2006 : 11 "Red Clay Country" by Paul Brown

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Bubbling banjo and honest, simple vocals define my choice for 2006. "Red Clay Country" is a traditional blues piece arranged and recorded by Paul Brown in 2006. The recording makes it sound like Paul is playing in your living room and the repeating fragments of the lyrics lull me into imagining the story of what's going on in the song. Why is the man leaving where he currently lives? Who is his long-haired buddy and why doesn't he tell her he's gone himself? What makes him avoid his aging papa? Each and every time I listen I imagine a new slightly different story and that is one aspect that keeps me intrigued and coming back to a lot of old traditionals, especially this one. The banjo playing in this song rolls excellently along and nicely riffs on the melody of the vocal line. It pulses back and forth between neat little slides and accelerating rolls that pause and resume in a pleasing fashion. —Dave Evans Listen: Paul Brown >> "Red Clay Country"

2004 : 29 "Omie Wise" by Tim Eriksen

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For my second track of 2004 I've picked "Omie Wise," a banjo-driven narrative murder ballad from one of my favorite folk musicians, Tim Eriksen. This song is an unadorned, live recording of banjo and vocals, from the album Every Sound Below. Both of Eriksen's solo albums have been recorded in this honest one-take, one-mic fashion that I find very compelling. "Omie Wise" is a haunting tale, made even more so to me by the expressive playing and uniquely powerful sustained notes in the vocal line. There is a particular bended-note in the banjo riff that I just find chilling each time it comes round. If you happen to check out Eriksen's site you can listen to all of his songs for free including his band's "Cordelia's Dad" and "Zabe I Babe," both of which I highly recommend. —Dave Evans Listen: Tim Eriksen >> "Omie Wise"

2003 : 26 "Never Did No Wanderin'" by The Folksmen

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The greatest moments of musical parody during my lifetime have been performed by one band. I do not care if you call them Spinal Tap or The Folksmen, they know how to make fun of a genre like no one else. They hit another home run in the movie A Mighty Wind. This song is great because it is a road song about having never traveled. It really goes out on one of the big topics in folk music. Every folk musician has a tramp song; it is a key part of the genre. The Folksmen say they "Never Did No Wanderin'" and ask why so many folk acts like to claim to be hobos. It is a brilliant idea. —Rich Thomas Listen: The Folksmen >> "Never Did No Wanderin'"

2000 : 32 "Var" by Nils Økland

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No discussion of the music of the Aughts is complete without reference to Norway's Rune Grammofon, perhaps the single most consistently intriguing label of the decade. One reason this label's releases appealed to me so strongly was because of their eclecticism. They adhered to no particular genre stricture, and consequently they were free to romp across an intimidatingly broad expanse: their discography includes albums of electronica, modern composition, cerebral jazz, stark drone... They seemed perhaps happiest releasing albums that violated genre boundaries in and of themselves, or otherwise proved hard to classify. As evidence, one need look no further than their very first album, Supersilent's 1-3 (1998): a three-hour, three-disc set consisting mainly of free improvisational pieces that unexpectedly melt down into passages of electronic abrasion. But today I want to talk about something prettier. Specifically, Rune Grammofon's 15th release, Nils Økland's Straum (2000), an album consisting primarily of fiddle music. It's very lovely, but no less of a damned thing in terms of classification. This track, "Var," for fiddle, piano, trumpet, and voice, is airy and drifty enough that it could fit on a New Age sampler without incident, and yet it's impossible to listen closely to the piece without noting its roots in jazz and improvisation. And Økland's playing the Hardangar fiddle, a traditional instrument of Norway, so maybe we should be talking about it in terms of "folk music?" Or should he be treated as a composer for the fiddle, creating something that fits that oxymoronic category, "modern classical?" Sigh. One really shouldn't agonize over something this beautiful. —Jeremy Bushnell Listen: Nils Økland >> "Var"

2000 : 28 "Didn't Leave Nobody But The Baby" by Emmylou Harris & co.

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I don't think we should blame the O Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack for the resurgence in roots music (see: Things White People Like) which saturated coffeehouses and public radio in the early part of the 00s. It's not the soundtrack's fault. It was just trying to make us happy! I love this song and my roots don't include banjos or the Appalachian Mountains. This song just sounded so perfectly fresh and simple when it came out that it was impossible to resist. —Angela Smith Listen: Emmylou Harris, Alison Kraus, and Gillian Welch >> "Didn't Leave Nobody But the Baby"

2000 : 06 "Shake It 'N' Break It," by Baby Gramps

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While this album was released in 2000, I didn't actually hear Baby Gramps until about 2004 or 2005. I was in a party in the woods at an anarchist commune and some girl was pushing a shopping cart playing a really lo-fi folk song of the weirdest aspect I'd ever heard. His voice was gravelly, then rubber band stretching up to ridiculous heights, full of pauses and exclamations, some Anthology of American Folk Music from some pleasantly schizophrenic elf. I figured it was the woods and my stoned state that made it seem so odd. A few years later I found out it was actually much stranger and more wonderful than I thought. Baby Gramps is idiosyncracy embodied. His guitar playing, demeanor, and vast range of vocal approaches are masterful, exciting, and imbued with hilarity. At his shows, crowd participation is mandatory and it's always fun to take a look at the rows of smiling folk of all ages. If Baby Gramps doesn't bring a smile to your face, there is something seriously wrong with you and I don't want to be your friend. —Chris Pollina Listen: Baby Gramps >> "Shake It 'N' Break It"

2000 : 02 "Mountain Music," by Momus

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Rich Thomas and I occasionally debate which music-related events from the 1990s cast the longest shadow over the music of the Aughts. At the top of my list is usually the 1997 reissue of Harry Smith's great Anthology of American Folk Music. Pretty much everyone who bought a copy of the reissued Anthology immediately went out and bought a banjo or a fiddle, and would end up doing at least a short stint in a freak-folk band by the end of the decade. Needless to say, this also led to a lot of engaging head-clutching about issues of authenticity and fake authenticity: i.e., is is OK to go around emulating the music of (say) hardscrabble West Virginian working-class people if you're (say) a white kid from some middle-class suburb somewhere? But issues of authenticity are awfully tricky, and this fact is nicely pointed out by cultural wag Momus on his 2000 album Folktronica. This track, "Mountain Music," points out (and embraces?) the oddity of appropriating old-time music for a modern context while simultaneously critiquing our entire notion of authenticity, pointing out the ways in which it's a distorting (and comforting) illusion. Representative verse: "It never was so simple / it never was so pure / the folks who made it never were / so ignorant and poor / They traveled round the world / and never stayed where they belonged / and if they had we'd never have / these lovely mountain songs." —Jeremy Bushnell Listen: Momus >> "Mountain Music"