NPR Music Presents Performance Event & Awards Night Webcast During AmericanaFest

RHIANNON GIDDENS, PATTY GRIFFIN & SHAKEY GRAVES GATHER FOR NPR MUSIC'S DEBUT AMERICANAFEST EVENT

NPR Music Critic Ann Powers Hosts Performance Chat Wednesday, Sept. 16, 11AM-1PM Nashville Time

Watch Americana Music Association's 14th Annual Honors & Awards Live at NPR.org/Music, Sept. 16

September 2, 2015; Washington, D.C. – This month, NPR Music will head to Nashville to celebrate the 16th annual AmericanaFest along with some of its favorite music makers. Amping up its role at the conference this year, NPR Music critic Ann Powers will host a daytime event with three artists whose sonic and conceptual innovations are pushing Americana forward – Rhiannon Giddens, Patty Griffin and Shakey Graves – and offer its annual live webcast of the Americana Music Association's Honors & Awards that evening. Additional event information available below.

Rhiannon Giddens, the singer, violinist and banjo player for the Carolina Chocolate Drops, released her debut solo album earlier this year. With Tomorrow Is My Turn, she offers her take on traditional American folk songs, telling "the story of how songs become crucial through certain performances that take them somewhere beyond their origin points," as Ann Powers writes. Giddens will performs some of these reinvented classics at the NPR Music event, her only appearance at the conference in addition to the Americana Music Association's Honors & Awards show.

Patty Griffin will release her 10^th album, Servant of Love, next week. Her contributions to gospel and folk run deep – she has been named "Artist of the Year" by the Americana Music Association in 2007 and, in 2011, won a Grammy for her album Downtown Church – and her songwriting has made her the queen of Americana, according to Powers who wrote in a 2013 review, "Patty Griffin mines that feeling of family intimacy, of songs that uplift without any fuss and tear at the heart as gently as possible. She also rocks."

Shakey Graves' newest record is nominated for the Americana Music Association's 2015 Album of the Year award. His "use of loops and aural pastiche on And the War Came shows how Americana can become experimental," Powers said of the release. The Austin performer, who some know as Alejandro Rose-Garcia, earned the attention of many fans with his 2011 album Roll The Bones and has since become one of the genre's leading performers.

In summer 2015, NPR Music critic and correspondent Ann Powers took up an additional role: unofficial Nashville bureau chief. From her new city of residence, Powers continues to offer insight and analysis about the world of music. Her essays, which cover everything from the way Nicki Minaj and Madonna play with gender roles to the reality of exploitation in rock and roll, can be found on The Record blog at NPR.org/Music, and she's a regular contributor to NPR news shows, music podcasts, series and live events. Powers is also an author and has held some of the top jobs in music journalism. Before joining NPR in 2011, she served as the chief pop critic for the Los Angeles Times, and held similar roles at Blender, The New York Times, Village Voice and San Francisco Weekly, among others.

NPR Music and Folk Alley will webcast the 14^th annual Americana Music Association's Honors & Awards show on Wednesday, Sept. 16. Starting at 7PM CT the entire event, including performances by some of the genre's biggest names, will be available to watch in a live video stream at NPR.org/Music. Fans can also catch live broadcasts from WKSU's FolkAlley.com and participating public radio stations.