Robert Plant & Alison Krauss and Allison Russell were among the winners at last night’s UK Americana Awards, which took place in a star-packed ceremony at east London’s Hackney Empire. The event featured appearances and performances by many of the top Americana artists, both domestic and international.
Russell, remarkably, was a double winner for the second year in a row, claiming International Artist of the Year and International Song of the Year for “You’re Not Alone,” featuring Brandi Carlile. Plant was at the ceremony to collect the International Album of the Year Award for his second collaboration with Krauss, Raise The Roof, and Bristol-based blues notable Elles Bailey also won two awards, for UK Artist of the Year and the newly-established UK Live Act of the Year.
The winners of the prestigious career achievement titles were Judy Collins (International Lifetime Achievement Award), Mike Scott of the Waterboys (UK Lifetime Achievement Award), Nickel Creek (International Trailblazer Award), BBC Radio Ulster’s Ralph McLean (Grassroots Award) and the Hanging Stars, who won Bob Harris’ Emerging Artist Award. Harris part-hosted the event, which was hosted by fellow broadcaster Baylen Leonard.
Ferris & Sylvester’s Superhuman was UK Album of the Year and there was recognition for such mainstays of the UK roots music scene as London singer-songwriter Hannah White, whose “Car Crash” was UK Song of the Year, and pedal steel player Holly Carter, also Bristol-based, UK Instrumentalist of the Year. Frank Turner’s FTHC was Bestselling Americana Album of the Year, awarded in association with the Official Charts Company.
Russell, Bailey, and Miko Marks performed a tribute to the late Loretta Lynn, who was posthumously given the Songwriter Legacy Award, with a version of “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” while Scott headed a similarly spirited rendition of the Waterboys’ “Fisherman’s Blues.” Collins led a closing rendition of “Amazing Grace,” backed by assembled artists, an all-female house band led by Michele Stodart of the Magic Numbers and the Hackney Empire Community Choir.
Buy or stream Robert Plant and Alison Krauss’ Raise The Roof.