Right by Her Roots: Americana Women and Their Songs

Right by Her Roots: Americana Women and Their Songs
By Jewly Hight
(Baylor University Press)
[Rating: 4 stars]

If anyone should write an account of some of Americana’s greatest female heroes, it’s Jewly Hight, a Nashville-based writer who’s become something of an authority on the genre over the last few years. In Right By Her Roots, Hight shows off the expertise she’s come to be known for, but what really becomes quickly apparent just a few pages in is that she loves listening to this music just as much as those she writes about love making it. Spanning the musical and personal histories of artists like Lucinda Williams, Julie Miller, Mary Gauthier and Abigail Washburn, among others, Hight foregoes the simple summaries that run rampant in similar books and really does dig down to the roots of what makes these women tick – from sharing their personal anecdotes to giving in-depth lyrical analyses. What makes the book, though, is Hight’s willingness to go even a step further, exploring where these women find their spirituality and how it gives their music meaning. “People’s images of God can profoundly shape how they experience the world,” Hight writes, and she finds that regardless of what or who that God is, it deeply impacts the music of each of these women. This isn’t just a book for Americana fans – it’s a book for songwriters, music lovers, appreciators of good writing and anyone who’s ever felt even the slightest bit compelled to create something bigger than themselves, to reach down to their roots and give the world everything they’ve got.