Americana Music in Europe

by Marianne Ebertowski

Catchin' an all-night station
Somewhere in Louisiana
It sounds like 1963
But for now
It sounds like heaven.
"Windfall," Son Volt

It is 1963. I have just become a teenager and I'm not sure yet whether that is good news or bad news. All I know is that I'm bored and lonely in this small German border town where half of the population carries Dutch names, everybody speaks a funny dialect that I don't understand and the entire population seems to be catholic apart from my parents and me. As we also happen to be blessed with a funny family name, we are labeled "Polaks" and "refugees" and "potato beetles." As a matter of fact we're just Germans from a different part of the country who moved here, because my unemployed father was promised a job in this miserable place. He lost this job a long time ago and we got stuck here, penniless. Though none of this is particularly my fault, it all contributes to the cruel fact that I'm not a very popular kid. By lack of company I have spent most of my young life so far reading. I have devoured all available volumes of Lassie (the magic collie), Fury (the magic black mustang), and Rin Tin Tin (the magic German shepherd that somehow gets caught between the combat lines of the American civil war, if I remember it well). Like all the other kids (to the horror of our parents) I have developed a taste for Karl May's blue-eyed Teutonic view on the wild west featuring that deep platonic male friendship between Old Shatterhand (good white guy) and Winnetou (good red guy who finally enters the eternal hunting grounds believing in the same white God in whose name so many of his brothers and sisters got killed, a sudden conversion which left me even more troubled than I was already). For years I have wanted to be Jeff, Lassie's proud, well-groomed, young owner. Running through an adventurous, but nevertheless well-protected life on brand- new basketball shoes accompanied by a beautiful, intelligent, faithful and cuddly dog, must seem heaven to any council flat kid with a view on a foam rubber factory and only a budgie to talk to. Hell, there are times being Lassie seems like an attractive option. At least Lassie doesn't have to go to church three times a week and wag her tail to the fire and brimstone sermons of hateful, constipated little twerps in dark suits and ties pretending to distribute God's word.

But after a while, I feel a bit better. I have discovered the radio. Ever since I dared to touch those big plastic buttons on that enormous wooden box my father put together himself for the first time, I am in love with the airwaves. I keep picking up strange foreign voices singing in a language I have just started to learn. After a while I can understand words and try to put sentences together and get acquainted with the names of my new friends. There's that guy with a nasal whine who seems to be crying all the time over the sound of some horrible howling sort of guitar. He sings about being lonely a lot and I know all about that. His name is Hank Williams and he's dead almost as long as I'm alive. I wish I were dead sometimes. There's this other guy with some sort of permanent hick-up who sounds like he is chased like a rabbit between another fellow chopping on his guitar and a drummer who sounds like he's riding a roller coaster. He's also dead since quite a while. Crashed with an airplane, they say. Then there's that odd group called the Carter Family (I'm not sure about their exact family relationships) who sing and play just like I always would have wanted to, if only I had had a family who liked each other enough to do anything together. I don't know whether they're dead or alive. They sound pretty dead to me, but in some sort of rather alive sense like, say, you hear your dead grandmother sing in a dream. There are a lot of dead people on the radio, actually, which is a strangely comforting thought.
There are also some very alive people. There is this fellow called Elvis Presley who sounds pretty cool, though somehow something seems to be going wrong with him like there's a huge weight on his shoulder slowing him down. Then there's a certain Johnny Cash with "Ring of Fire" and some Bobby Bare with "Detroit City." I like to sing along to these tunes. And there's a guy called Pete Seeger, more a preacher than a singer, but a different sort of preacher than I'm used to: someone with a heart and a soul and a guitar or this really loud thing called "banjo". I would love to play one of those and annoy the neighbors.

When I listen to the news I sometimes pick up something about civil rights and race problems and I've never seen a black person in my life and I don't know what's going on, but I figure if Negroes get treated in any way like us "Polaks" over here, black people have every right to be angry and take to the streets. My new (mostly white) musical friends seem to agree with that: Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Tom Paxton... Suddenly it's a movement and it's growing every day. I'm not alone anymore.

