My Picks for 16th Annual Americana Honors & Awards

by Julian Spivey
The 16th annual Americana Honors & Awards is tonight at 6:30 p.m. from the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville and will be streamed live on NPR.org. The Americana Honors & Awards are, in my opinion, the best music award show of the year featuring the most talented singer-songwriters in the business. Tonight’s awards will feature performances by Van Morrison, Old Crow Medicine Show, Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit, The Lumineers, John Prine, Drive-By Truckers, Rodney Crowell, Rhiannon Giddens, Hurray for the Riff Raff and more. Morrison, Graham Nash, Robert Cray and Iris DeMent will be among the honorees.

Below are the nominees and who I believe should win the major awards of the night:

Artist of the Year: Jason Isbell, John Prine, Lori McKenna, Margo Price, Sturgill Simpson

Winner: Sturgill Simpson

This is one helluva category to attempt to choose a most deserving winner. It’s a who’s who of the Americana genre and every single one of these nominees is deserving. My pick for winner is Sturgill Simpson because I believe he had the biggest year of these and that was proven by the fact that his album A Sailor’s Guide to Earth was chosen as one of the five nominees for the all-genre Grammy Album of the Year honor (which he lost to Adele’s 25). That nomination and his performance on the Grammys telecast showed the world who Simpson is and also showed that Americana is a force to be reckon with.

Album of the Year: American Band by Drive-By Truckers, Close Ties by Rodney Crowell, Freedom Highway by Rhiannon Giddens, The Navigator by Hurray for the Riff Raff, A Sailor’s Guide to Earth by Sturgill Simpson

Winner: A Sailor’s Guide to Earth by Sturgill Simpson

This one really should be a no-brainer and go to Sturgill Simpson’s magnificent A Sailor’s Guide to Earth for the reason I mentioned before – the album was a Grammy nominee for Album of the Year. The rest of these nominees are stellar though and there could be a shocker with the Americana Awards loving a veteran artist like Rodney Crowell or the fantastic Freedom Highway by Rhiannon Giddens. If there were to be a winner other than Simpson I would love for it to be Drive-By Truckers’ fantastic American Band. Also, I’m somewhat irritated Way Out West by Marty Stuart and the Fabulous Superlatives wasn’t nominated.

Song of the Year: “All Around You” by Sturgill Simpson, “It Ain’t Over Yet” by Rodney Crowell, “To Be Without You” by Ryan Adams, “Wreck You” by Lori McKenna

Winner: “All Around You” by Sturgill Simpson

I hate to come off like a major fanboy, but there’s good reason to believe Sturgill Simpson will dominate tonight’s Americana Awards like no artist other than Jason Isbell has in recent years. “All Around You” is an absolute beauty, though I would’ve nominated “Welcome to Earth (Pollywog)” instead. This is somewhat of a weird category for me … I believe Ryan Adam’s “Outbound Train” would’ve been a better nominee. I also believe Rodney Crowell’s album had better songs. Drive-By Truckers’ “What It Means” should’ve been nominated, as well.

Duo/Group of the Year: Billy Bragg & Joe Henry, Drive-By Truckers, Marty Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives, The Lumineers

Winner: Drive-By Truckers

This is another one of those categories that’s almost impossible to pick a winner from and really whoever wins the honor will be deserving. Marty Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives probably should’ve picked up more nominations than just this category and The Lumineers are great ambassadors for Americana in that they reach out to a pop crowd without really going into a pop sound. However, Drive-By Truckers is my choice because I believe they had the second-best year behind Sturgill Simpson of any act within the Americana genre releasing perhaps their best album of their two-decade long career.

Emerging Artist of the Year: Aaron Lee Tasjan, Amanda Shires, Brent Cobb, Sam Outlaw

Winner: Sam Outlaw

This is another hard one for me to pick, but it’s really a toss-up between Sam Outlaw, who I finally decided to go with, and Brent Cobb. Aaron Lee Tasjan’s latest release didn’t really do it for me and while I love Amanda Shires as a fiddle playing member of her husband Jason Isbell’s 400 Unit her solo stuff doesn’t strike me like many other female performers within Americana. I’m basically giving this to Outlaw because “Bougainvillea, I Think” and “Trouble” have been two of my favorite songs of the year.

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