My Favorite Songs of 2018

In 2018, I've made the time to listen to a lot of new albums. For me, listening to new records for the first time is like mining. In any type of mining, you spend most of your time digging and shifting. In the digs for new music, I'm trying to hear the golden songs that first hook my attention, and then work on my head and heart. 

As AM/FM radio is a wasteland in San Diego except for NPR (including NPR Music), and Jazz 88.3, Amazon Music and YouTube are now my go to digging. I'll also mention the podcasts- WTF with Marc Maron and the Americana Music Show as great resources for expanding my search for fresh songs and learning about the musicians behind the music . 

Music is such a personal thing for all of us. My wife and I love each other but our tastes in music would never have been the magical online dating algorithm to make us a match. I just love it when she gently yells up the stairs to me, "Would you please put your headphones on!"

As this blog took about 15 minutes to write, the playlist (now at 100 songs) has been going on for several months now. I publish it with the hopes that you will find at least a few golden nuggets of song that maybe you have never heard before.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

New Releases January - March, 2018

My love of the female singing voice was blessed with the gift of several new albums by a wave of fantastic young women crafting great music. Although a few older folks also make my cut this week including, Joan Baez, Shawn Colvin, and John Prine as the year is just warming up to my Americana music fix. Actually, John Prine's new album, The Tree of Forgiveness, doesn't come out until April 13, but I thought I'd give you a sneak peek of what has been released so far.

I'll start with one of my favorite singer-songwriters, Kacey Musgraves who just released her seventh studio album, Golden Hour. Musgraves is starting to get the national attention she deserves as she played on Stephen Colbert the other night. I have included a video here from her performance on the Late Show.

Equally talented is Brandi Carlisle with her sixth studio album, By The Way, I Forgive You. Brandi's been on the music scene for awhile now, and pulled on my heart strings with her song, The Mother. Last year she also blew my socks off producing one of my favorite albums of last year for The Secret Sisters, You Don't Own Me Anymore.

Next up is I'm With Her, what I'll call an Americana supergroup made up of Sara Watkins, Sarah Jarosz and Aoife O’Donovan, all great individual artists. I just recently saw them on NPR's Tiny Desk, and just loved it. Here is their first debut album just released, See Your Around.

This week's playlist is heavy with the first three albums featured above, but also please check out Brett Dennen, Christina Friis, and Ben Harper and Charlie Musselwhite, all great finds after shifting through hours of new material.