It's 1963. It's not an all-night station somewhere in Louisiana I am listening to, but the Armed(American) Forces Network in Frankfurt just as exotic for me and for now it sure sounds like heaven. John F. Kennedy has just told us that he is a "Berliner." I'm not sure where "Berlin" is, I only know there's a wall there and that it is somehow related to the war. A few months later Kennedy gets shot, and I think maybe he shouldn't have wanted to be a "Berliner" so much. A lot of "Berliners" have got shot the last two years, mostly because they wanted to be "West-Berliners" rather than "East-Berliners." I'm not sure why, but "East-Berliners" seem to be hungry a lot. Every Christmas we have to send them parcels and put a candle in our window to help them. Only, we can't afford to help them, we're hungry ourselves. We used to get parcels from America. Maybe Americans burnt candles for us. I would like to burn a candle for John F. Kennedy now. It's the radio, which tells me the news from Dallas, Texas. I'm not sure where that is and I never met John F. Kennedy, but I cry anyway. It's a dull and chilly day in November and it's the last time I cry about the death of a politician. No politician will ever come close to being a "Berliner" in my eyes.

Fortunately, there's still the music from JFK's country which mixes with that odd and mysterious feeling of loss and makes it go away in the end. The music grows along with the young people's movement all over the Western world, torn between apocalyptic feelings and hope, between the wish to escape to a better world (with whatever it takes) and the need to actually try and change this one (with whatever it takes). The soundtrack to my graduation is Barry McGuire's "Eve of Destruction" as much as Pete Seeger's "We Shall Overcome", and Jefferson Airplanes' "White Rabbit" as much as Phil Ochs' "I Ain't Marching Anymore." Funny how American music suddenly becomes the soundtrack to a seemingly "anti-American" movement. I am not anti-American, but I want the American troops out of Vietnam like a lot of my American peers. I know that some of them will have to go or face jail - I don't. There is something else I know: I hate to see American flags burnt by spoilt German brats who seem to have forgiven themselves their own history very quickly even if they pretend to do it out of protest against their fathers. Something's going wrong here very quickly. Something goes wrong everywhere. When I enter the university in 1970 things have turned thoroughly sour. For a while the music dies in my head and in my heart and like many others I think that violence can only be defeated by violence. What saves me is the memory of a dead "Berliner." In 1975 the Vietnam War is over. Slowly the music comes back: I discover Gram and Emmylou; the "Nashville outlaws," Townes van Zandt and Joe Ely. Dwight Yoakam and Randy Travis chew out some real country music; cow punkers Jason & The Scorchers do to Nashville what the Ramones did to New York and just when you think it's all over again, Uncle Tupelo relights the candle, at both ends as it happens, but a twin phoenix rises from UT's ashes and the rest is history. The music that saved my life as a kid is back with a vengeance. Well, that's my personal story of falling in love with American music and of becoming an "Amerikaner" of some sorts.

Many European fans of American music, especially of my generation, may have similar stories. I'm sure everybody has a story to tell about the music s/he fell in love with. More than 50 Americana fans from Flanders (Belgium), Germany and the Netherlands shared their stories and musical preferences with me. What they told me may not be representative for the thousands of fans of American rootsmusic in this part of Europe, let alone for the whole continent. I deliberately left out the UK and Ireland, as these countries share not only the same mother tongue but have also contributed most of the roots to Americana music, they are a case apart. This article doesn't speak of sales figures or chart positions either. It's just a sketch, which, hopefully, shows how, when and why some people in this part of the world came to like Americana, whom they like most, and where Americana music is played and released over here. Maybe it will help American readers to understand how we perceive "their music" over here and where they can find it when they come and visit the "old continent." Maybe they will even stumble over some European roots of Americana music. After all, there would be no "Americana" without "Europeana," as one of the participants of my questionnaire so sharply observed.

European Americana fans like their American counterparts, I figure, come in generational waves. There are the "oldies" who developed a taste for American music through contact with the "urban folk revival" in the late fifties/early sixties with Pete Seeger as its eminent representative. The second wave arrived in the mid and late sixties with the "protest movement" and the first attempts of folk- and country rock (Byrds, Flying Burrito Brothers, Poco, Little Feat). The early eighties brought along the third wave, often ex-punks who fell for "cow punks" like Jason & the Scorchers, the Long Ryders or the Beat Farmers. And, finally there's the alt.country or "No Depression" wave of the late eighties of people who saw the light thanks to Uncle Tupelo, Wilco, Son Volt and whoever followed in their cowboy-booted footsteps. Maybe over a couple of years we can see that a new wave of Americana fans has been recruited by the O Brother Where Art Thou? phenomenon. As far as I can judge it now, the film and soundtrack's impact in Europe is a lot less strong than back home in the States. There are also many people who claim to have "always' listened to traditional country music. These fans are timeless as much as priceless. Two interesting observations I could make up from the answers were that (again, just in the States, as far as I know) Americana music, at this moment, is music for adults: it is difficult to find a fan who is still in his/her twenties let alone younger. The other thing is (again, as far as I know, not dissimilar from the US): it's a boy thing! From more than 50 answers, exactly two came from "girls", a result which is, sadly, confirmed by the picture at live shows: women turn up in rather small quantities (except at K.D.Lang shows). I don't know why that is, but it's not an exclusive Americana phenomenon: women are usually a minority at other musical events as well. I really wish I knew why. Somebody enlighten me here, please!

