If you're a passionate Americana music fan, you've been trying to explain the genre to people ever since you first fell in love with a Drive-By Truckers song or a Gram Parsons jam.

What is Americana music? "Basically any song by Ryan Adams," I used to tell people (I like short explanations). That worked for most of the 2010s, until Adams was accused of emotional abuse and sexual misconduct in 2019 (his music is still great). Nowadays, when people ask me about the genre, I might point to John Prine, the Avett Brothers, or maybe Zach Bryan, Billy Strings or even Margo Price. It's basically American roots music, I tell people, often (but not always) played on acoustic guitars, frequently leaning toward country with influences of blues, folk and even rock and roll. Remember the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? or the much better Crazy Heart, starring Jeff Bridges? That's Americana. Same with those albums Alison Krauss recorded with Robert Plant. Producer T Bone Burnett? Absolutely Americana. The Grateful Dead? Uh, yes and no.

I've literally spent a decade trying to define the genre, not realizing that Jed Hilly of the Americana Music Association had convinced the editors at Merriam-Webster to add the genre to the dictionary back in 2011. The entry settles on three definitions:

1: materials concerning or characteristic of America, its civilization, or its culture; broadly: things typical of America
2: American culture
3: a genre of American music having roots in early folk and country music

The first two definitions speak to the word's use for Americana as a broader cultural category (think kitsch and memorabilia). It's really the third that deals with the music genre, and it feels intentionally vague and noncommittal. Perhaps it's best to invoke U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, who famously wrote, "I know it when I see it." Of course, he was ruling on an obscenity case over a racy French film at the time, but the point stands.

Still not satisfied, I traveled to Nashville last week for AMERICANAFEST to see the modern state of the genre with my close friend and Music City guide Brian Nelms. The event is modeled after SXSW, with hundreds of artists showcasing across dozens of the city's venues. While there are plenty of music industry folks floating around the showcases, the vast majority of attendees are fans who treat AMERICANAFEST like an annual pilgrimage to a musical mecca. It's easy to leave with a half-dozen acts to add to your record collection or Spotify playlist.

While I was there, I caught up with Jed Hilly, who has run the Americana Music Association since 2007. When he started, the group had fewer than 800 members. Today it has more than 4,000, and AMERICANAFEST takes over Nashville for five days: more than 500 performances, a business conference and an awards show at the Ryman. This year's show included honors for Robert Plant and a Heartbreakers reunion featuring Mike Campbell and Chris Stapleton covering for vocals the big guy. I spoke with Hilly right after the festival about how the event works, how he keeps the renegade-party problem from swallowing it, and why he spent four years emailing Merriam-Webster.

Give us a sense of the scale of what just happened in Nashville.

There were at least 500 musical performances over five days. Somebody once said Americana is to music what Sundance is to film. We had about 1,800 submissions to play the official night slots in the showcase venues, from the Basement East to City Winery to the Exit/In to the Station Inn. About 250 get accepted, and that's decided by an anonymous panel of experts in the field. So July is a terrible month for me, because 1,600 people are unhappy they weren't selected. But I think a lot of artists are really humbled and honored to get the letter saying they've been accepted to play AmericanaFest.

Then we open it up to labels, agencies, collectives, nonprofits, and tourism bureaus from places like Tulsa and Memphis to throw community parties. At lunch, somebody's having a party with two or three bands. Between five and eight, there are cocktail parties. That keeps the official showcase artists we picked separate, which matters to us.

We run 45-minute showcases every hour on the hour. These are mostly volunteers, and it blows me away every year how on time we are. The one thing we ask is that official showcase artists only play 20-minute sets at the daytime parties. If Ken Pomeroy plays a full 45 minutes at some label party, people say, "Well, I just saw Ken Pomeroy," and they skip her official showcase.

How do the economics work for the venues and the artists?

The venues donate their rooms. They don't charge us a rental fee, and that's a long, hard-earned tradition we've held on to. Peter Shapiro gives us Brooklyn Bowl, and we put Mike Campbell & the Dirty Knobs and Jay Buchanan in there.

We pay everyone $200, whether it's Mike Campbell & the Dirty Knobs or Jay Buchanan. The venues like us because we're generally a solid beer-drinking crowd. They make their money, they don't have to pay the talent, and for many venues in town it's their best week of the year.

The daytime conference ranges from Bernie Taupin talking with Brandi Carlile, which is kind of wild, to continuing legal education programs. Lawyers need a certain number of credits every year to keep their bar standing, and in my humble opinion there's no better way to get them than AmericanaFest. More and more lawyers are figuring out, "Wait, I can listen to Bernie Taupin and Brandi Carlile and get three credits?" There are also panels on AI, publishing, and other legal questions.

We give every performing musician access to the conference. It's really for developing artists and DIY artists trying to figure out how to make this work in the insane musical landscape we live in. Years ago I introduced Margo Price to Jonathan Levine, who became her agent, before Jack White put out her first record. If you play it right, we bring the community together. That's the member benefit.

