The UK Americana Music Awards demonstrated the organisation’s evolving values on Thursday night, with a healthy proportion of female winners, and a definition of Americana which escaped the confines of country-rock to encompass blues, gospel and soul. There was much talk of the sustaining quality of “community” as the genre’s UK practitioners and supporters gathered, before contrastingly uplifting performances from Lyle Lovett and Candi Staton.
Hackney Church’s ancient walls ensured a resonant boom to The Heavy Heavy as they opened proceedings with sheets of rasping glam guitar. “Ah, Americana – what a week to be celebrating something with America in the title!” host Baylen Leonard then sighed, as the world digested Donald Trump’s inauguration and initial shock and awe acts. Gillian Welch and David Rawlings embody a very different idea of their nation, of course. They accepted the International Song Of The Year award for “Empty Trainload Of Sky” while away on tour, strolling at night near Sydney Opera House as they thanked veteran Beatles/Bowie engineer Ken Scott for his work on their latest album, Woodland. When this was duly named International Album Of The Year, Uncut editor Michael Bonner accepted the prize on the duo’s behalf, and invited the audience to raise a glass to The Band’s keyboard genius Garth Hudson on the week of his death. Jason Isbell also accepted International Artist Of The Year from somewhere on the road.
Robert Vincent won UK Song Of The Year for “Follow What You Love and Love Will Follow”. He preceded a performance of the song which set his loping acoustic guitar at the heart of Michele Stodart’s house band by noting its title’s aptness in harsh times: “The meaning of this song is everything that we should do.”
The value of these awards for the tight-knit group of musicians practising Americana in the UK was shown when Hannah White received UK Album Of The Year for Sweet Revolution. “I’m so grateful, I can’t speak!” she gasped. By the time she returned to win UK Artist Of The Year, White was choking back laughter and tears. Her performance of “Chains Of Ours” boasted swampy blues guitars recalling Daniel Lanois, rockabilly twang and country swing, before her voice gave a sultry, slurring, honkytonk noir edge to its finale.
UK Live Act Of The Year Kezia Gill was also in tears as she won. “When my husband and I had a dream board years ago of everything we wanted to achieve,” she said, ‘AMA’ was on it…just to be accredited to a community that I’ve tried so hard to be a part of means so much.” UK/Ireland Trailblazer award-winner and Irish chart-topper CMAT also noted ostracising by those who “didn’t really accept me as a country singer for a while”. Her irreverent, bisexual identity and her fanbase’s strong LBGTQ+ element cuts against the sometimes conservative country grain, though the vocal twang as she sang “I Wanna Be A Cowboy, Baby!” was steeped in Nashville verities.
UK Instrumentalist Of The Year Kieron Marshall described a different sort of exclusion, stating: “People from my background don’t usually come to fancy events like this.” He came, he said, from “a council flat, heroin family, criminals, and I’m really grateful to music…I got here because of opportunity. And the one thing we can all do as a community is give opportunity.” Footage of the AMA’s outreach programme for ex-offenders’ music-making perhaps met this challenge.
The Grassroots Award to promoter David Messer also honoured those lifting musicians up behind the scenes, while Emerging Artist Of The Year Toby Lee, just 19 and a self-described “guy who lives on a farm in Cornwall”, belied his age with his big, confident voice and guitar swagger.
The American artists present undeniably dug deeper than their transatlantic disciples into Americana’s specific locale, history and imagery, beginning with International Album nominee and Old Crow Medicine Show founder Willie Watson. His self-titled 2024 album’s song “Real Love” found its narrator “chained to the heart of a ghost” and “shadows in the eyes of the people that I used to know”, as his voice shivered to the song’s redeemed conclusion.
Kyshona’s “The Echo”, from her album Legacy, dug into a personal genealogy making her the great-great-great-grandchild of a freed South Carolina slave. “LA Woman”-eerie keyboard chimes supported her voice’s rich gospel-blues boom, as she laid out a history rarely acknowledged in her current Nashville home.
International Trailblazer award-winner Lyle Lovett was the first taste of real American stardust, but the Texan was all humility as he considered the night’s young talents, striving at work they loved. “That sort of life is what I wish for my children,” he said quietly. He recalled his 1987 UK debut playing London’s Mean Fiddler, and the local agents who had let him “play halls I had dreamed of seeing”. “Those memories are important to me,” he said simply. His band, attired like their leader in the black suits and crisp white shirts of country gentlemen, appeared to play his beautifully crafted classic “If I Had A Boat”. Throwing his head back, Lovett looked to the church’s rafters as if glimpsing heaven.
Candi Staton topped even that as she won a richly deserved Lifetime Achievement Award, having wrested uplifting art from a lifetime of bitter blues. “First, I want to thank you God that I’m standing here with you,” she said, in a voice brooking no argument. “I’m going to do what I love until the Lord calls me home,” she added, almost breaking down as she peered out at family members in the crowd.
The all-star finales traditional at such events are usually shambolic affairs. Staton’s presence at the heart of “You Got The Love” made this one intensely moving. It’s a song of deceptively harsh romantic blows, relieved by its ecstatic chorus. Violin and cello gave orchestral sweep to the assembled 22 musicians, and Lovett cheekily interpolated “Young Hearts Run Free” as Staton grinned. Staton herself, though recently retired from touring, raised her voice one more time, bringing her gospel-soul truth to this church and the crowd to their feet. The young women next to her danced and sang, and hugged her with awed delight at the end. As with this music and its awards’ best moments, she had lent them the energy to move on up somewhere better.
Award Winners:
UK Artist Of The Year
Hannah White
UK Album Of The Year
Hannah White - Sweet Revolution
UK Song Of The Year
Robert Vincent – “Follow What You Love and Love Will Follow”
UK Instrumentalist Of The Year
Keiron Marshall
International Artist Of The Year
Jason Isbell
International Album Of The Year
Gillian Welch & David Rawlings – Woodland
International Song Of The Year
Gillian Welch & David Rawlings – “Empty Trainload of Sky”
Live Act Of The Year
Kezia Gill
International Lifetime Achievement Award
Candi Staton
International Trailblazer Award
Lyle Lovett
UK/Ireland Trailblazer Award
CMAT
Grass Roots Award
David Messer
Bob Harris Emerging Artist Award
Toby Lee