Americana Music Guide: A Brief History of Americana

Americana is a music genre that encompasses traditional music styles including folk, country, bluegrass, blues, gospel, singer-songwriter, and roots music. Many of these styles emerged from small towns and rural regions throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These genres are derived from the early American folk music tradition. Americana music is often acoustic, though it can sometimes use an electric band.

Americana is not a single genre of music but rather a collection of genres that evolved over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These genres also span multiple geographic locations. Here is a brief history of americana music:

• American folk music: American folk music, which has its origins in folk traditions of England, Scotland, and Ireland, began in the eastern United States and spread rapidly across the country as white settlement of the frontier expanded during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In the early twentieth century, American folk music experienced a resurgence in places like upstate New York and New York City. Acoustic singer-songwriters like—Woody Guthrie, with his urban adaptations of rural roots music, and Pete Seeger, who reprised traditional American songs on the banjo—rose to popularity and influenced a new generation of musicians. In the 1960s, singer-songwriter folk music full of social commentary from artists like Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Peter, Paul and Mary became widely popular.
• Blues music: Blues music began in the fields of the American South, where Black slaves and sharecroppers adapted spiritual melodies as work songs. In the late nineteenth century, blues music developed regional styles in areas of the south including Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Texas, and Mississippi. In the 1920s and 1930s, blues artists like Ma Rainey, Odetta, Billie Holliday, and Bessie Smith were some of the first artists to be recorded singing the blues. Blues music would later help spawn rock and roll in the twentieth century.
• Country and bluegrass music: Country and bluegrass music developed in early twentieth century Appalachia—West Virginia, North Carolina, and New York—where immigrants Africa, Europe, and the Mediterranean brought together diverse instruments like the banjo, the guitar, the steel guitar, the fiddle, and the harmonica. Country music is generally simple in structure, borrowing elements from folk music (storytelling and instrumentation), and blues (scales). Country music has developed huge scenes in places like Texas, Oklahoma, California, and Nashville, Tennessee—considered the country capital of the world.

A number of singer-songwriters in the country-folk tradition define the modern americana scene. Artists like Gillian Welch, John Prine, Bobby Bare, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Robert Earl Keen, Grace Potter, and T-Bone Burnett are among americana's biggest stars today. The Americana Music Association, a non-profit based in Nashville, hosts an annual conference to highlight trends and distinguished artists within the genre.

While americana encompasses many different genres, the musical tradition has several common defining characteristics:

1. 1. Acoustic instrumentation: Nearly all americana genres—from folk to blues to country to bluegrass—emphasize acoustic instruments, particularly strings like guitar, banjo, and upright bass.
2. 2. Reverence for the past: Americana artists seek to creatively recycle lyrical themes and harmonic ideas from past generations. Even progressive americana artists like Jason Isbell and Bonnie Raitt make ample use of past traditions when they create new music.
3. 3. Narrative and symbolic lyrics: Many genres that fall under the americana umbrella—like folk, country, and bluegrass—are rooted in storytelling or symbolism. This can be attributed to the early influence of European folk traditions. The Black spirituals that influenced the blues genre were also based in symbolism, though blues music often uses lyrics and harmonies to express themes of sadness or longing.

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