Reckless Kelly has been a tried and true rock-country touring band for around a quarter of a century now and they have the bar band atmosphere down pat. I’ve been wanting to see them for a while now, but after their strong 2020 double album American Jackpot/American Girls I knew now was the time to strike, especially when they came to my favorite music venue The Revolution Room in Little Rock on Thursday, Sept. 22.

The band opened the show a bit after 9 p.m. with a fantastic performance of “Lost Inside the Groove” from their most recent album. Other favorite performances from that album during the night included my personal favorite track “Thinkin’ ‘Bout You All Night,” as well as the Tom Petty tribute “Tom Was a Friend of Mine,” which was followed by a rocking cover of Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers’ classic “Listen to Her Heart.”

The crowd of Reckless Kelly loyalists was eating out of the group’s palm all evening long, belting the lyrics to all of their songs and being in an all-around terrific mood. The Rev Room always makes for one of my favorite concert atmospheres. Small venues allow for the true music lovers among us to feel the music and not have to deal with the bullshit of bigger venues, which sometimes cater more to a party atmosphere. Don’t get me wrong, rocking all night to Reckless Kelly is a party in itself, but mostly without asshole concertgoers included among the bunch.

There were fan-favorites sprinkled all through the Reckless Kelly set on Thursday night, including “Seven Nights in Eire” and “Wicked Twisted Road,” off their 2005 album Wicked Twisted Road, songs that sound just as fresh nearly two decades later. Speaking of decades later, being somewhat of a new Reckless Kelly fan I hadn’t realized their first album Millican came out all the way back in 1998. Even the songs from their debut they performed like “Back Around” and “I Still Do” sound as if they could’ve been on the band’s latest album. Reckless Kelly evidently doesn’t get old.

Petty’s “Listen to Her Heart” wasn’t the group’s only great cover on the evening. The band did an absolutely fantastic take on Richard Thompson’s “1952 Vincent Black Lightning,” which frontman Willy Braun said was “the greatest song ever written about redheads and motorcycles.” I concur.

Willy’s brother and co-founder of the band Cody Braun took over lead vocals on the rip-roaring “Wild Western Windblown Band,” which they debuted on their Live at Stubbs album in 2000. Cody would spend the bulk of the night absolutely killing it on fiddle and mandolin and provided backing vocals for brother Willy.

The rest of the band was really tight featuring Joe Miller on bass, Jay Nazz on drums and a great pedal steel player whose name I, unfortunately, can’t find anywhere.

Among the other great performances from Thursday’s show at the Rev included “Ragged As the Road,” off 2008’s Bulletproof, “Nobody’s Girl,” off 2003’s Under the Table and Above the Sun and “Good Luck & True Love,” off their 2011 album of the same name.

A couple of the finest tracks on the group’s latest album, “I Only See You with My Eyes Closed” and “Mona” featured in the group’s encore, with “Vancouver,” a crowd favorite off Under the Table and Above the Sun featuring the line “when my luck ran out/I was sitting on a concrete block in Little Rock” drawing grand applause, sandwiched in between.

Reckless Kelly put on a fantastic show, and I’m thrilled I finally got the chance to see them live and will be looking forward to their next Rev Room trip in the future. 

by Julian Spivey
The nominees for Song of the Year for this year’s Americana Music Honors & Awards are outstanding. The voting body for these awards has done such a fantastic job with this category, one of the most important of the night, that any of the five nominees winning the honor would be worthy of doing so.
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All five of these songs, in fact, made this very website’s 100 Best Americana or Country Songs of 2021 list at the end of last year. But even though I’ll be happy for any of the five nominees winning this award I’m still going to rank them from most to least deserving, in my opinion (everything has an order, after all). 

1. “Canola Fields” by James McMurtry
I’m thrilled James McMurtry’s “Canola Fields” made a mark in the Song of the Year category because I was absolutely dumbfounded the voting body didn’t nominate his album The Horses and the Hounds (which I think was 2021’s best album) for the Album of the Year honor. “Canola Fields,” essentially a travelogue in one’s mind with picturesque and cinematic landscapes showing McMurtry to be one of the most novelistic songwriters of his era. This was ranked No. 2 on my list of Best Americana or Country Songs of 2021. 

2. “Right on Time” by Brandi Carlile
Potentially the most beautiful song of the voting eligibility period for the 2022 Americana Awards and Honors, “Right on Time” is a showcase for Carlile’s one-of-a-kind voice that might be the best among any performer in any genre currently. Co-written by Carlile with her usual collaborators and bandmates Phil and Tim Hanseroth, as well as producer Dave Cobb, “Right on Time” was No. 5 on my list of Best Americana or Country Songs of 2021. I said at the time the song is a bit more Elton John, one of Carlile’s musical influences (and friends), than her Americana/Country influences, but it absolutely soars. 

3. “Diamond Studded Shoes” by Yola
Take a look at the massive amount of talent that went into writing Yola’s “Diamond Studded Shoes,” herself, producer and Black Keys member Dan Auerbach, country songwriter Natalie Hemby and Americana singer-songwriter Aaron Lee Tasjan. Wow. “Diamond Studded Shoes” is likely the most important song nominated in this category, at least socially, with its message about never giving up the fight for equality and other things that are right. Some of the song’s brilliance is getting this message in a song with an upbeat groove so it might work its way into the minds of some just looking for a banger. “Diamond Studded Shows” came in at No. 18 on my list of Best Americana or Country Songs of 2021. 

4. “Juanita” by Sturgill Simpson
Sturgill Simpson’s “Juanita” is certainly the countriest of any of the five nominees in the Song of the Year category coming off his Western concept album The Ballad of Dood and Juanita, which I’m somewhat surprised didn’t garner him an Album of the Year nomination at these awards. Still, it’s nice to see a Song of the Year nomination, something you might not expect is easy to choose a track from a cohesive concept album. “Juanita” was my favorite song of the album, a Mexican-flavored love ballad about a cowboy searching for his kidnapped love featuring Willie Nelson’s one-of-a-kind guitar playing and fantastic mandolin and violin playing. “Juanita” ranked No. 33 on my list of Best Americana or Country Songs of 2021. 

5. “Persephone” by Allison Russell
Allison Russell is my hopeful winner of both Artist of the Year and Album of the Year for her excellent Outside Child at the 2022 Americana Awards & Honors, which I feel the need to point out because I’ve ranked her last in my Song of the Year rankings. I don’t know if the artists submit songs for the category or if the voting body decides what gets nominated but I liked “The Runner” (No. 7 on my list last year) and “Nightflyer” (No. 23 on my list last year) a bit more than I did “Persephone,” co-written by Russell and Jeremy Lindsay. “Persephone” is a beautiful track, though, and did make my Best Americana or Country Songs of 2021 list but was outside the top 50 (which I didn’t rank). 

The Americana Awards & Honors will be held Wednesday, Sept. 14 at 6:30 p.m. CST and can be streamed live via Circle Network’s Facebook and YouTube channels (@CircleAllAccess). The broadcast will be aired on the Circle Network television channel at a later date. The awards can also be heard via SiriusXM’s Outlaw Country station.

Performers at the ceremony include Carlile, McMurtry, Russell, Adia Victoria, Buddy Miller, Chris Isaak, Fairfield Four, Indigo Girls, Lucinda Williams, Lukas Nelson, The McCrary Sisters, Morgan Wade, Neal Francis, Phosphorescent, Sierra Farrell and The War and Treaty.