For the last six years roots music lovers have descended on Nashville from all corners of the globe to celebrate the Americana Music Festival & Conference. What was once a two-day affair has now blown out to a five-day extravaganza featuring the best proponents of the form. This year’s enviable lineup includes US alt-country luminaries Lucinda Williams and Emmylou Harris, as well as an awesome Aussie contingent, including Sarah Carroll, AKA the Ukulele Queen of the Bellarine, and Suzannah Espie. To give the local crew a push for their Nashville run, Brunswick’s live-music stalwart The Retreat Hotel is holding a mini AmericanaFest of its own, including Carroll, Espie, Jemma and The Clifton Hillbillies, Sean McMahon, the Weeping Willows and Jemma Nicole, Mick Daley, Waz E James and a bundle of special guests.
Sarah Carroll, who plays in a bunch of bands including Left Wing, The Junes, and The Cartridge Family, gravitated towards country in her mid-teens and she’s been playing it ever since. “I was living with people who were big fans of Patsy Cline, Willie Nelson and Gram Parsons. I’d heard some on the radio as a kid, the late ‘70s, early ‘80s pop-country that was happening back then, Kenny Rogers and that sort of stuff, but that didn’t really grab me. But then I heard this earlier stuff, from the ‘50s and ‘60s and went, ‘Ahhhh. OK. Now I get it.’ Then I started to work in second-hand records and started to delve into this amazing stuff and became a huge aficionado. Then I started going out and hearing it being played live and it became my favourite.”
Carroll’s first proper intro to the uke was when she was on tour playing with slide guitarist and purveyor of self-coined ‘disturbed folk’ Jeff Lang about 15 years ago. A Sydney muso, Tim Hall, was playing one on the tour bus and Carroll was instantaneously hooked. “I hadn’t quite realised before that time how easy and fun it was to play,” Carroll says. “We had a cack of a time with him and his ukulele and really enjoyed having it on the bus.”
Carroll acquired one for herself, had it kicking about home for a while and started writing on it ten years ago. “I realised that there were things I could play on the ukulele that I just couldn’t play on the guitar and sounds on it that I found charming and led me in different directions musically,” she says. “It’s added a dimension to my songwriting that I don’t think I would have found if I hadn’t picked it up. There’s a prettiness to the sounds that’s always engaging when it’s played well – it doesn’t have to be kooky or clunky, it can be really pretty and delicate and that appeals to me.”
Australia’s Americana scene is happening on a small scale than the one in the States, but Carroll says it compares favourably. “I’ve been going over there to play, either with a band or by myself, now for around 15 years and every time I’m pleasantly surprised by the reception that the music I play has received,” she says. “When I first went over there, there was a concern that we’d just be one of many acts doing that kind of music – we had a retro spin on what we were doing, but it was also original music, but it turned out that there wasn’t really anyone doing anything like it.
“In America, the music industry is so huge and the country music industry is one of the biggest, the underground is kind of the same as here. It’s really the case that the major money and attention are paid to a handful of big acts. Under the surface, that’s where all of the interesting stuff is.”
BY GEM DOOW
