I’ve just finished ‘It Still Moves’ by Amanda Petrusich the subtitle of which is ‘Lost songs, lost highways and the search for the next American music’. I wanted to read this after being impressed by a short piece she wrote about music from the Mississippi region in the Epiphanies column of July 2009’s Wire magazine. In this she describes herself as an unlikely fan of the Delta Blues, having been born in New York City in 1980 and growing up with “a penchant for Cyndi Lauper cassettes”. In many ways she’s also an unlikely contributor to the Wire which favours experimental and avant-garde above the more mainstream orientated music Petruish has written about for Pitchforkmedia.com or as contributing editor at Paste magazine.
In her book, she attempts to define ‘Americana’ by taking a solitary road trip to some of the key musical locations – past and present. She tries to piece together this complicated story to discover “how and why this music has changed – into Rock’n’Roll, into Nashville Country, into Alternative Country, into Indie-Folk and Free-Folk “. Inevitably, it’s also a story of how America has changed and is changing. Continue reading
