1997-1999United States

Americana

Also known as American roots music

Americana is best understood as a broad roots-music umbrella rather than a single locked-in sound. Its name is relatively recent, but the style reaches deep into older American folk, country, blues, bluegrass, soul, and rock traditions.

Origins and context

The term became a named genre in U.S. roots-music circles in the late 1990s, especially around Austin and Nashville organizing connected to the Americana Music Association.

United States

How to listen

Start here

Lucinda Williams for the lyrical, bruised-heart side of the genre
The Avett Brothers for a more driving, band-forward roots sound
The Americana Music Association's own history page for the genre's institutional backstory

Mood

Dusty
Open-road
Intimate
Weathered

History

The modern use of the term took shape in the late 1990s, when artists, radio people, label folks, and media workers began organizing around a shared roots-music community. The Americana Music Association traces its own beginnings to informal meetings at South by Southwest and says it held its first convention in Nashville in 2000. As a musical idea, though, Americana reaches back much further than the label itself. Reference sources and genre histories usually describe it as drawing from early folk and country traditions, with deep ties to blues, bluegrass, rock and roll, soul, and related American vernacular music. That wider lineage is why the term can embrace both older, traditional sounds and contemporary artists who build songs from them.