United States
The whole alphabet of it — Nashville, Austin, Athens, Memphis, the Catskills.
America is where this music was made and where it is still mostly made. The Texas songwriter line, the Appalachian porch tradition, the Muscle Shoals soul of it, the Bakersfield twang, the Catskills barn-band thing — all of it is the same river with different bends.
Look for: the Texas Heritage scene (Crockett, Hayes Carll, Vincent Neil Emerson), the Appalachian wave (Childers, Sierra Ferrell), the Southeastern songwriter axis (Isbell, Margo Price), the Drive-By Truckers / 400 Unit lineage.
In rotation from United States
USA · 1944 — 1997
Townes Van Zandt
The patron saint of the kitchen-table songwriters.
USA · 1953 — present
Lucinda Williams
Louisiana made audible.
USA · 1978 — present
Sturgill Simpson
Walked into Nashville with a haircut and an attitude.
USA · 1991 — present
Tyler Childers
Appalachia, unfiltered and unembarrassed.
USA · 1988 — present
Sierra Ferrell
Sings like she found the songs in a creek bed.
USA · 1984 — present
Charley Crockett
Keeps the bones, throws out the gristle.
USA · 1979 — present
Jason Isbell
Wrote 'Southeastern' and meant it.
USA · 1983 — present
Margo Price
Outlaw country with a working-class spine.
USA · 1996 — present
Drive-By Truckers
The South as it actually is.
USA · 1955 — present
Steve Earle
Wrote 'Guitar Town' and never apologized.
USA · 1967 — present
Gillian Welch
American primitive, on purpose.
USA · 1976 — present
Hayes Carll
The funniest songwriter to also break your heart.
USA · 1983 — present
Pokey LaFarge
Western swing, ragtime, and string-band soul.
USA · 1961 — present
Iris DeMent
Arkansas gospel-grade phrasing.
USA · 1973 — present
Ray LaMontagne
A voice you can hear from across a room you haven't entered yet.
USA · 2010 — present
The Cactus Blossoms
Brother harmonies in the Louvin tradition.
USA · 2006 — present
The Felice Brothers
Catskills barn-band Americana with a literary streak.
USA · 1933 — present
Willie Nelson
The road never asks if he's tired.
USA · 1937 — 2002
Waylon Jennings
Built the outlaw template and refused to let Nashville own it.
USA · 1936 — 2024
Kris Kristofferson
Rhodes Scholar, helicopter pilot, wrote 'Me and Bobby McGee'.
USA · 1992 — present
Billy Strings
Bluegrass at the speed of a freight train.
USA · 1993 — present
Molly Tuttle
First woman to win IBMA Guitar Player of the Year — twice.
USA · 1991 — present
Vincent Neil Emerson
East Texas songwriter in the Van Zandt lineage — literally.
USA · 1989 — present
Margo Cilker
High-desert Oregon Americana with literature in the lyrics.
USA · 1981 — present
Brandi Carlile
The biggest voice Americana has produced in twenty years.
USA · 1991 — present
Sarah Jarosz
Octave mandolin, NYC fog, Texas hill-country bones.
USA · 1969 — 2014
The Allman Brothers Band
Two drummers, twin lead guitars, the South amplified.
USA · 1964 — present
Lynyrd Skynyrd
The South's loudest argument with itself.
USA · 1990 — present
Ian Noe
Eastern Kentucky Dylan, hill-country fatalism.
USA · 1986 — present
Jaime Wyatt
Outlaw country with country-soul horns.
USA · 1976 — present
Ana Egge
A songwriter's songwriter, prairie to Brooklyn.
USA · 2005 — present
Turnpike Troubadours
Red-dirt country with a fiddle out front.
USA · 1996 — present
Zach Bryan
Navy songwriter who outran the entire format.
USA · 1946 — 2020
John Prine
Wrote 'Sam Stone' at 24. Everything after was a gift.
USA · 1988 — present
Kacey Musgraves
Cosmic country with a pop heart.
USA · 1979 — present
Allison Russell
Banjo, French, English, and a backbone of soul.
USA · 1977 — present
Rhiannon Giddens
The historian-musician of American roots.
USA · 1947 — present
Emmylou Harris
The harmony singer who built modern Americana.
USA · 1971 — present
Eagles
California country-rock perfected on a desert highway.
USA · 1964 — 1973
The Byrds
Jingle-jangle to Sweetheart of the Rodeo in five short years.
USA · 1946 — 1973
Gram Parsons
Cosmic American Music — invented, then gone at 26.
USA · 1968 — 1972
The Flying Burrito Brothers
Rhinestone suits and broken hearts in the canyon.
USA · 1967 — 1972
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Bayou rock from the East Bay — and somehow it worked.
USA · 1976 — 2017
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
Florida kid who turned American rock into a craft.
USA · 1968 — present
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Three (then four) voices that defined a generation's harmony.
USA · 1946 — present
Linda Ronstadt
The voice that connected country, rock, and the canyon.
USA · 1948 — present
Jackson Browne
Canyon songwriter with a moral compass.
USA · 1969 — present
Little Feat
New Orleans funk, slide guitar, and Lowell George's pen.
USA · 1969 — present
ZZ Top
That little ol' band from Texas.
USA · 1972 — present
The Marshall Tucker Band
Country, jazz and Southern rock with a flute solo.
USA · 1931 — 2013
George Jones
The greatest country singer who ever lived.
USA · 1929 — 2006
Buck Owens
Founded the Bakersfield Sound — and held the line.
USA · 1956 — present
Dwight Yoakam
Bakersfield, by way of Los Angeles, in tight Wranglers.
USA · 1941 — present
Bob Dylan
The river all of this drinks from.
USA · 1990 — present
Courtney Marie Andrews
Desert-honed Americana with a Joni-grade pen.
