Lucinda Williams: Life and Death Matters
A three-time GRAMMY winner, daughter of a former poet laureate and an Americana archetype. To put it another way, the most influential and cathartic literary southern-folk, rock-and-blues confessor of her generation.
Julie Miller: Heart to Heart
The deep, empathetic, emotional center of Americana songwriting, who is a coveted song source for discerning mainstream country singers. She and singer/guitarist husband Buddy Miller are widely regarded as the Queen and King of their genre.
Victoria Williams: Seriously Free
A Louisiana-born, California desert-dwelling, jazzy alternative folk-rock pioneer whose unfettered approach to singing and songwriting has a way of confronting and dissolving even the strongest inhibitions.
Michelle Shocked: True to Conscience
An intrepid and sharp-witted American roots music sojourner who has fought against the currents of the music industry to follow her social, political, and spiritual convictions. In the process she has become the head of her own small record label and a devoted member of a black church.
Mary Gauthier: Outsider Art
A folk-country singer-songwriter respected not only for the quality but the heft of her work. She unflinchingly, though not at all unfeelingly, speaks of and to people on the margins of society, identifying with them particularly through her own experience of being orphaned.
Ruthie Foster: Don’t Be Shy about What You’ve Got
A Texas singer-songwriter partial to blues, spirituals, and soul. Possessed of a big voice, she teaches life-affirming boldness by example, in the spirit of her mother, grandmother, and the caught-up, celebratory church services of her youth.
Elizabeth Cook: Staying Down-Home, Getting Somewhere
A regular on the Grand Ole Opry, born with a voice for hard country and also drawn to the rawer sounds of rock and roll. As affectionate toward and sustained by her humble familial roots as she is determined to do her own thing beyond them, she writes in a way that embraces both with keen humor.
Abigail Washburn: The Joy of Joining In
A clawhammer banjo player whose warmhearted embrace of American old-time music, Chinese folk music, and sympathetic musical collaborators aims to stir communal connection... and leads to the occasional international diplomatic role.
