Americana

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Americana refers to artifacts of the culture of the United States, the history and folklore resultant from its westward expansion. Examples of this culture include baseball, apple pie, Superman, the Diner, barbed wire, wagon trains, jazz, the music of Stephen Foster, George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, the music of Aaron Copland (notably his Fanfare for the Common Man), and rockabilly; and American art, such as that of Frederic Remington, Grant Wood, and Norman Rockwell, all based on American folk art.

Music

In music, Americana is a loose subset of American folk music, that is perhaps best defined as "classic American music"—ranging in style from roots-based bluegrass to alternative country, gospel, blues, zydeco, and other native forms. One of the main reasons Americana is used to describe such a wide variety of musical genres is because of the diverse range of cultural influences which we call American. For example, traditional Bluegrass instrumentation consists of the banjo which originated on the African continent, guitars from Europe, and fiddling styles which have their roots in traditional Irish and other Gaelic fiddling techniques.

Americana bands and musicians

• Murder by Death (band)
• The Allman Brothers Band
• The Band
• Beach Boys
• Beat Circus
• Shawn Colvin
• The Blasters
• Johnny Cash
• Creedence Clearwater Revival
• Iris DeMent
• Bob Dylan
• The Grateful Dead
• Patty Griffin
• Woody Guthrie
• Merle Haggard
• Heartsfield
• Ted Russell Kamp
• Waylon Jennings
• The Beatles
• Willie Nelson
• John Prine
• Bruce Springsteen
• Townes Van Zandt
• Tom Waits
• Gillian Welch and David Rawlings
• Hank Williams
• Neil Young
• North Star Amblers
• The Grey Image
• Ryan Adams
• Planter's
• James Taylor
• Gogol Bordello
• Augustana
• Old Crow Medicine Show
• Nickel Creek
• Jack Johnson
• Bill Frisell

Americana in literature

Eric Flint's novel 1632 was an experiment in the power of ideas wrapped up in Americana wherein he explores the effect of transporting a mass of people through time — in the case of this series, the small fictional town of Grantville, West Virginia from the United States in the year 2000 to central Germany in the year 1631. The best selling series of novels and anthologies asks the what-if question: "What might history have been like had a typical American town influenced European thought from the time of the earliest days of Christian on Christian religious conflict (The Thirty Years' War) and Imperialism/Colonialism." In other words, with this premise, Flint decided to hold the both the Industrial revolution and the American revolution (political and social) years early from a new location in central Germany; the result is mostly very American and the social, religious, and political sub-conflicts and conflicts to European thinking and practices are very informative as to what makes Americans American in thought, words, and deeds, and in contrast, a nifty benefit, presents a thoughtful in depth picture of European thought and attitudes of that crucial time.

Americana Radio

Americana is a format in commercial, non-commercial, terrestrial, satellite and internet radio. The Americana Music Association (AMA) has created a chart which documents Americana radio, with approximately 75 Americana radio stations and programs.

Visual Art

In the visual fine arts, Americana usually indicates a concern with the marginal aspects of historic American culture: carnivals, popular amusements such as side-shows, vernacular typography and signage, old horror movies in the 'haunted house' genre, the old West, and the backwoods cultures. It has increasingly veered off into a dark Gothic approach to Americana that was first visualised by U.S. writers such as Edgar Allan Poe and Ray Bradbury.

Americana Movies

Hootenanny Hoot (1963) - featuring Johnny Cash, Judy Henske, The Brothers Four, etc.

See also

• American Studies
• American Studies in Britain
• Americana/Lesourdesville Lake Amusement Park
• Australiana
• Canadiana
• Scouting in popular culture

, a website from nonprofit, Nut Hill Productions, Inc., Executive Producers of PBS series on Americana music and its historical antecedents.

References

External links

• Americana Music Association (Nashville)
• Americana UK - world's biggest alt-country website
• The Danans - UK based Americana band
• Americana Roots - Americana Music News & Resources
• Americana Radio Promotion Independent Radio Promotion for the Americana radio format
• - Description of "Hootenanny Hoot"
• Americana Artist J. K. Coltrain (Nashville)
• Jaimie Muehlhausen - Americana indie musician
• Americana Songwriter James Power ([New York])
• HickoryWind.org - Americana, Bluegrass, &
• Outlaw Punk Cowboy Show Twangtastic Ya'llternative Country Podcast, the best in AltCountry, Rockabilly, GuerillaGrass, Hick Hop, Redneck Metal, Outlaw Country.

Alt Country News, Reviews, & Personality

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Last updated on Thursday March 13, 2008 at 20:19:11 PDT (GMT -0700)
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