2010 saw the debut of this blog, which was something I started back in May. How this all came about was quite innocent. I readily admit I am a subscriber to XM Radio which, fortunately, opened up a lot of doors to a wide variety of music. And so it happened, on this day in April 2010, my girlfriend and I were driving around some part of Ontario, Canada, and we were listening to The Highway, which is channel 16 on XM. Having listened to country music my whole life, I have maintained my love affair for the genre. However, this love affair has been strained in recent years, at least on my end (I'm sure the industry could really care less that it's strained ... I'm just a country music geek who will still probably buy some records, and they're right. It's just no longer the kind of country music records they were counting on). The breaking point for me was a tune that raced to number 1 on the country charts last year called "I'm a Little More Country Than That." With respect to the writers and the performer of this song, this song did nothing for me, and I'm being really nice here. It is the one song that pushed me to tune in to the Outlaw Country channel, XM 12, on a more permanent basis. The first song I heard was from this group that I had known about for a while, but didn't know much about, and that group was Cross Canadian Ragweed. It struck me as something completely crazy, that Ragweed was never able to garner a major hit, yet there is so much music on the mainstream channel making serious money, getting serious promotion, really serious face-time, that is so completely not "there" in my eyes. To sum it up, this blog was born because I got pissed off.
I started listening, really listening to the artists on the Outlaw channel. These are artists that you won't hear on mainstream radio, for whatever reason, but who cares. This is music that deserves to be heard, and that's the purpose of this blog. I know I have said this before in previous posts, but I think at the dawn of a new year, it's important to reiterate this point as we look forward to 2011 and beyond. What are some of the things we can look forward to? What are the goals?
I know we can look forward to a lot of great music, a lot of wonderful tours and festivals, and the continued growth of the Americana genre. It is the hottest, fastest growing musical genre in the world today. For this site, we can look forward to upcoming reviews and follow-up posts on Justin Townes Earle and Wade Bowen, as they perform shows on back-to-back nights in Chicago. This site will continue to promote the artists in the genre's of Americana and Texas music as best as possible. The goals are ever expanding and always with the music in mind. I want this blog to reach out to as many readers as possible, to share and acquire knowledge of the artists and music that deserve to be heard. Plans are in the works to expand what is offered here. The goal for this year is to introduce this site to the Americana music community and offer its resources to promote and get the music out to the people.
Another goal that is no less important, is to get you, the reader, involved. If there is an artist out there who is playing away in a bar night after night, plying their trade and rocking the house, send me links, literature and music from them. I would be thrilled to talk about them in this space, engage in conversation with you. This space has always been about interaction with the reader, and it is my great hope to expand that aspect of what we have here. As always, feel free to drop a line to americanareview@gmail.com. Let's talk music people, it's a beautiful thing and much more interesting than politics and religion.
I hope everyone is looking forward to a wonderful and prosperous 2011. I thank you for your time and continued support of this blog, we're closing in on 1,000 visits! I wish all the best to you and your families in the New Year, take care everyone!
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