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by Julian Spivey
10. “Babel” by Mumford & Sons – Sept. 25 Mumford & Sons burst onto the scene in 2010 with their debut album “Sigh No More,” which was considered by numerous critics and fans alike to be one of that year’s best albums. The album garnered six Grammy nominations, but somehow escaped without winning any of them. I was very late to the popularity of Mumford & Sons, and honestly still haven’t listened a whole lot to “Sigh No More,” despite loving their single “The Cave.” I’m very interested to see if Mumford & Sons can remain on top with their follow-up release “Babel”, which will be released on September 25. 9. “The Way That I’m Living” by Lee Ann Womack – Release To Be Determined Lee Ann Womack is one of the few female artists in country music who actually sounds like country music. This is prime reason enough for why I’m interested in Womack’s newest release, which she announced was upcoming in April. However, the album “The Way That I’m Living” is one that might not end up being released in 2012, if it ever even sees the light of day in general, as Womack just parted ways with her record label MCA Nashville last week. It’s been four years since 2008’s fantastic “Call Me Crazy” was released and country fans are desperate for Womack’s traditional country sound. 8. “New To This Town” by Kix Brooks – Sept. 11 Half of the former country music super duo Brooks & Dunn Kix Brooks hopes to follow in the footsteps of his former duomate Ronnie Dunn, who released a successful solo album last year, with one of his own. Brooks didn’t do a whole lot of the singing on many of Brooks & Dunn’s records, but he did take lead vocals on some of my favorite B&D tunes like “You’re Gonna Miss Me When I’m Gone”, “Lost & Found” and “Days of Thunder”. Brooks’ first solo single “New To This Town” is a solid tune, but not really as good as I was expecting. Hopefully the highly anticipated album doesn’t underachieve in the same fashion. 7. “Born to Sing: No Plan B” by Van Morrison - Oct. 2 Van Morrison doesn’t sound as great as he once did, but genius never dies and Morrison is one of music’s greatest geniuses. “Born to Sing: No Plan B” is Morrison’s first album of original songs since 2008’s “Keep It Simple” and four years is much too long to go without this type of greatness. I don’t expect the new album to contain any earthshaking classics like Morrison released in the early ‘70s, but early reviews are suggesting that this could be Morrison’s best album in quite some time. 6. “Livin’ for a Song: A Tribute to Hank Cochran” by Jamey Johnson – Oct. 16 If Jamey Johnson was releasing new original material than you can bet your boots that his new album would be ranked number one on this list. However, Johnson’s newest release, on October 16, is a tribute album to one of the most legendary songwriters in country music history, Hank Cochran. Johnson has assembled a real who’s who list of performers to sing some of Cochran’s biggest classics with him including Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, George Strait, Ronnie Dunn, Alison Krauss, Kris Kristofferson and Elvis Costello. Among the tracks I’m most intrigued to hear are Johnson and Krauss doing “Make the World Go Away” and Johnson and Haggard crooning “I Fall to Pieces”. 5. “Away From The World” by Dave Matthews Band – Sept. 11 Dave Matthews Band’s most recent album “Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King” was one of the best albums of 2009 and received an album of the year Grammy nomination. So, DMB’s newest release “Away From The World” certainly has big shoes to fill. Dave Matthews Band is one of the most talented groups in the world and has a sound that’s very unique unto itself. Expect some definite gems on this album, even if the release’s first single, “Mercy”, is a little too heavy-handed. 4. “Tempest” by Bob Dylan – Sept. 11 Musical fans everywhere should be thrilled on Sept. 11 with releases from not only Dave Matthews Band, but also the new outing from the legendary Bob Dylan. Dylan’s voice is frankly pretty much completely gone, but it’s always been Dylan’s great words that have stood out over his hall of fame career. The poet’s 35th studio album features a tribute to his friend John Lennon in “Roll on John” and the title track is an epic 14-minute tale of the Titanic, which should certainly be interesting. 3. Untitled by Darius Rucker – To Be Determined Darius Rucker has one of the smoothest, most soulful voices in country music and this reason alone would rank him very high on my anticipated fall albums list. His first country album “Learn to Live” in 2008 was easily one of the best country music albums of that year. His follow-up album “Charleston, S.C. 1966” was definitely good, but featured a more pop-country sound to it than I would have preferred. It’ll be interesting to see which sound his third studio country album has, but the fact that it reportedly has a cover of the fantastic Old Crow Medicine Show song “Wagon Wheel” on it featuring backing vocals by Lady Antebellum is certainly a great sign. 2. “Wrote a Song for Everyone” by John Fogerty – Oct. 9 It’s probably unusual to have a compilation album as high as number two on a most anticipated albums list, but when it’s the legendary John Fogerty singing his biggest classics with some of the world’s biggest music stars it should be understandable. “Wrote a Song for Everyone” is a duets album featuring Fogerty classics from his Creedence Clearwater Revival days. Among the most anticipated tracks on this album are Fogerty teaming up with the Foo Fighters for “Fortunate Son”, Alan Jackson on “Have You Ever Seen the Rain”, Bob Seger on “Who’ll Stop the Rain” and Miranda Lambert on the title track “Wrote a Song for Everyone”.
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