I figure let's keep this separate from the country board. That's the way I've always seen it anyway, I've stored my "Country" discs apart from my "Alt-Country" ones since I started collecting.
"Alt-Country" is probably the latest phrase to be bandied about but I like it the best so far. "Americana", "Roots Rock", "Roadhouse", "Cowpunk"...whatever you call it it's trying to get at the same thing: something that's fallen between the cracks of traditional formatting language. I figure we make the term retroactive and use this board to discuss the whole range of American-music artists.
I see the style (if you can call it that swince everyone seems to have their own) as primarily singer-songwriter based, though most of these folks can play also.
I guess a list would be most instructive, so here goes:
Gram Parsons
Townes Van Zandt
Steve Young
Joe Ely/ Jimmie Dale Gilmore/ Butch Hancock
John Prine
John Hiatt
Nanci Griffith
Uncle Tupelo/ Wilco/ Sun Volt
Bo Deans
Jayhawks
Tom Russell
Lucinda Williams
Steve Earle
Old 97's
Lucinda Williams is featured in this week's Entertainment Weekly. Mike, have you (or anyone else for that matter) ever heard of Matt King? LeAnn Rimes did a concert here a couple years ago and he opened for her for a half hour. All he had was an acoustic guitar hooked up to an amp and he played really hard country, some or all of which he wrote. He was pretty good, and LeAnn also put on a killer show, although it was a bit odd that at one point she sang "My Baby" to a little 2yo boy in the audience whose dad brought him up to the stage at her request. Anyway, I saw an album of Matt's at Towers shortly thereafter but never bought it. Maybe I will next time I see it.
Re: Lucinda
I think it's amazing that she finally released an album that didn't take the better part of a decade to get done. She got great press with Car Wheels and just came out with a new one Essence. That kind of momentum will get you into mags like EW. Hopefully she'll be able to keep it up. Too bad it didn't happen when the self titled disc came out. From what I've heard Essence sounds like another solid effort.