Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticSinger-songwriter Allison Russell, who is on a streak of awards-show nominations and wins with her “Outside Child” album, won two top awards, artist of the year and song of the year, at Wednesday night’s International Folk Music Awards.The program was held as the kickoff to the Folk Alliance International Conference in Kansas City, MO.Song of the year went to Crys Matthews for “Changemakers.” Matthews performed at the two-hour show, as did the group Isaac Cates & Ordained and nominees Diana Jones and John Smith.Russell has kept up a busy awards calendar.
Over the weekend, she had been in her native Canada to pick up a Juno Award for best contemporary roots album. Monday, she was announced as being tied for a leading number of nominations — three — for the Americana Honors, where Russell will be up for artist, album and song of the year at a ceremony to be held in Nashville in September.
The singer was also recently nominated for three Grammy awards. “I cannot tell you how much this means to me coming from this community in particular,” Russell said during one of her two speeches. “It was at Folk Alliance [in 2001] where I first met JT [Nero, her partner and sometimes musical collaborator] and so many of the people who would become a part of my chosen family.“This is a beautiful community,” she continued.
It’s growing and I’m very proud of the fact that we understand collectively and truly believe that tolerance is not enough. Tolerance is for mosquitos.
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