Anna Garrott – “What A Way To Go”

Heard it a few times now in the last week or so. I definitely agree, it’s a nice little number… hope she can keep it up.

“If Americana format stations can succeed commercially, I just know “Real Country” radio stations could as well!”

How many “Americana format stations” do you think there are, Rick? (As opposed to stations that include an Americana specialty show or two, or report to the Americana chart on what format-related stuff they program in with, for instance, their AAA stuff). And given that that format embraces a lot of rockin’ stuff – “roots rock,” they call it – what makes you think that “Real Country” stations (as opposed to specialty shows) would be able to achieve even that level of success? Especially when, no matter how tightly they program, there will be a body of people who complain that they’re playing stuff that isn’t “real country?”

The proper comparand here isn’t Americana radio, it’s bluegrass radio, which has a considerable number of problems of its own.

Jon, on the Americana chart front page there is a blurb that says “Working With Over 350 Adventurous Radio Stations That Aren’t Afraid To take A Chance”, so I assumed there were 350 dedicated stations. After your inquiry above I looked for the first time at their list of “Reporting Stations and Syndicated Shows” and the total was under 75 stations! I didn’t realize that most of those 350 adventurous stations are just airing a syndicated Americana format show most likely once a week. Gosh, no wonder most new and unknown Americana classified artists don’t sell many albums! Crikey!

As for Bluegrass Format Radio Stations, I’ve never heard one so I have no experience with that realm at all. Maybe such a station could alternate blocks of “Real Country” (both current and classic) with blocks of bluegrass to expand their listening audience. Hmm….

ABC does have a trademark on the term “Real Country” and that syndicated format has had success since 1990.

“Jon, on the Americana chart front page there is a blurb that says “Working With Over 350 Adventurous Radio Stations That Aren’t Afraid To take A Chance”, so I assumed there were 350 dedicated stations.”

Um, that’s an ad for Bill Wence Promotions.

There are very few bluegrass radio stations, which was kind of my point. Most bluegrass on the radio is aired as specialty shows on either non-commercial radio or on commercial country radio stations in secondary and tertiary markets. I’d guess that the same is true with respect to Americana, except there’s probably less aired on stations fitting the latter description and more on either non-comms (especially college radio) and commercial stations in other formats.

Arbitron was tracking the numbers for “classic country” stations for a while; their numbers were abysmal, somewhere around what “Dixieland radio” numbers would look like. And the audience for contemporary “real country” artists isn’t likely to be larger than for classic country. In fact, I would say that to the extent that “real country” is largely too country for mainstream country radio, it’s also largely too country for Americana radio, which is heavy on singer/songwriters and roots rock bands, and light on bluegrass and traditional country. That’s not a criticism, it’s an observation; it is what it is, and there’s just not much room on radio these days for stuff that is too, for lack of a better word, retro; artists who want to work in such forms need to be looking at all the “new media” stuff for ways to get their music out.

Jon, what I’d really like to see is for Top 40 “Young Country” stations to set aside a single DJ shift during the early afternoon or evening (not drive time) dedicated to more traditional sounding artists, and especially the newer ones. (The mornings are off limits due to Rush Limbaugh! lol) If LA’s KKGO “GO Country” had something like that goig, I’d tune in, but since its ALWAYS the same stuff night and day (current Top 40 and recurrents) I never listen any more. A syndicated program like featuring more traditional artists would be better than nothing, but they don’t even do that to my knowledge.

You pointed out my big beef with the whole Americana scene, that the tradition oriented styles of bluegrass and country that have been dumped there play second fiddle (like Jeanie Shepard) to the edgier roots rock stuff. I find these two disparate styles of music to mix about as well as oil and water. There is a lot of musical incompatabilty under the Americana label big tent.

Even on satellite radio the Americana format is no more. XM’s Cross Country was replaced by Outlaw Country which only really plays Americana during Elizabeth Cook’s show. Most of time Outlaw Country seems to be old David Allen Coe and Johnny Paycheck.