his top song in his list and, if I applied the same time parameters as Graeme, this would only be pipped to the post by my number 2 selection, and then only just. Graeme beautifully explained the philosophical thinking behind this song. For me, ‘The Matador’ is simply great storytelling. I listen to this song and I can clearly see both the matador and the infatuated female fan. I can feel the intense passion of the bullfight and the sense of being trapped in a ritual that, perhaps, doesn’t make as much sense as it once did, and then you realise it’s also a song about human relationships and their own complex patterns and rituals.
It’s a beautiful song, beautifully sung.
Number 3: Lynn Miles ‘I Know It Was Love‘ from “Slightly Haunted” (1996)
Lynn Miles is such a great songwriter, and it never ceases to amaze me that more people don’t know about her and appreciate her work. This song comes from her third album and the first to make something of a splash outside her native Canada, “Slightly Haunted”, released in 1996 (it was a Billboard Top Ten Pick of the Year). For me, this track perfectly captures that feeling of being caught up in a great love affair, one that burns so bright it’s inevitable that it will eventually fade away. Anyone who has ever experienced that feeling will immediately identify with this song and it’s not just the lyrics that grab you (“We could have rode the rails/ We could have taken any town/ We could have danced along the bars/ We could have burned the whole place down”), the music has a wonderful, haunting melody, perfectly punctured by moments of tumbling chaos and some great guitar work from Ian LeFeuvre, who would become a longtime collaborator on her albums.
And there’s that denouement, the recognition of what kills so many intense affairs, “Now you wonder where it’s gone, well looking back, I think I know. We held it in our arms, but we got scared and let it go”.
A major episode in two people’s lives told and wrapped up in just under 5 minutes. Superb. Lynn Miles has written many more songs that I love, but this one always stays with me.
Number 2: Steve Earle ‘Ashes to Ashes‘ (live) from “Just An American Boy” (2003)
I’ve written many times about my love of Steve Earle’s music, so it will come as no surprise that he’s high on this list, but the choice of track might surprise some, as it’s not one of his more obviously known songs. It originally surfaced as the opening track on 2002’s “Jerusalem” album, but my preference is for the live version on “Just An American Boy”, released a year later and with brother Patrick and son Justin in the band. For me, Steve Earle is at his best when he’s at his most excoriating and he’s really on his game here, attacking kings and would be tyrants who want to make the world over in their image. It was written in the aftermath of the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers in New York and Earle has said of the song, “Ashes to Ashes’ is about being the most powerful country in the world and it’s the history lesson about what’s happened to every other most powerful country in the world. The deal is, do we have to go the way of the Roman Empire? Do we have to go the way of… Britain?”
“Every tower ever built tumbles, and no matter how strong, no matter how tall. Someday even great walls will crumble, and every idol ever raised falls. Someday even man’s best laid plans will lie twisted and covered in rust. We’ve done all that we can, but it slipped through our hands and it’s ashes to ashes and dust to dust”
Does every great world power eventually crumble and fall? The evidence suggests not only is that true, but that nobody learns from the mistakes. Few americana songwriters really tackle the big questions and that, for me, is what makes this guy one of the very best.
Number 1. Nitty Gritty Dirt Band ‘Will The Circle Be Unbroken‘ from “Will The Circle Be Unbroken” (1972)
The order of these songs is pretty arbitrary and most of them are interchangeable, but not this one. For me, this is the ground zero of americana songs. There’s the fact that it’s the title track of the album that was the first to bring together established, old school country artists, like Doc Watson, Vassar Clements, Earl Scruggs, Maybelle Carter and a host of others, with the new wave of country rock musicians, as represented by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, way back in 1972. That album was a ground breaker for me and, in my opinion, is one of the finest roots music albums ever made. Then there’s the fact that it’s a great song and I never tire of hearing it. It started life as a hymn, written by Ada Habershon and Charles Gabriel in 1907. It was partially rewritten by A.P Carter when the Carter Family recorded it in 1935, producing the version that has become associated with roots music ever since, and it has come to symbolise the circle of music itself and the passing on of tradition from one generation to the next. John Carter Cash explained it as a homage to the pioneers of country music and a salute to current artists who honour these diverse roots. It’s a song that can frequently be heard when musicians get together and its chorus always invites audience participation. When you listen to this you hear old time music at its most glorious, all those fabulous musicians coming together in a display of genuinely awe inspiring country picking, with the newer generation coming in on the chorus to drive the song home. Now the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band represent the older generation, still passing on these songs to the newer players. The circle is unbroken.
In my opinion, it embodies the true spirit of americana music more than anything else I’ve ever heard.
