Top 10 for 2025

Here are my picks for the Top 10 folk-rooted or folk-branched albums of 2024. I started with a list of about 30 superb albums released over the past year and I’ve been over the list several times over the past couple of weeks and came up with several similar – not identical – Top 10 lists. Today’s list is the final one. The order might have been slightly different and there are several other worthy albums that might have been included, had one of the other lists represented the final choice. 

1. The David Amram Quintet – David Amram Honors Guthrie and Ochs: Old Souls (Guthrie Legacy). There is no other musician quite like David Amram. Over the course of more than 50 years, I have seen David play at folk festivals and clubs and at jazz festivals and clubs. I have also seen him in tails conducting symphony and chamber orchestras as they perform his classical compositions in concert halls. On this set of five Woody Guthrie songs, and one by Phil Ochs, David offers innovative, jazzy arrangements of familiar lyrics that make them sound new and fresh. At age 95 – OK, he was only 94 when he recorded the album – David has lost none of the magic I’ve seen from him over the years. 

2. Eliza Gilkyson – Dark Ages (Realiza). On many of the songs on this this sometimes subtle, sometimes direct, collection of mostly topical songs, Eliza Gilkyson insightfully explores the darkness wrought by the forces that have taken control of her country and beyond, and offers hope and inspiration that we will find our way past these times. 

3. Tim Grimm – Bones of Trees (Vault). As both a folk-rooted songwriter and interpreter of other songs, Tim Grimm has taken his place as one of our finest artists over the past 25 years. Tim once did a whole album of Tom Paxton songs and Tom’s influence can be heard in such great topical songs as “Broken Truth” and “Woody’s Landlord Revisited,” an updated version of a song Tim first released in 2016, as well as more haunting songs like “Up in the Attic.” 

4. Anne Hills – Every Town: More Songs by Michael Smith (Hand & Heart Music). If “The Dutchman” had been the only song that Michael Smith (1941-2020) ever wrote, he’d still have to be on any list of great songwriters. But Michael wrote so many more great songs. Anne Hills has long been one of Michael’s finest interpreters. October Child, her first album of Michael Smith songs, came out in 1993 and Paradise Lost & Found, an album of their duets, came out in 1995. While every one of these songs is a gem, highlights include “Ballad of Elizabeth Dark,” “Crazy Mary” and a gorgeous duet with John Gorka on “Spoon River.” 

5. John Gorka – unentitled (Red House). John Gorka has an excellent body of work recorded over the past four decades and this collection of wise and perceptive songs might just be his best yet. Among my favorites are “Particle Wave (Goodness in the World,” a beautiful song about finding hope in these dark times, “First Snow on the Mountains,” a reflection on early winter and late-in-life love, and an exquisite interpretation of Stan Rogers’ “Harris and the Mare.” 

6. Maria Dunn – Hardscrabble Hope (Distant Whisper Music). As I’ve said before, Maria Dunn’s inspiring original songs, deeply rooted in folk and Celtic music traditions, capture the good in the human spirit and the essence of communal common cause. Maria captures that spirit and essence beautifully in songs like “Walking the Miles” and “Another Year.” And in songs like “Coal is a Thirsty Business,” she sings insightfully about the consequences of greedy endeavours on our planet. 

7. Woody Guthrie – Woody at Home – Vol 1 + 2 (Shamus). This collection of home recordings made in 1951 and ’52 by Woody Guthrie is a fascinating look at Woody’s songwriting process and includes some familiar material and some songs being heard for the first time. Some songs – like a version of “This Land is Your Land” with verses that are quite different from the ones he wrote more than 10 years earlier – are both familiar and new. Another is “Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)” with Woody’s own tune which is different from the melody composed years later by Martin Hoffman. Among the unfamiliar songs is “Back Door Bum and the Big Landlord,” which I’m sure must have been inspired by the landlord Tim Grimm referred to in “Woody’s Landlord Revisited,” and the very clever “My Id and My Ego.” 

8. John McCutcheon – Field of Stars (Appalsongs). John McCutcheon offers yet another superb collection of insightful, often-poignant that have much to say about the state of the world and human relations. While I like the whole album, a couple speak very directly to me. “MS St. Louis” is about the shipload of more than 900 Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany who were refused entry by Cuba, the United States and Canada. Ultimately, many of them were murdered in the Holocaust, while “Tikkun Olam” is inspired by the Jewish concept of repairing the world. Other highlights include “Field of Stars,” co-written and sung with Carrie Newcomer, and “Too Old to Die Young,” a song for those of us among John’s generation who are at that age. 

9. Mary Chapin Carpenter – Personal History (Lambent Light/Thirty Tigers). As the title implies, this is perhaps the most personal album in Mary Chapin Carpenter’s career. Highlights include “Girl and Her Dog,” a reflection on life, love and contentment, “The Night We Never Met,” which captures feelings most of us have had at one time or another, and “Paint + Turpentine,” which recalls being inspired by Guy Clark. 

10. Suzy Thompson – Suzy Sings Siebel, Volume 1 (Suzy Thompson). Paul Siebel (1937-2022) was a brilliant singer-songwriter who recorded just two albums in the early-1970s. His first album, Woodsmoke and Oranges remains one of my all-time favorite LPs. On this collection, Suzy Thompson, who has long been known for mostly playing traditional music, offers 10 of Paul’s songs, including seven from Woodsmoke and Oranges, two from Jack-Knife Gypsy, and one that Paul himself never recorded. I think Paul would have been pleased with Suzy’s fine interpretations. I’ll mention that some of my favorite Siebel songs – including “My Town,” Then Came the Children” and “Legend of the Captain’s Daughter” – are not in this set. So I’m looking forward to Volume 2. 

I will be featuring songs from each of these albums on Stranger Songs, Tuesday December 30, 3:30-5 pm (ET), on CKCU. The program will also be available 24/7 for on-demand streaming and the link will be posted here as soon as it is available. 

–Mike Regenstreif