Originally Posted by emalvick

Nice thread.

New member at these forums, and thought I'd try to add to the conversation.

I consider myself a fan of Americana, but honestly find it a bit difficult to distinguish (if it is different) from genres such as Alt-Country, and I guess as this thread groups it, with Roots music.

I kind of started into Americana due to more recent Ry Cooder albums, namely what are identified as his California trilogy starting with Chavez Ravine, which Allmusic called Americana, while my favorite album of his is I-Flathead. I haven't explored much of his earlier work. As someone else stated, he can be a bit overwhelming.

I ended up exploring more Americana once I had found those three albums, and have found many albums that AMG calls Americana that I enjoy, although they are all much more recent than the list put up by the OP. The following list is also shows a small bias towards musicians with a Mexican American / Southwest bias, mostly because I grew up in an area where Mariachi music and Mexican music reigned higher than a lot. I'm not a big fan of strictly Mexican music, but I enjoy the Southwestern Sound.

That leads to a lot of my favorite "Americana" albums being rooted in the band Calexico and its members. They get themselves involved in a lot of projects besides their own releases.

My list of Americana and Roots albums I like:



Again, some of these probably aren't quite Americana, but they all work for me and I find them enjoyable. Most of the artists above are worth checking out if you are curious about the genre; just keep in mind that an artist like Robert Plant normally is not Americana (although the Raising Sand album with Allison Krauss fits, too).