Exclusive Shindig! Qobuz playlist #16: September Songs: Country-rock, Folk-rock & Americana In The 21st Century

We’re very excited to be media partners with the truly unique online streaming platform and download store Qobuz. This month, the 16th of our monthly bespoke playlists, which take in all manner of genres and sub-genres, scenes and beyond, then and now, focuses on contemporary folk-, country-rock, and Americana

Play here or use the scrollable frame with tracklist the bottom of the page. You can sign up for a free trial today. Plans start from £10.83 per month. For more on Qobuz read our interview with MD Dan Mackta here

A rusty shack, the type possibly inhabited by the gun-toting red necks in Easy Rider, can now be viewed as a symbol of untamed Americana; an emblem of a simpler, organic life untouched by the 21st century. Many contemporary bands, who may well be partial to checked shirts, worn denim, and a trucker’s cap, have been repurposing roots music longer than hip-hop producers have used autotune. The Byrds and Gram Parsons, in particular, revoiced country music in the late ’60s as a voice for the counterculture, subverting the genre for the era of long hair. Acts like The Grateful Dead and Neil Young took folk and country further, and since then the die has been cast. As outlaw-country gave way to alt-country and bar bands gave way to Americana in the ’90s, with acts like The Jayhawks picking up from where The Flying Burrito Brothers left off, the landscape over the last 20 years or so has never been more fertile. Progress can’t slow down good honest music.

The title of this playlist pays homage to the rootsy UK festival Septembersong (of which two acts featured here are playing) and the coming autumnal months, in which laidback country-tinged music is the ideal soundtrack.

 The music compiled is a broad church, ranging from the pure country of Margo Cilker, who does indeed live on a ranch (as do Kacy & Clayton, and Julianna Riolino), the Neil Young-esque alt-rock of MJ Lenderman to the rootsy, snotty rock ’n’ roll of The Nude Party. Whether acoustically and sincerely talking it back to an earlier time, bringing country-rock into the modern age, or just making no holds barred goodtime music that has a downhome vibe, there’s an abundance of timeless music with no wont for the digital age. Yet nothing included here was recorded before 2008.

From England, we have the jangly Hanging Stars, a band who know their Byrds and Hearts & Flowers, the soulful Albert, Grand Drive, featuring the fantastic Danny Wilson, and Hollow Hand, who bring in just the right sense of middle-class angst to what is otherwise a country break-up song worthy of Emmylou and Gram. US transplant Spencer Cullum also turns up with a laconic take on UK folk-singer Mike Cooper’s ‘Good Times’. Elsewhere, it’s an American and Canadian affair, traversing all extremes of “roots music”. Damien Jurado? Sure. His ghostly, sad laments always have had something of the great outdoors about them. The folk-rock inspired ‘The Ballad Of Bjorn Borg’ by The Pernice Brothers’ and Bonny Light Horseman’s ‘Tumblin’ Down’ bring something different as well, but work wonderfully in this context. And let’s not forget the female voices, singers and writers whose place in country music cannot be overlooked. Whether it’s the American folksiness of Carson McHone, the singer-songwriter smarts of Marina Allen and Native Harrow, or the heart-torn, wasted country of Caitlin Rose and Angelica Rockne, the ladies dazzle with their command. Jonathan Wilson offers American folk with ‘The Woods Are Greener’, Israel Nash vast epic panoramas, Stewart Forgey, Beachwood Sparks and Gospelbeach, something West Coast. Neil Young closes the set with a new reading of ‘Comes A Time’ from his 2023 set Before And After, proving that old father time can stand still if he wants. Music is the bedrock of everything.

I guess there’s something resolutely human about what’s sung about in folk-related music, and it will always have a place. Likewise, the nature of recording buzzing valve amps, pedal steel, and imperfect honest vocals mean so much more than music made with computers. It’s consoling to think that this vital music was all made in the time we are living. Enjoy.

© Jon ‘Mojo’ Mills /Shindig! magazine in partnership with Qobuz