Can't Miss Acts From the Americanafest 2021 Lineup

After missing 2020 due to COVID-19, The Americana Music Festival and Conference, or Americanafest as it's known to fans, is back for 2021 and had dropped the initial lineup of 165 of an expected 240 acts scheduled to play the festival, held Sept. 22-25 in venues throughout Nashville. While the number of days the festival is held may have shortened they haven't skimped on the quality of acts at all. In fact, the quality of the initial lineup plus the shortened number of days likely means a lot of lineup conflicts for attendees.

But that's not necessarily a bad thing. Every year one of my top 2-3 favorite acts has been someone playing before the band I was there to see. In previous years, Americanafest fans have gotten to see Sturgill Simpson play at the tiny Basement, Yola in the back yard of a record store, and a newly sober and reinvigorated Jason Isbell along with Amanda Shires sitting in with numerous artists. So who should you see this year? Whether it's discovery, rising stars, or legends you want, Americanafest has you covered. Here are some of my recommendations.

Christone “Kingfish” Ingram
To call Kingfish a “rising star” at this point seems reductive considering how far the 22 year old has come in just the last few years, but there is nothing to make me think he's done rising. If you like BB King, Robert Johnson, or Buddy Guy, you're going to want to make sure you're at Kingfish's set. This is the future of the blues.

Emma Swift
You'd think a festival called “Americanafest” would be a pretty nationalist affair, but there you'd be wrong. The festival has always played host to artists from across the world, with extra large contingents from England and Australia (where, because they have good sense to ignore that mess on American radio, they just call it “country music”). An Aussie artist who has become an Americanafest mainstay is Emma Swift. After power pop icon Robyn Hitchcock championed her on social media, Swift capitalized on her bigger audience in 2020 with Blonde on the Tracks, an album of Bob Dylan covers featuring Hitchcock on guitar.

Allison Russell
This is my bet for the Americanafest artist who takes the biggest leap forward in the next year. Already an Americanafest veteran with Birds of Chicago and Our Native Daughters, Russell released her solo debut Outside Child in May and it's already making appearance in mid-year “favorites” lists, including my own. Miss her Americanafest show at your own risk. By next year, she may be out of the clubs and into The Ryman.

Jason Ringenberg
If you want to start a vigorous conversation with a group of strangers at Americanafest, just start talking about where Americana came from. While its influences are as wide as the genre itself, I have long maintained that the core “put the genres in a blender” essence was birthed in Nashville's '80s rock scene and nobody exemplifies that scene more than Jason Ringenberg who was the twangy rhinestoned Nashville anchor to Warner Hodges' screaming rock guitars in Jason & the Scorchers. Now a solo artist, Ringenberg has retained that country meets rock meets punk soul that made him so popular then. If you want the most entertaining Americana history lesson you'll ever get, don't miss this show.

Kiefer Sutherland
Yes, THAT Kiefer Sutherland. Sutherland has released two Americana albums, 2016's Down in a Hole and 2019's Reckless & Me and yes, they're pretty damned good. At any other festival, I'd say expect a lot of “let's watch the guy from Young Guns sing” gawkers but Americanafest fans are notoriously unresponsive to (and dare one say, cranky about) gimmicks so the fact that Sutherland made his way onto the lineup is testament to the fact that he's serious about his craft.

Pine Hill Haints
If there's one band on the lineup that you can point to and say “there's Americana”, it's Pine Hill Haints. Calling their style “Alabama Ghost Music” the band are musical archaeologists, unearthing “dead” songs from across country, folk, Celtic, rockabilly, and pretty much whatever other roots-ish genre happens to have a convenient graveyard and transforming them into a kind of Southern Gothic Appalachian Psychobilly Punk... thing. And damn am I totally there. You should be too.

Jill Andrews
Fun fact (well, fun for me anyway): Jill Andrews was the first artist I ever interviewed in person after embarking on this “long strange trip” into music journalism. It was at Bonnaroo 2010 and I was already a fan from her work with The Everybodyfields. She didn't disappoint, as an interview or an entertainer later that day. I've seen her a number of times since and she just keeps getting better. Andrews is one of those artists who the majority of even roots music fans probably don't know, but those who do, REALLY do. Consider this me letting you into the secret society. Jill Andrews will blow your socks off if you let her. Let her.

Rainbow Girls
My “discovery” band in 2019 was California's Rainbow Girls. Considering they opened a bill featuring the two acts I was most anticipating that week, Yola and Molly Tuttle, making an impression at all is testament to how good they were, enough so that I mentioned them in my recap article as one of the Best Representatives of Americana's Next Generation. They're skilled instrumentalists, but goofy and awkward in an endearing way. They weave together harmonies that are airtight, but make dad jokes between songs. They are exactly the right mix of musicianship and fun that you want in a live act.

That doesn't even scratch the surface, but that's Americanafest. In 11 years of coverage, I've seen forgettable bands, but I've never seen a bad one. Check out the poster above for the full lineup and the slideshow below for some pictures from previous Americanafests. If you'd like to attend, head to Nashville Sept. 22-25 but first go here and get your tickets before they sell out!