#Nickel Creek #bluegrass #folk #contemporary bluegrass #progressive acoustic #Americana
Today, the music community broadly known as Americana has too many stars, scenes and subcategories to count. Beloved artists like Jason Isbell and Kacey Musgraves, who in another era might have been all but ignored by country gatekeepers, have found a welcoming community and something in the neighborhood of household-name status. The Americana Music Festival, held annually in Nashville, grows larger each year. And in 2014, the Grammys gave the first awards in the newly created "American roots" categories, which encompass bluegrass, blues, folk, gospel and anything too left-of-center for the country mainstream. But the music under this umbrella wasn't always the stuff of major festivals and glitzy awards shows, or of such broad interest to the youth market whose tastes drive the industry. At the turn of the 21st century, progressive-minded artists in this world were likely to be scattered across granular labels like contemporary folk or the then-popular "alt-country," with smaller audiences and fewer entry points for a casual listener. As it still does today, country radio leaned heavily commercial (though it did, at least, play music by women back then): In 2000, the songs that dominated genre playlists before finding crossover success were pop smashes like Faith Hill's "Breathe" and Lee Ann Womack's "I Hope You Dance." Traditionalists, meanwhile, carried on in the passionate but niche scenes they had occupied for years.
Then, 20 years ago this month, an album arrived that seemed to speak all these languages at once: unafraid to push the boundaries of its primary genre, and packing the musical chops to bring such an eclectic vision to life. Behind it were three musicians just barely old enough to vote. When Nickel Creek released its breakthrough album on March 21, 2000, the players comprising the California-born bluegrass trio were anything but newcomers: Chris Thile and siblings Sara Watkins and Sean Watkins had been playing together since 1989, when Thile and Sara were just 8 and Sean 12. The young talents had already released two studio albums as well as a handful of solo projects, and were regulars on the bluegrass festival circuit, a tenure that had refined their sound to a level typically reserved for older players with bigger discographies. Still, despite arriving with a pages-long resumé, Nickel Creek is still popularly thought of as the trio's debut — perhaps because, in retrospect, everything about it seems to signal a new beginning.
Both to mainstream ears and those steeped in string music, what Nickel Creek was doing sounded fresh. The three musicians, then aged 18 to 23, found creative and playful ways to infuse bluegrass music with ideas from jazz, classical, pop and rock. They put traditional songs next to original material about characters from The Lord of the Rings. Perhaps most impressively, they did so in a way that felt cohesive, as though the new approach they had forged for themselves had roots as deep as bluegrass itself. Working in a genre known to spark arguments over what counts as "authentic," the trio seemed far more concerned with realizing its own vision than hewing to hardline conventions — like sticking to a repertoire of mostly folk songs and standards, using common chord progressions or relegating the guitarist to the rhythm section. (And how fortunate that Nickel Creek didn't, as Sean Watkins' masterful guitar solos are always album highlights.)
There was some precedent for this kind of deviation, of course. Veteran genre agnostic Béla Fleck, who made his studio debut in 1979, had racked up accolades for his singular take on banjo playing, which often treads closer to jam and world music than to traditional American bluegrass. Alison Krauss, who would be integral in bringing Nickel Creek to a wider audience, toyed with pop and rock tropes alongside her band Union Station, and is often considered a primary influence on the "newgrass" movement. In 1998, Lucinda Williams released her landmark album Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, which won the Grammy for best contemporary folk album. The same year, Wilco released its first Mermaid Avenue team-up with Billy Bragg, which featured new songs built around previously unheard lyrics by Woody Guthrie. The album was a critical and commercial success. While nonconformists had found room in the conversation before, there was still something novel and uniquely compelling about the sight of three musicians, two in their teens and one in his early 20s, who revered Bach and Bill Monroe in equal measure. Krauss agreed, bringing the trio to Sugar Hill Records and producing Nickel Creek herself. Already a multi-Grammy winner upon meeting the group, Krauss had found great success both in bluegrass and adult contemporary, making her uniquely qualified to shepherd such an unconventional young act.
From: https://www.npr.org/2020/03/13/814739478/nickel-creek-self-titled-20-years-americana-roots-folk-country
