Bonnie Raitt, Richard Thompson And Booker T. Jones Honoured At Americana Awards

The big winners at Wednesday night’s Americana Awards may have been all modern artists but the Lifetime Achievement Awards honoured three of America’s greats.

Bonnie Raitt - Photo By Ros O'Gorman

Bonnie Raitt was given the Lifetime Achievement Award for Performance, Booker T. Jones the Lifetime Achievement Award for Instrumentalist and Richard Thompson the Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriting. A fourth Lifetime Achievement Award, for Executive, went to Dennis Lord of SESAC.

As for the balloted awards, the Artist of the Year went to Gillian Welch while the Duo/Group of the Year was The Civil Wars and the Emerging Artist was the Alabama Shakes.

In another nod to veteran artists, the Album of the Year was awarded to the various artist compilation This One’s For Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark.

Of course, with only six awards and four honouree presentations, the American Awards becomes all about the performances. Among the performances were:

• Green Onions – Booker T. Jones with Richard Thompson, Buddy Miller, Larry Campbell, Darrell Scott and Kenny Vaughn
• My Favorite Picture of You – Guy Clark
• Be Mine – Alabama Shakes with Booker T. Jones
• Thing Called Love – Bonnie Raitt and John Hiatt
• Not Cause I Wanted To – Bonnie Raitt and Al Anderson
• Vincent – Richard Thompson
• The Weight – Amy Helm, Larry Campbell, Teresa Williams, Bonnie Raitt, John Hiatt, Richard Thompson, Emmylou Harris, Brittany Howard (Alabama Shakes)

Tagged as: Alabama Shakes, Bonnie Raitt, Booker T Jones, Civil Wars, Gillian Welch, John Hiatt, Richard Thompson