Egremont — Berkshire-based Americana/Rock artist Billy Keane will appear for two nights at the Egremont Barn on Friday, March 10 and Saturday, March 11 as part of a 10-date winter tour. The first night’s performance will be solo and the second will be backed by his band, The Waking Dream.
Berkshire audiences know Billy Keane as a founding member of a group devoted to Americana, Rock, and roots-folk music that has been active in the Berkshires since 2014, The Whiskey Treaty Roadshow.
But when a songwriter has accumulated an album’s worth of uncut tunes, it’s time to go into the studio and let them out. So that’s what Keane did in 2012 with “Going Home” and in 2022 with “Too Much to Let It Go.”
There’s nothing more annoying to a singer-songwriter than being miscategorized. So Keane has categorized himself for our convenience. He describes his music as “a blending of neo-Folk/Americana with indie-rock and Country.” Others simply call him an “Americana folk rocker.”
And what is Americana?
The Americana Music Association defines it as “contemporary music that incorporates elements of various American roots music styles, including country, roots-rock, folk, bluegrass, R&B, and blues, resulting in a distinctive, roots-oriented sound that lives in a world apart from the pure forms of the genres upon which it may draw.” That would seem to hit the nail on the head, but Wikipedia’s definition of the term is superb:
“Americana (also known as American roots music) is an amalgam of American music formed by the confluence of the shared and varied traditions that make up the musical ethos of the United States, specifically those sounds that are emerged from the Southern United States such as folk, gospel, blues, country, jazz, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, bluegrass, and other external influences.”
However you want to define it, the Americana label puts Keane in league with everyone from David Crosby to Kane Brown. The live single “Tech Companies are Today’s Version of the Church” harkens back to protest music of 1960s Greenwich Village. Here, Keane’s deepest folk roots come to the authentic fore, along with a few whiffs of Loudon Wainwright III’s plaintive whining about dead skunks: “Tim Cook will sell you more, but what’s it for?” Keane inquires, in the the rising tones of an aroused evangelist. “Manipulation, that’s for sure. That Apple’s rotten to the core!”
It takes a certain boldness to craft a line like “Tech companies are today’s version of the church” and sing it with verve and conviction. The Guthries, of course, are masters of such disarming audacities, but Keane definitely has the stuff to pull this off.
And in the performance of such a song, Keane delivers an important public service. When he has a story to tell, he is indifferent to popular music standards favoring cloying brevity over honest storytelling. That’s risky, and not everyone can make it work. But on a song like “Tech Companies,” Keane demonstrates his ability to honor tradition without sounding dated.
On the other hand, he does know how to write a proper pop song. In “Too Much to Let It Go,” a single from the album of the same name, Keane leaves Greenwich Village behind and ventures out in a bold, Alternative/Indie direction, impelled by an inexorable bass-drum groove that could power a locomotive, chugging along under guitars, keyboards, and pop vocals with melodic hooks. This cut is perfectly suited for radio. Released August 2022, the album has helped Keane see over 13,000 monthly listeners on Spotify.
See Billy Keane at the Egremont Barn on Friday, March 10 (solo) and Saturday, March 11 (with band). Tickets here.