Just like me, most European fans picked up Americana music on the radio. Not that it is a regular phenomenon on commercial radio stations these days, but there are quite a few specialized programs on national or local radio stations in all three countries and on many prime time and late night shows a very mixed bag of music is played (avoiding the usual charts litter) and American rootsmusic is, apparently, many radio person's personal choice. Of the ones who didn't come to know their favorite music through the radio, the majority was a welcome prey for friends and older siblings.

Where did European fans read about Americana music for the first time? Obviously, this differs from country to country. The Dutch (and some Flemish) participants still remember their first articles on the subject in Muziekkrant Oor , the oldest rock music paper in the Netherlands, still covering the broadest field of popular music and still featuring most of the Netherlands's best Rock writers and photographers. In Flanders the honors go to Rootstown Music: "headstrong magazine for ALL music with roots", which had to give up after five years of trying to make some sort of commercial breakthrough, but rose as an electronic phoenix from the ashes and is now distributed as a free e-zine (www.members.tripod.com/RootsTown). German readers discovered American rootsmusic mostly through the German version of Rolling Stone which somehow seems to keep a certain independent quality distance from its US source.

Asked about music places and festivals, everybody's favorite festival turned out to be the Blue Highways Festival at Music Center Vredenburg in Utrecht, the Netherlands, followed by Take Root in Assen in the north of the Netherlands. The traditional Flemish folk festival at Dranouter (these days more a rock festival of sorts) turns out to be still as much a source of inspiration for Americana fans as is the Lowlands (Rock) Festival in Holland and the Orange Blossom Festival in Beverungen, Germany. For the bluegrass fans there's a yearly European World of Bluegrass Festival (EWOB) organized by the European Bluegrass Music Association (EBMA).

Few music places actually specialize in Americana music, but most local rock venues have put American rootsmusic high on their agendas. In places like the Paradiso or the Melkweg in Amsterdam, the 013 in Tilburg (The Netherlands), Music Center Vredenburg in Utrecht or the Ancienne Belgique in Brussels, you will be able to see many of your favorite Americana artists throughout the year. There are many smaller places like cultural centers, youth clubs, pubs, or record shops, which put Americana acts on regularly. They are too many to mention. Of the ones I know personally Brussels's cultural center Nekkersdal has been presenting a highly enjoyable mix of blues and Americana for quite a long time.

An interesting finding is that most European fans are rather reluctant about homegrown Americana bands. Somehow they seem to think that Americana is, as the name says, American music and, therefore, should be played by Americans rather than Europeans. There's one band, however, that wins the popularity test handsdown: Dutch band JW Roy. Their swampy, melodic brand of alt.country has convinced most fans in the Netherlands and Flanders. Dutch singer-songwriter Ad Vanderveen, who might be known in Texas through his collaboration with Eliza Gilkyson, is held in high esteem by his home crowd. German fans cast their votes on Markus Rill and Lazy Sunday Dreams. Some confusion seems to have existed about the man who could be considered the best singer-songwriter in the Netherlands, Michael de Jong, but apparently many participants were hesitating about whether to see him as an American or a European which is very much the story of his life. But de Jong is too great a singer-songwriter to lock him into any category. For those, Americans and Europeans alike, who are not acquainted with his work: his new album Last Chance Romance, in his own words the best album he has ever made will, hopefully, be released on Munich records some time in September.

Another question that intrigued me was: are we all just hapless consumers of music or do we actually do something about it? We turned out to be quite an active lot with almost not a single couch potato in sight­ more than half of us claimed to be an active musicians to start with. There's a flock of guitarists among us, followed by a smaller contingent of harmonica players. Again, more than 50 per cent of the participants write about their favorite brand of music. That most of them write for the magazines I asked for cooperation is, of course, not a very striking outcome. Another lot, almost half of the participating Americana lovers, is active on other musical fronts: they organize festivals and concerts, present radio shows and run record labels.

