via Americana Music Association

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (June 24, 2024) — Today, the Americana Music Association announced this year’s Lifetime Achievement Honorees for its 23rd Annual Americana Honors & Awards show on Wednesday, September 18. This group of top-honor recipients includes Dave Alvin, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Rev. Gary Davis, Shelby Lynne, Don Was and Dwight Yoakam. This year’s honorees will be celebrated during the prestigious ceremony at the Ryman Auditorium.

The Blind Boys of Alabama revolutionized Black gospel music in the 1940s and 1950s with an ecstatic performance style, charismatic audience engagement, and a break from the a cappella tradition – a grooving rhythm section. Established in Talladega, Alabama, in 1939, the group adapted to their times while never crossing over into pop. Several generations of singers and leaders inspired and preserved their approach, chiefly Clarence Fountain, George Scott, Sam Butler, and Jimmy Carter. They were signed by Peter Gabriel and produced by Booker T. Jones. They toured with Tom Petty and recorded with Lou Reed. They’ve won five Grammy Awards, performed at the White House three times, and earned numerous other honors.

Don Was has been the longstanding bass player in the Americana Honors and Awards house band, but of course he is so much more. Indeed his career stretches the words eclectic and accomplishedinto new territory. He grew up in Detroit on blues, rock and jazz and established the pop/rock band Was (Not Was) in the 1980s. As a producer, he went supernova with major collaborations with Bonnie Raitt, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Brian Wilson and more. Since 2012 he’s been president of the historic jazz label Blue Note Records. He’s earned five Grammy Awards, including Producer of the Year.

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Blind Boys of Alabama on TKA

Don Was on TKA

via NPR Tiny Desk Concerts

This Black Music Month, Tiny Desk is giving the ladies their flowers. We’re releasing nine Tiny Desk concerts from Black women artists, from veterans who’ve paved the way for what we hear today in Black music, to those who are carving out their own paths.

Experiencing all of the Tiny Desks this Black Music Month has made many of my dreams come true, and Meshell Ndegeocello’s performance was no exception. For 30 years, the Grammy-winning artist’s music has cast an unflinching gaze on love, race, sexuality and religion. Her new album out in August, No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin, zooms out to focus on the love of humanity as inspired by the writer and civil rights activist.

Watch the Full Performance on NPR

Meshell Ndegeocello on TKA

via NPR

In today’s session, we have a very special guest: one of jazz’s great ambassadors and, perhaps, the finest jazz pianist to hail from South Africa.

Abdullah Ibrahim, who was born in Cape Town in 1934, played with Hugh Masekela in The Jazz Epistles. Together, they became the first Black artists to record a jazz album in South Africa, under pressure from the apartheid government no less.

In the ’60s, Ibrahim left South Africa due to apartheid, and a chance connection with Duke Ellington launched his international career. He recorded under the stage name Dollar Brand for many years, before he converted to Islam and took on the name Abdullah Ibrahim.

Listen to the full interview on NPR World Cafe

Abdullah Ibrahim on TKA

via Variety Magazine

Stop-motion maestro Claude Barras will back “Ogresse,” a tragicomic musical directed by three-time Grammy winner Cecile McLorin Salvant and Belgian animator Lia Bertels.

Variety can share this first look.

Led by Miyu Productions – the studio behind last year’s Annecy Animation Festival top-winner “Chicken For Linda!” – the upcoming project adapts a stage show vocalist and MacArthur fellow Cecile McLorin Salvant has toured since 2019, marrying Salvant’s jazz stylings with 2D animation from Bertels and stop-motion interludes overseen by Barras’ Lausanne-based Helium Films.

Read Full Article on Variety

Cécile McLorin Salvant on TKA

via Variety Magazine

There was no official explanation offered for exactly why Silvana Estrada and Cécile McLorin Salvant were co-headlining a show at Walt Disney Concert Hall — and none was needed, for discerning L.A. audiences who know better than to look a gift horse in the mouth. These two have little in common, representing such different cultures, styles and even languages… and everything in common, too, being among the greatest vocalists of their generations. So, why ask ¿por qué? The idea of pairing them certainly could have been generated by the LA Phil organization, which has fruitfully hosted both performers on their own before. It could have come from one artist’s camp or the other, given the mutual admiration society they obviously share. Whoever thought to match them up, the magic of McLorin Salvant and Estrada coming together made for a throughly delightful “only in L.A.” moment. (Even if it’s theoretically possible that someone in New York would have been smart enough to book it.)

Read Full Article on Variety

Cécile McLorin Salvant on TKA

via PASTE

Paste Studio on The Road rambles on, this time to Wilkesboro, N.C., for the 36th annual MerleFest! The festival was founded in 1988 in memory of Doc Watson’s son Merle, and features “traditional plus” music, described by Doc Watson himself as, “the traditional music of the Appalachian region plus whatever other styles we were in the mood to play.” Watch Boston-based progressive bluegrassers Twisted Pine play under the influence of Jerry Douglas, the baddest dobro man in the land.

Read Full Article on PASTE

Twisted Pine on TKA

Full Session

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