Award will be presented Oct 7th in Columbia, MO

Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter, guitarist and producer Jeff Tweedy will be presented with the 2022 Missouri Roots Songbook honor on October 7th, live on stage as part of the Roots N Blues festival in Columbia, Missouri. Tweedy’s band Wilco is headlining Friday night of the three-day festival, which runs Friday, October 7th through Sunday, October 9th in Stephens Lake Park.

“In the increasingly turbulent 2020s, Jeff Tweedy’s raw, reflective ability to contemplate what it means to be human is appreciated now more than ever,” the festival notes. “While his work has reached the far corners of the globe, the humble midwestern roots that shine through so much of his work remain firmly planted, in terms of geography and, more so, in terms of character.”

Roots N Blues festival co-owner/director Tracy Lane founded the Missouri Roots Songbook in 2018 to encourage the young people of Missouri to take pride in the incredibly rich musical heritage of their home state. Previous honorees were Chuck Berry, the “father” of Rock N Roll in 2018, John “Blind” Boone one of the first composers of Ragtime in 2019, and Sheryl Crow, a trailblazer for women in rock in 2021.

“Jeff Tweedy’s talent and passion in his Uncle Tupelo performances and the early days of Wilco garnered national attention that shined a spotlight on Missouri clubs like The Blue Note and Mississippi Nights,” shares Lane. “I’m one of the extremely fortunate people who witnessed the magic of Uncle Tupelo evolve into the genius of Wilco.”

Tweedy, whose celebrated work with Uncle Tupelo and Wilco is widely credited with ushering in alt-country as a new roots music genre, was born and raised in Belleville, Illinois and spent his formative years in the record stores and rock clubs of nearby St. Louis – just half an hour east of his hometown. Missouri Roots Songbook paid tribute to Tweedy’s deep musical connection to St. Louis and Columbia on the Roots N Blues blog.

“[Tweedy] made the half-hour journey from Belleville to St. Louis frequently to explore record stores around the city, including the Delmar Loop’s famous Vintage Vinyl. Later, as an adult, he worked at Euclid Records on Gore Avenue to earn money while he tried to get Uncle Tupelo off the ground…Mississippi Nights, a now-closed venue in St. Louis, also played a pivotal role in Tweedy’s life. It’s where he saw his first concert (the Stray Cats), where both Uncle Tupelo and Wilco played their early shows. Even after Uncle Tupelo took off and began to play bigger venues in cities outside the Midwest, Mississippi Nights remained an important place for the group. When they broke up for good, they played their final shows in Missouri — two nights at Columbia’s own Blue Note and two nights at Mississippi Nights.”

Tickets for the Roots N Blues festival are available via the festival’s website. Prices start at $73.