Did this year feel bigger than past years?

It felt really good. We've struggled a bit since COVID. Artists lost two years of touring and understandably went back to trying to make money. Before that, Brandi Carlile, Lucinda Williams, Nathaniel Rateliff, even Mumford & Sons and the Lumineers would come and do things for $200. After COVID, people had to make money.

The Pilgrimage Festival was also a challenge because of radius clauses. If they're paying Nathaniel good money, he can't do AmericanaFest. They didn't hold their event this year, and Nathaniel showed up and did a little private thing. Brandi hosted the John Prine tribute. Melissa Etheridge and Amy Grant both came for the first time. So we had a wider array of artists who could draw, and after all, this is our fundraiser.

How important is artist discovery?

It's huge. With the 250 acts my team puts together, you could go to the Station Inn, or Third and Lindsley, or the Blue Room, and stay all night. You may not know every act on the bill, but I can pretty much promise you'll walk away having found somebody you never knew before and love.

What do you make of comparisons to South by Southwest?

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and I even discussed that with Louis Black way back when. We built our model on South by Southwest: showcases in different venues with a wristband that gets you into all of them, a music-industry education and business conference, and an awards show. And I think most people would say our awards show has been better than South By's. Theirs was very provincial, all about Austin. We can bring Robert Plant, Van Morrison, Mumford & Sons, Elvis Costello. Richard Thompson, Joan Baez, Steve Earle, and Buddy Guy have all come to be part of our show.

But I stopped going to South By about 10 years ago. It got to the point where I didn't need a $1,200 badge because there were so many renegade parties. People were publishing counter-programming guides. The artists playing South By were playing all these other parties too, and South By hated that. I totally understood it.

That's why our daytime events matter so much. We've gone to WME, Thirty Tigers, Rounder, Concord, and other companies in our community and said, "We are a marketing arm for you. If you do a show with your artists outside AmericanaFest, we're sunk. Why would anybody buy a pass?"

Everybody who throws one of the official parties contributes $500 to $1,500, depending on who they are and what they're doing. We don't charge the National Museum of African American Music, the Smithsonian, or the Recording Academy and MusiCares when we partner with them. But it's all above board. The combination of renegade parties and corporate sponsorship is what made South By unappealing for me and for a lot of the Americana community. People who go to South By come to AmericanaFest and don't go back. They say, "I can get more business done here in three days than I can in two weeks down there."

It's been almost existential for us to stop the renegade parties.

Has anyone tested that?

About 10 years ago, the week before the festival, we saw a press release: Jack White premieres the Paramount box set at AmericanaFest. It was a private party for 50 people. Board members and staff were saying, "I can't believe this. How are we supposed to compete?" I said, "Jack White just put out a press release saying he's doing an event with Americana. I'll deal with it later."

A few weeks after the festival, I got a meeting with Ben Swank and Jack's assistant in the back room at the Blue Room. There's a door with an opaque window, straight out of a film noir detective movie, that says "Jack M. White III." I told them, "I'm so glad you did that, but I can't open this can of worms. If everybody throws a party and puts a press release around it, Americana won't make it. We don't have a car company giving us a million-dollar sponsorship like South By."

About 40 minutes in, Jack comes out of that office. He'd been listening the whole time. He turns to his team and says, "I like this. It's cool. Hi, I'm Jack." Then he says, "Have you heard this?" and puts a record on the turntable. "I've got to go. Work it out." We've been using the Blue Room ever since.

Is corporate sponsorship just a bad fit for this community?

We once had Verizon as a sponsor. Not a huge amount of money, but we needed it, and it was awful. All they wanted was to get their people backstage, and my artists don't like that. Emmylou Harris isn't getting in a Chevy truck for a commercial.

Americana artists are singers who can sing, writers who can write, and players who can play. When Lyle Lovett writes a song, he isn't chasing a Top 100 country hit. He's trying to tell a story through song in the best way he can, period. By and large, that's the Americana community.

Walk me through putting the awards show together.

There are three layers. The festival is the conversation about what Americana is. Our curation group asks whether an artist is good, whether they're singers who can sing, players who can play, and writers who can write. Whether they're Americana comes later. The nominees on the awards show represent the state of Americana today, as chosen by the membership, and I invite all of them. Most come.

Then there are the Lifetime Achievement Awards. Buddy Guy is a blues artist, but he influenced artists across the Americana world. Van Morrison is on the Mount Rushmore of whatever you want to call it. They show where we've come from and how we got here.

My first year, in 2007, the committee said, "We're honoring Willie Nelson, Pete Seeger, and Mavis Staples." Pete said he'd gotten plenty of awards. Willie didn't respond, and I didn't know how to reach his manager yet. Mavis was busy. None of the three came. So I went back to the board and said, "Give me five names each in performance, songwriting, and instrumental." Now I have 15 names. If Lucinda Williams can't make it one year, I keep her on the list and ask again next year. It took me seven years to get Ry Cooder and five to get Bonnie Raitt. I keep putting the asks out, and over time people start coming to me.

