AmericanaFest 2022: Day 1: 13th Floor In Nashville

AmericanaFest 2022 happened last month in Nashville and The 13th Floor was there to cover the action. Here’s the first of five reports.

The 13th Floor’s Marty Duda was in Nashville with photographer Susannah Marks. Here’s Marty’s report: 

A quick word about AmericanaFest. It has happened every year in Nashville since 2000 when it was just a 2-day event. This year the 5 days were filled with seminars, awards ceremonies, fiestas and live performances featuring well over 280 artists.  With 13th floor faves such as American Aquarium, Henry Wagons, Lyle Lovett, Josh Rouse and Tami Neilson on the schedule…how could we not go? 

 The 5-day festival kicked off Tuesday (September 13th) afternoon and the sun was shining bright as we flew in from New York. 

First stop was check in. We picked up our passes while running into all manner of weird, but friendly folks. One guy who was not dressed in typical cowboy garb was David Andrew Simmons. Outfitting in some kind of leather Celtic kilt, David regaled us with stories that seemed too farfetched not to be true.  

We suddenly realized we could easily blow our whole week talking to this chap, so we diverted his attention and ran away.  

The afternoon was spent acclimating to the new city (napping) and then it was off to the BMI rooftop for our first official AmericanaFest event.  

The rooftop was crowded, drinks were flowing and before long British band The Heavy Heavy were making their Nashville debut. The 5-piece from Brighton describe themselves as “a retro inspired rock band making the music the sixties forgot”. Co-fronted by Georgie Fuller (vocals/keys) and Will Turner (vocals/guitar), they sounded more soulful than their debut EP, Life And Life Only, would indicate. The crowd liked what they heard and so did we. We’ll be talking with them tomorrow.

Watch The Heavy Heavy Up On The Roof: 

Check later posts for an interview with The Heavy Heavy

23-year-old Christone “Kingfish” Ingram was up next and he brought the blues to AmericanaFest. A big man with a big sound and we were on our way. 

 

From there we ventured out to a few of the local nightspots including the “legendary” Bluebird Cafe where a gaggle of Aussies were on stage taking part in something called “Sounds Australia”. Interestingly this was the most “Americana” music we had heard up until this point. 

On the bill were Catherine Britt, Georgia State Line, Helen Townsend & Shannon Smith, Katie Bates, Lachlan Bryan, Lozz Benson and Timothy James Bowen.

By now, things were getting a little blurry but Susannah and I managed to take a few pix. Click on any image to view a gallery:

So, that was the end of Day one. There’s plenty more to come!