20 Standout Roots and Americana Albums of 2020: 10-1
Last week, I brought you the first half of my list of standout roots music albums of 2020. In a normal year (aka a year when the entire music world wasn't stuck at home with nothing to do but make albums), a lot of those would have made it into the Top 10. But this was a stacked year for roots albums, with some of the biggest names in Americana releasing and some the genre's young rising stars truly emerging. So here are my favorite 10 standout roots albums of 2020. Where I reviewed the album, I have provided a link to the full review. Where I didn't, I have linked a YouTube video of one of the album's songs.
A note on my methodology, just to curb the outrage. My list has always excluded live albums, re-records, cover albums, and compilations, just to keep the number manageable. So that's why you won't see Sturgill Simpson's excellent Cuttin' Grass or Margo Price's Perfectly Imperfect listed here. I broke that rule twice this year, but have endeavored to explain why in the individual comments.
10. Will Kimbrough- Spring Break
Being isolated from studios, with session players, producers, and engineers has been a hurdle for many roots music artists when making new albums. Not for Will Kimbrough, who has been all of those things during his career. Kimbrough's aptly titled Spring Break is a spare but well-produced mix of co-writes with friends and observations on isolation, wanderlust, and how political divisions change friendships.
9. Margo Price- That's How Rumors Get Started
It's a rare year that a superstar like Margo Price releases a new album and it doesn't get mass press all year long. Aside from the obvious reasons for that, it was the release of her stellar live album Perfectly Imperfect- Live From the Ryman that really got all of the attention. But don't sleep on That's How Rumors Get Started. While Price maintains all of the hallmarks that made her past two albums a success, she also tapped into the rock and roll thunder of a post Sound & Fury Sturgill Simpson, who produced the album. Album standout “Twinkle Twinkle” rocks as hard as any rock song released in 2020.
8. Corb Lund- Agricultural Tragic
It only takes one listen to Corb Lund's music to know that, unlike countless other be-hatted country artists crooning about tractors on commercial radio, he grew up farming and ranching. Lund's music often centers around rural life, but never the romanticized “made-for-TV” rural stereotype peddled by the Jason Aldeans of the world. Lund's new album, Agricultural Tragic, is more of what fans have come to expect from Lund. His affable personality and Canadian-dry sense of humor perfectly embodies the unflappable mix of optimism and fatalism of unprofitable horse ranchers and men with regrettable drunken tattoos.
7. Jill Andrews- Thirties
Jill Andrews is at her best when she lays herself completely, often uncomfortably, bare. She does it throughout Thirties. The album is a chronicle of a decade filled with falling in and out of love, single parenting, and struggling with voices from the past. There are raw moments on Thirties that are beautiful in their intimacy, and others aching in their honesty. But all are full of the brilliant songwriting that has marked Andrews' career.
6. The War and Treaty- Hearts Town
2019 Americana Emerging Artist winners The War and Treaty's debut album was an intimate affair, a couple's love on display in all its glory and pain. With their Rounder debut Hearts Town, the duo of Michael and Tanya Trotter take inspiration from a divided world to spread that love to their fellow man. There is still that core of intimacy, moments where Michael and Tanya seem to be singing only to each other, the audience voyeurs. But those glimpses also bring songs like “5 More Minutes”, Tanya's plea to a near suicidal Michael to give her just “five more minutes to love you.” This is where The War and Treaty thrive, wrapping serious moments in boogie-worthy James Brown soul.
5. Jake Blount- Spider Tales
Did you ever have that one teacher who excelled in making his subject so entertaining and engaging that you didn't even know you were learning until it was over. Jake Blount is one of those teachers. His Spider Tales is a remarkably researched dive into the deep, and tragically forgotten, history of black string music and how many of the traditional songs by white men were inspired (if not outright written) by black artists. If that sounds dry to you, then you're going to be surprised by Spider Tales. Blount's instrumental finesse and world-weary voice let the album be enjoyed strictly as a musical entity, though the detailed liner notes about each song are worth the read. Blount has emerged as black string music's most valuable historian since Dom Flemons.
4. Emily Barker- A Dark Murmuration of Words
America has slept for far too long on the talents of Emily Barker. The Australian-born British resident has always been more popular “across the pond” than here, and that's a real loss for all of us. I wish I could say A Dark Murmuration of Words was the album that changed that, but it isn't likely in a nation always on the lookout for the next bubblegum distraction. Instead, Barker channels Joni Mitchell, singing scathing protest songs about environmental devastation and racial white washing in a voice so tremulous and sweet that the message sneaks up on you. For those willing to face uncomfortable truths with Barker, the reward is a stunningly beautiful album in every way.
3. Tami Neilson- Chickaboom!
To call New Zealander Tami Neilson a force of nature would be to vastly overstate the power of a hurricane. Gifted with a personality and swagger even bigger than her trademark bouffant, Neilson's Chickaboom! is a celebration of pure unabashed musical pleasure. If the confident swagger of Joan Jett met the pure charisma of Dolly Parton and melded the rockabilly fury of Wanda Jackson, you'd have Tami Neilson. But songs like “Queenie Queenie” and “Call Your Mama” hide some serious messaging, from the brush off of a cheating lover to the longing for another one to the fact that “they won't play a lady-o on country radio.”
2. Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit- Reunions/Reunions Live at Brooklyn Bowl Nashville
I mentioned I was going to break my “no live albums” rule in this list and this is where I do it, albeit paired with a studio release. It's pretty much a given at this point that any release by Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit is going to be brilliant. It's not hyperbole to say he's Americana's best songwriter since John Prine and his longtime backing band is so tight it's impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins. Reunions mixes the intensely personal songs of Southeastern the social observation so often found on his Twitter page. From the “we need a battle cry” of “Be Afraid” to equating the physical distance of he and wife Amanda Shires touring separately to a couple experiencing a marital separation. So why the live album add-on? Because one complaint by some who weren't as impressed by Reunions was a feeling it was “overproduced” but who still want Isbell's powerful lyrics will want Live at Brooklyn Bowl Nashville, which is Reunions played in its entirety in stripped down renditions featuring just Isbell and Shires.
1. Sarah Jarosz- World on the Ground
This is the first time since Southeastern that Jason Isbell hasn't released my favorite album of a given year. That's not a knock on Isbell so much as a testament to just how strong World on the Ground is. There is no artist in root music today more reliable than Sarah Jarosz. At this point, the question is only will the album be amazing or transcendent. World on the Ground is transcendent, Jarosz's best work since 2011's Follow Me Down. Jarosz's pairing with producer John Leventhal is perfect. Leventhal draws out every ounce of the lyrical and instrumental brilliance Jarosz has to offer. The result is an album full of gentle but powerful songs that will stay with you long after your first (or in my case, thousandth) listen.