One of the best kept secrets — or, perhaps, it’s just not discussed much — is that Americana music is flourishing on late night talk shows, especially, it seems, on Letterman.
For example, next week Dave will have the Avett Brothers, Miranda Lambert and Tom Russell — Dave is a big Russell fan.
On Conan tonight are The Monsters of Folk.
Not to mention Brad Paisley, Harry Connick, Jr., Paolo Nutini and the Arctic Monkeys are also scheduled within the next week or so.
Frequent guests on those have included a who’s who of Americana, such as Lucinda Williams, Neko Case, Wilco, Emmylou Harris, Cat Power, Feist, Pink Martini, Patty Griffin, Steve Earle and Rosanne Cash.
And I say this with a sense of irony as I have not had any form of television — cable or over the air — for nearly 20 years.
Not that these one song performances can compare to an entire show, or even a set, but what it signifies is that Americana music may not be represented at all on commercial radio, it is alive and well on network TV.
A great site that lists the scheduled guests for all talk shows — late or early — is:
http://www.interbridge.com/lineups.html
So, save for Dave’s monologue, the talk on late night talk shows is not worth the time it takes to change the channel and their guests seem to include too many babe du jours or untalented stars of the latest bromance movie, but the music there is another matter.
Here’s Dave in a less formal mode:
