What is American Roots music? It's the mix of blues, country, gospel, folk, bluegrass, zydeco and other homegrown forms that set the stage for today's rock and pop and soul. The past year was filled with solid releases blending all those styles.
On the blues side of the spectrum was Dave Alvin's . Named after the famed Los Angeles nightclub where a teenaged Dave Alvin heard legendary blues performers, is Dave's first collection of new songs in six years, and reviewers are calling it "the album of his career." includes one song Dave wrote with longtime friend Tom Russell, a performer responsible for another of the year's finest Roots recordings.
Tom Russell's finds the songwriter, author, activist, and folk-art painter returning to the American Southwest and Old West for an album of originals and covers. It includes this version of one of the best-loved Western songs in the world, "El Paso."
2004 also saw many recordings on the bluegrass side of the Roots family. Among them, CDs by The Gibson Brothers, The Nashville Bluegrass Band, Alison Krauss and Union Station, and Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder. The year also brought the release of The CD was recorded by a bunch of old friends before a live audience at a Nashville club, and it's one of the best bluegrass releases of the past 12 months.
Shawn Camp is probably best-known as a songwriter who's provided Number One hits for Garth Brooks, and Brooks And Dunn. At heart, he's a bluegrass picker, and proves that a great CD can be produced without all the gimmicks that Nashville usually adds to new releases.
2004 was also a good year for the singer-songwriters who fall under the American Roots umbrella. The releases of the past 12 months include Slaid Cleaves' s, the solid follow-up to his CD, Todd Snider's , by Loretta Lynn, and Steve Earle's protest album . James McMurtry released , a concert album with one new song, the haunting "Lights Of Cheyenne."
These are just a sampling of the best of the American Roots releases of 2004. Other notables include Jon Dee Graham's , and Grammy-nominated releases by Buddy Miller, Ani DeFranco, and , a tribute to the songs of the Carter Family.
Also nominated for a Grammy is Eliza s . One of its highlights is "Peace Call," a song discovered in a long-out-of-print Woody Guthrie songbook. The track features Mary-Chapin Carpenter, Patty Griffin and Iris DeMent trading verses with Eliza Gilkyson.