Nathaniel Rateliff, Sierra Ferrell, MJ Lenderman Win Americana Awards

Americana Music Honors & Awards distributed their foremost competition trophies to Sierra FerrellThe Nathaniel Rateliff & night sweat, i’m with her, MJ -Lönnivare And Gillian Welch & David Rawlings in a ceremony on Wednesday evening at Ryman Auditorium in Nashville.

Ferrell won this year’s award from the Americana Music Association’s voter for the second year in a row, designed for solo documents, while Welch and Rawlings were awarded the duo/Group of the Year Award. MJ Lenderman, the guitarist for the group Wednesday, who broke out as a solo artist last year with his album “Manning Fireworks”, prevailed in the race for this year’s new artist.

This year’s album went to Rateliff and his band for “south of here.” The year winner Song was “Ancient Light”, written collectively by the members of the recently reunited Roots SuperGroup I ‘HER: Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O’Donovan and Sara Watkins.

This year’s remaining competitiveness, this year’s instrumentist, went to Alex Hargreaves, the touring violinist for Billy Strings Band.

At Americanas, at least as much weight is given to the Lifetime Achievement Awards and other specialized awards. The old 97’s, Joe Henry and Darrell Scott were the recipients of the official lifetime awards. McCetary Sisters received the Legacy of Americana Award (in collaboration with the National Museum of African American Music).

Jesse Welles lost in the competitive category for this year’s new artist, but was undoubtedly a greater honor that is more traditionally thought of as unofficially one of the program’s Lifetime Awards, the spirit of Americana Free Spee in Music. John Fogerty presented Welles the Trophy, the evening after jumping on stage at the end/in with Welles to sing Creedence Classic “Who Will Stop the Rain” together.

The 24th annual Americana Honors & Awards took place partly through the Americanfest conference, which continues in Nashville until Saturday. The three-and-one-half hour show was broadcast live on NPR’s Youtube channel and Siriusxm; A condensed and edited version will be broadcast later as part of the PBS series “Austin City Limits”.

John C. Reilly, a long -lasting champion for Americana Music, hosted the show for the first time and performed a duet of “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” with Margo Price.

Most of the nominated artists performed during the show. But it started and ended with historically minded performances: Sg Goodman opened with a number from Neil Young’s “Zuma”, which is currently being celebrated for its 50th anniversary. And at the highlight, Emmylou Harris and Daniel Lanois were reunited to make a song from the 30-year-old “Wrecking Ball”, followed by Foerty who made a arousing three-song.

Standing ovations went to performances by Darrell Scott, McCetary Sisters, Maggie Rose, Joe Henry and the surprise group by two of the night’s competition winners, Nateliff and the duo of Welch and Rawlings.

More to come …