How did the Heartbreakers reunion happen?

The people representing Tom Petty's estate and the people representing Mike Campbell and the Heartbreakers came to me last year. I took separate meetings with both sides. I felt almost like a mediator going room to room. I was respectful: "I need Mike and the Heartbreakers to get theirs, and I need Adria and the Petty family to get theirs." It was a secret for nine months. I think I told five people.

And Dolly Parton?

I've been trying to get Dolly for almost 20 years. She's been so busy, and she's supported the association and our foundation. Last year we were finally ready, and then her husband, Carl, was ill. Her team asked whether she could just send a video, and I was the purist. I said no.

In March they came back and asked if I was still interested in honoring her, because she'd really like that. I said yes, and knowing she'd had some health issues, I told them that if she couldn't make it, a video was fine. She was not well. I had dinner scheduled with her management team, set up two weeks earlier, to figure out how to sneak her in the back door of the Ryman for a surprise appearance. She died the day before. It really came down to that.

It's all relationships and patience.

And Robert Plant?

Robert showed up at AmericanaFest unannounced in 2008 and loved it. He pulled me aside and interviewed me. He said that touring with Alison Krauss and T Bone Burnett, he'd gone to all the same cities he'd played with that other band, but this time he saw the shadows of our community, and in those shadows he saw rainbows. That's how he talks, and what a thing for me to hear.

This year was his fifth time. I saw him in March and told him I wanted to honor his contributions to American roots music. After he and Alison won their five Grammys for Raising Sand, someone in the press room asked which award meant the most. He said it was the one they'd gotten the previous fall from the Americana Music Association, because we were a more discerning voting community. I heard about it after the fact.

Our show isn't necessarily star-studded. It's a community show, with Langhorne Slim and other community artists presenting awards. Michelle Aquilato runs production now and deserves a lot of the credit for curation and sequencing. When we had 700 members it was just the two of us. Now we have 4,000 members and she has a whole team. And there are no deals with the artists. It's all handshakes. I don't sign contracts.

Do you get submissions where you think, "This just isn't Americana"?

Yeah, 1,600 of them a year. There's good and there's bad, like any genre.

You've also played a big role at the Grammys.

Around 2008 and 2009 I was the lead author of the proposal that created Best Americana Album. We got it, and Levon Helm won the first one. Then I gave it a break, because people were saying it was ridiculous, just a marketing term. There was resentment and skepticism.

After a couple of years, I worked with a small group to propose that the Recording Academy reorganize the American roots field. Bluegrass moved there from country, and Americana was separated cleanly from country. Then I drafted the proposal for Best American Roots Song, and a year or two later Best American Roots Performance. I knew I was a pest, but now I was representing the broader roots community. And I knew who'd win those awards: Americana artists. Bonnie, Mavis, Jason Isbell, Rosanne Cash, Brandi Adria. And they did. A few years ago I got them to add Best Americana Performance.

So when I ask labels not to throw renegade parties, I can point to that. Four categories, five nominees each, over all those years. That's something like 250 nominations that otherwise wouldn't have happened. The year Brandi had more nominations than any other woman, including Beyoncé, she had six. Three were in categories I wrote. That's life-changing for artists. I'll do anything for Brandi and she'll do anything for me. That's the give and take.

Has the success of Brand Carlile, Zach Bryan, Noah Kahan, and the Lumineers made people understand what Americana is?

Twenty years ago, people would ask me, "What is Americana?" When I was offered this job, my dad asked me that. I couldn't answer. He said, "Well, it's not in the dictionary," and he told me not to take the job. We were a Merriam-Webster family. If you didn't know a word, you looked it up.

So in my first week, in March 2007, I wrote to Merriam-Webster and made my pitch. An editor wrote back, essentially saying, "Merriam-Webster has been defining American English since the 1800s. We're fully capable. Please don't write us." So I wrote them every three months for four years. In 2011, the managing editor called and said, "I thought you should be the first to know: Americana as a musical term has been added to the dictionary."

After that, if anybody asked me what Americana was, I could say, "Look it up." Merriam-Webster even let us use their name on a T-shirt with the phonetic spelling on the front and "Look it up" on the back.

The crowd this week was polite, a little older, fairly affluent, and hungry for new music. What can you tell me about Americana fans?

They're very respectful. I was at Wynonna's show at the Basement East, packed house, and when she talked you could hear a pin drop. They're music listeners and aficionados. They appreciate art. They probably go to museums and listen to public radio.

And it's expanding. The Avett Brothers played the Station Inn at AmericanaFest in 2007 for 116 people. Later they played for 70,000 at Bonnaroo, and the crowd knew every word, and they never had a radio hit. Those aren't all 55-year-old boomers. There's a newer crop, people jokingly call it "slacker country": MJ Lenderman, Waxahatchee, artists who might have been filed as indie but feel more welcome in Americana, even though they have nothing to do with country music.