The birth of a festival, on Saturday 7 September, in Vancé, a village of 300 people in the Sarthe region. The first in France entirely dedicated to the American movement, a term that designates the contemporary reinterpretation of genres as old as country music and rock, blues, folk and soul.
It will not come as a surprise to those in the know that behind this initiative is the jockey Michel Pamplune, who made the defence of this aesthetic his hobbyhorse in 1999 by creating Fargo, a name chosen in reference to the Wells & Fargo stagecoaches of the westerns of yesteryear. Extinct in 2015, the Parisian label will have revealed the Americans Ryan Adams, Alela Diane and Andrew Bird or the Franco-British Emily Loizeau, already setting up sets in the capital or travelling around.
Now settled in the Sarthe countryside, Michel Pamplune has rediscovered with the Eldorado Americana Festival the emotion that inspired him at the beginning of Fargo: “Here I am again at 55 years old, handing out leaflets on the windscreens of TGV station car parks. [Le Mans, Vendôme et Tours] ! »rejoices. By the way, it also reconnects with the genesis of a festival: human scale with limited capacity to 1,500 attendees, low prices, small American market (from vinyl records to checked flannel), food trucks… In a completely rural setting, a stage designated for the two acoustic guitars that adorn the poster, “an old sawmill with its lumber, which gives a western ghost town atmosphere and has the advantage of being an inland location”.
Authentic approach
Initially supported by the future mayor, who “I wanted to make things happen” In his hometown, the neo-rural is inspired by the “off” festival South by Southwest, a huge annual gathering that has become multimedia in Austin (Texas), the undisputed capital of American culture with its rich music scene. “I saw things there around a family audience that allows to bring together initiates and locals, associating them with the organization, explains Michel Pamplune. This ranges from my farmer neighbour, who lends tools, to the road worker. Rural festivals in France are mainly based on costumes.. I have favoured an authentic approach that can appeal to connoisseurs, without being elitist and leaving others at the door. »
The programming offers a representative panel of Americana, “It was born with the country-rock of the 1970s and the figure of Gram Parsons (1946-1973), who united hippies and cowboys, and spread by people coming from punk rock, like the group Uncle Tupelo rediscovering the Carter Family records or Hank Williams,” explains. Whether it was Dylan LeBlanc from Muscle Shoals (Alabama), flanked by his Steel Cowboys, heirs to the live intensity of Neil Young & Crazy Horse, or the Californian Emily Nenni, the new queen of honky-tonk, the urban and sentimental style was heard in the bars since the 1940s, for their first concert in France.
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