Americana is one of the most misused terms in music.
Often lumped into folk, bluegrass and anything related to country, be it outlaw, alternative or the God-awful new country, it’s really a reflection of All-American music.
The late, great, Americana musician Clarence Gatemouth Brown despised the blues label that was slapped on his career in the early 1970s and stuck with him until his death in 2005. Blues was only one genre that he explored, along with traditional folk, R&B, jazz, Cajun music and rock.
That’s Americana music, and to limit Americana to white people playing what falls under the umbrella of country and folk is a disservice to hundreds of musicians like Gatemouth, Glen Miller, Miles Davis, Elvis Presley, Ween, The Flat Duo Jets or The Sugar Thieves.
The latter will perform tonight at Derailed Saloon. The band’s last Durango appearance was in June performing in the caboose for the Durango Blues Train.
Opening tonight’s show will be Hello Dollface, with funds from tonight’s performance going toward the iAM Music Institute, a local music school run by members of the opening act.
The Sugar Thieves include Mikel Lander on guitar and vocals; Meridith Moore on vocals; Jeff Naylor on upright bass and pedal steel; Shea Marshall on piano, saxophone, clarinet and accordion; and David Libman on drums.
The band was born out of the open-mic sets that Moore and husband Lander performed as a duo around Phoenix. As they invited more musicians to join in, they got more organized, and a band was born.
“We would open the stage to other musicians to sit in and jam with us,” Moore said. “A couple of people came every Wednesday for over a year. We looked at each other one day and said, ‘Well, do you want to be a band?’ It was people showing dedication for our music and wanting to be involved.”
Their style of music would be right up Gatemouth Brown’s alley; they share this writer’s sentiment about the limitations of Americana, and they use the blues as a base to explore numerous other genres.
“We are by no means just a blues band. We’re really rooted in blues. It’s how the band was born,” Moore said. “But our music and writing encompasses country, folk, roots, gospel; it’s all across the board.”
The band has participated in the Memphis International Blues Competition three times. It was its first appearance there when its least bluesy set resulted in its most successful placing at the renowned event.
“It’s funny, the first year we went down there we had no idea what to expect,” Moore said. “We played our original stuff, some of which wasn’t blues music. We won our venue. The years following, we went back, we catered our sets to focus on standard blues material. The year we did the best we didn’t focus on playing blues at all.”
In 2014, the band will release its sixth record, an acoustic effort titled “Sugar in the Raw.”
Liggett_b@fortlewis.edu. Bryant Liggett is a freelance writer and KDUR station manager.
Bryant’s Best
Today: Rock, blues and soul music with The Sugar Thieves and Hello Dollface, 8:30 p.m., $2/$5, Derailed Pour House. 725 Main Ave., 247-5440.
Saturday: Farmington Hill and the Crags, 8 p.m., $6, Grand Imperial Hotel, 1219 Greene St., Silverton, 387-5527.