The three most popular European record labels with a focus on Americana music are: Munich Records in the Netherlands, home for Michael de Jong, Johnny Dowd, Mary Gauthier and the Gourds; German Glitterhouse which made Hazeldine stars in Germany, at least for a while and releases the works of Jon Dee Graham, Sixteen Horsepower and the Walkabouts and another German label: Blue Rose, European home for the likes of Big In Iowa, the Hoobles and Jason & the Scorchers. Finally, we certainly must not forget the incredibly creative and diligent Bear Family, who has given country music fans all over the world exquisite box sets with music of artists who didn't get the respect they deserve anywhere else.

The European Americana fan who wants to read about his/her favorite music or wants to listen to it on the radio or TV, is not exactly spoiled. Three magazines, though, are praised for the attention they pay to American rootsmusic: Heaven, a relative newcomer on the media market, is popular with Dutch and Flemish readers alike. Muziekkrant Oor and RootsTown come in second. In the Netherlands, Strictly Country a bi-monthly for bluegrass, country and old-time music is released as one package with Bluegrass Bühne (Germany) and Bluegrass Europe, official organ of the EBMA. In Germany, Road Tracks is trying hard to turn into the German No Depression. And there are radio programs that either specialize in Americana like Gonzo's Last Stance and American Connection in the Netherlands or, at least, give Americana a chance in their programming like the enormously popular Pili-Pili on Flemish Radio (VRT1, each Friday night at 7.20 p.m.) which is also a hot favorite of Dutch listeners. Two websites are mentioned for their contribution to Americana music: Insurgent Country in Germany and alt.country.nl in Holland. A new website which might be interesting for American readers as well, will see the light on 1 November: the Americana in Europe website run by American in Europe Alex Tobin.

Well, I guess I have tried to build the tension up for long enough and can now come to the crucial questions: what type of Americana do Europeans like best and who are our favorite artists. Maybe American readers will be in for a surprise, because it's the singer-songwriter category that wins this contest hands down, followed by bluegrass and alt.country. Traditional country, country rock and folk finish almost ex-aequo behind the victorious trio.

The choice of favorite artists reflects this picture quite well: singer-songwriters rule the European waves and the winner is: Steve Earle followed ex-aequo by Townes van Zandt and Lucinda Williams. Country music icons Hank Williams and Johnny Cash get the respect they deserve, as do veterans Guy Clark, Buddy Miller, Emmylou Harris and John Prine. Of the new(er) generation Slaid Cleaves, Mary Gauthier, Greg Trooper and Ryan Adams have stolen most European hearts. These findings are completed perfectly by the results of the German Lost Highway e-mail list, the German equivalent of the Postcard2 list, where Ryan Adams made it to #1 last year with Gold after having come in second with Heartbreaker in 2000, behind Johnny Cash's American III. Solitary Man; Lucinda Williams' made it to #3 in 2000 with Essence and this year's halfway contest was won by Mary Gauthier with Filth and Fire.

European Americana fans are generally rather pleased with the attention they are getting by Americana artists, only people in some parts of Germany feel neglected. However, there are some Americana artists we miss dearly and can't wait to see them (again). Most bitter tears are cried about Lucinda Williams' absence from the European continent. Gillian Welch, Richard Buckner and Australian newcomer Kasey Chambers are also mentioned frequently. Finally, and this will not come as a surprise: we just can't get enough of Mr. Steve Earle. We want him back as often as possible and we can't wait to lay our sweaty little paws on Jerusalem. Somehow Europeans are deeply convinced that Steve's not glorifying the Taliban in spite of his truly horrible beard! And maybe Steve Earle will remember a show in a certain town in England where he played solo, just him, his guitar, his harmonica, and his beard, and played for almost four hours in a row. The fans were getting real tired. Finally some little guy gathered all his courage, walked up to the stage, and said: "Steve, we really love you, man, but we do want to go home now!" European Americana fans; you couldn't find nicer and politer people. Just ask Steve!

*) The author would like to thank all the good people from Strictly Country, RootsTown, Road Tracks and Lost Highway for their kind cooperation.

Contact Marianne Ebertowski at: ebertowski-at-rockzilla.net

  
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