![]() ![]() The music was complex with a sculptured soundscape and was a significant artistic achievement for the band. Their defining and most popular album is 2002’s ‘Yankee Hotel Foxtrot’, which was so different to what their label Reprise Records expected, that it resulted in them moving to Nonesuch Records to release it after the band had streamed it on their website. However, they were able to maintain their country rock roots and knowledge of country music, while weaving in the influence of a range of other artists and genres, including The Beatles and John Cale, and an experimental approach to become a leading indie rock band as well. Rising from the ashes of Uncle Tupelo after Jay Farrar’s departure, Wilco started out as an alt-country band that was a continuation of Uncle Tupelo. ‘Time (The Revelator)’ was when she wrote rock & roll songs but delivered them as old time music, and if music is to remain vital it needs to innovate, and Gillian Welch is an innovator who has managed to preserve the essence of old-time music ensuring it is alive and well in the 21 st Century. T-Bone Burnett was an early supporter, and she made significant contributions to ‘’O Brother, Where Art Thou’, which consolidated her career she shares with her husband, Dave Rawlings. It is this love of the rural music of the South, filtered through a modern rock & roll ear and a modern take on songwriting that means Gillian Welch is fairly unique in her ability to keep the flame of old-time music alive while bringing something new to the sound that keeps it fresh in her hands. She was a rock & roll fan while she was at college before finding The Stanley Brothers and subsequently attending Berklee College of Music in Boston to study songwriting. Gillian Welch was born in 1967 in New York, not at the turn of the 20 th Century in the American South. However, while this is part of her appeal, it doesn’t do justice to her musical and songwriting craft. When you see and hear Gillian Welch for the first time it is very easy to imagine her recording with The Carter Family, such is the tenor of the music and her visual style. Whatever readers think about the contents and order of the list, it is difficult to believe that americana would be the genre it is today without the work of all ten artists. Righteous indignation can feel so good, particularly if your own top artist or artists failed to make the cut. A major part of the benefit of these lists is the debate and arguments they can prompt. While this list may be an attempt to objectively list the top ten essential americana artists of all time, favouritism, prejudice and personal experience of the music cannot be fully removed from the process, so if you have any views on the list please share them. As far as the order of the artist it is an attempt to rank the artists based on their influence and how much they embody the spirit of americana. By definition, any top 10 list of essential americana artists should ideally give a sense of what the americana genre is in all its glory, and reflect something of its history. They have been significant innovators of the americana genre, providing an inspiration for subsequent artists. The same could be said for bands like The Band, Grateful Dead, and The Byrds, but from a pure americana perspective, Levon Helm, Jerry Garcia, and Chris Hillman have contributed to americana through their various bands and their solo careers. Some artists can be considered to be too big for an americana top 10 list, even though they may have been genre influencers, the prime example of such an artist is Bob Dylan who looms over multiple music genres like the colossus he is. However, whatever the criteria used, each list will be a reflection of the writer’s musical experiences and musical knowledge. How does anyone go about determining the top ten americana artists ever, and once you’ve worked that one out, how do you rank them in a meaningful way? These are the legitimate questions facing Americana UK writers as part of this feature if personal favouritism and prejudice are to be avoided. ![]()
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