Six Years of Roots: Hickory Wind's Birthday

Six years of Roots Music. Since October of 2002, we here at Hickory Wind have seen ups and downs. We've seen the crest and the fall of the "O Brother" craze in Bluegrass and Old Time music. We saw the second wave of alt country, the tail of Whiskeytown and the beginning of Gillian Welch and Ryan Adams, the rise of Wilco, the death of Johnny Cash, and the spread of "Americana" music (although I'm not a big fan of the name) all across the world. We've seen the shutting down of several record labels, independent record stores, and we've seen the genesis of gigantic web stores for selling digital music. All of this, and we've only just scratched the surface of this thing.

"Roots Music" -- each generation's redefining of its parent's and grand-parent's stories through songs, tunes, and words -- will be here forever. There will always be people looking backwards to look forwards, writing themselves into history. Whether it's classic Country, Rock N' Roll, or looking deeper to Blues, Folk, and beyond, modern music will never emerge from a vacuum. Artists always become great by standing on the shoulders of giants and looking just a bit farther than anyone has before.

There have been rumblings lately about "alt country being dead." Well, I've got two things to say about that -- first, there are still some great artists out there putting out amazing music in the "alt country" vein (whatever that is). Star Anna and The Weight are just a couple that have had great album releases this year. (And don't get me started on Hayes Carll... what a damn great album!)

Secondly, and most importantly... each type of music has its ebbs and flows. The ideas, the themes, and the tunes can flow from one genre into the next. Look back to the Folk Scare of the Sixties into the Folk Revival of the 70s, the CowPunk of the 80s to the Alt Country of the 90s to the Americana of the 2000s. The instrumentation gets tweaked, the vocabulary may change, but the soul remains. Maybe "alt country" is winding down, but the "son of alt country" (whatever that is) is winding up.

Right now I'm listening to a lot of new bands that embody the next wave of Roots Music. They don't have much steel guitar (unfortunately), but they have lots of fiddles, banjos, acoustic guitars, mandolins, and songs, melodies, and lyrical themes that stretch back to the Golden Age of Country way back to the Ancient Tones of the British Isles. They feel like today, and they remind us of yesterday. They're carrying the torch forward, and I'll be writing about them for the next several weeks... we'll be writing about them for the next several years.

Hickory Wind has been here for the past six years, exploring the roots of modern music and modern music itself. We'll be here for a long while, and I want y'all along for the ride.

Thanks for reading, commenting, and listening to roots music. To the authors of Hickory Wind -- Stacy, Sean, Hal, Amanda, Brendan, Jim, and James -- thanks for all the hard work you do and for sticking with me for so long! There wouldn't be a Hickory Wind without you. (To Justin and Brian, thanks for helping out as long as you could. We'll always leave a light on for you!)

Thanks so much, everyone! Happy Birthday, Hickory Wind!