AMERICANAVILLE

The back roads, backwaters and back woods of Americana, country and roots

IF YOU ARE DRIVING NORTH on the A9 trunk road on a Tuesday evening and happen to be wandering through the radio dials, you may hear my mangled mid-Atlantic accent rumbling from the car speakers alongside an eclectic mix of Americana, country and roots music. 

The weekly Americanaville show has been broadcast on Speysound FM since 2016 to an audience both local (Badenoch and Strathspey, Scottish Highlands) and global (via online), and offers a curated mix of new releases, classic tracks, obscure gems and long-time favourites. 

Broadcasts are often accompanied by a bit of history, background and context – some informed, some not so much. The material gathered weight as the years progressed and, when the pandemic rolled around, and I was in-between book projects, the ramblings began to coalesce into written form. I even mocked up a cover, which is included here.

The Americanaville scribbles are equal parts history, journalism and commentary, and wander a path dictated more by curiosity than logic, in directions driven by choice rather than any wider notion of consistency or completeness.

The segments below can be read in linear fashion, certainly, but that should not deter anyone more interested in one element over another. Please feel free to pick and choose; nobody will judge and, however you approach the material, it is completely free.

As a health warning, however, it should be stated upfront that the essays are a bit niche and something of an indulgence. They suffer from a blinkered, personal approach to the subject matter; there will inevitably be disagreements over content, context and interpretation. That is okay. Feedback is welcome.

More material is in the pipeline but not yet timetabled, largely because writing projects with associated paychecks have an annoying habit of interrupting the best of intentions. Details of future updates, and there are a few still to come, will be provided through the usual channels of modern communication and of course through the overlap of the radio show.

In the meantime, many thanks for listening. And reading, if that is your thing – TW