My Mountain Home—Americana new releases so far this year

It feels good to be back in Colorado, home to some of the best Americana music anywhere.  I missed the Pagosa Folk & Bluegrass and Telluride Bluegrass festivals earlier this month, but I could sneak up to Lyons for RockyGrass next month.  And the Four Corners Folk Festival will come up too soon as the other bookend of summer.  Do not mourn yesterday’s music festival, for these shall always be another in my Rocky Mountain Home.

The first half of 2015 gave us a wonderful variety of Americana new releases.  And the best news of all may be that the classic No Depression magazine (1995-2008) is coming back to print soon.  It’s going to be a good year.

Some of my favorite albums so far:

• Ryan Bingham, Fear and Saturday Night (don’t forget this early-year release)
• Rhiannon Giddens, Tomorrow Is My Turn
• Justin Townes Earle, Absent Fathers (a follow-on to last year’s Single Mothers)
• Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell, The Traveling Kind
• Chris Stapleton, Traveler (I’m sensing a trend here)
• The Mavericks, Mono
• Asleep at the Wheel & co., Still the King: Celebrating the Music of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys
• Aaron Watson, The Underdog (a bit pop country, but he’s a good guy)
• Gretchen Peters, Blackbirds
• James McMurtry, Complicated Game
• Winkle Neck Mules, I Never Thought It Would Go This Far
• Nora Jane Struthers, Wake
• Whitehorse, Leave No Bridge Unburned (a bit pop, too, but some fun tunes)
• Steve Earle, Terraplane

I’ve heard some of the new Willie Nelson & Merle Haggard Django & Jimmie album on the radio, so far not as catchy as Willie’s release last year, but hey, it’s Willie and Merle.

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