First, an explanatory note:

I refrain from calling these "The Best of 2009" because the following list is but one listener's biased opinion. I have culled these from the many good recordings that crossed my CD player this year. I'm sure I forgot to include a few notable recordings. All told, I estimate The Midnight Special received at least 800 new recordings, and I listened to about 400 new recordings, of which about 200 made it into the WFMT library, and about 150 received airplay. I do not include reissues and most compilations among these favorites. As the cut-off date is November 15, some of the newest recordings will not be considered until next year.

Maybe I am becoming jaded or maybe just overwhelmed by mediocrity. There are eight favorites this year. However, when CDs are great, they are truly great, as evidenced by some of these favorites. There was good music, but only these grabbed me. While I thought about these choices long and hard for several weeks, if not most of the year, had I made the list a day earlier or a day later it might have been slightly different.

If a good friend visited from out-of-town with only an hour or two to spare, and asked me to play my favorites from 2009, I would play the following. Actually, I have purchased quantities of several of them to give to friends for the holidays.

By way of explanation, I have annotated the CDs on the list, arranged alphabetically.

Ben Bedford: Land of the Shadows (Hopeful Sky HSR202)

More finely honed than his first CD, he covers a wide range of subjects from a coal mine disaster, Emmett Till, Civil War songs, love songs and heartbreaking historical tales with powerful poetry and better yet, engrossing, memorable melodies.

 

Sylvia Herold & Euphonia: The Old Jawbone (Tuxedo TUXCD928)

If you enjoy variety with a traditional leaning, this CD entertains from start to finish. It includes traditional songs, contemporary songs that sound traditional, and a few off the wall numbers, several accompanied instrumentals all well-played and well sung.

 

Diana Jones: Better Times Will Come (Proper American PRPACD008)

Spare production perfectly frames Jones' unusual and alluring alto voice singing songs that captivate in their subtlety and sincerity. Cracked and Broken is one of the best adult love songs I've ever heard.

 

John McCutcheon: Untold (Appalsongs 2009)

After dozens of albums he's not yet tapped out. McCutcheon reinvents himself as a storyteller on this two-CD set, with one disc of stories accompanied by songs, and the other just songs. The songs are McCutcheon's usual exceptional compositions, but the intriguing and off-beat stories are absolutely involving and enthralling.

 

Peter Mulvey: Letters from a Flying Machine (Signature Sounds SIG2024)

Mulvey tackles storytelling from an entirely different angle than McCutcheon. His stories are in the form of philosophical and instructional letters written on airplanes to his young nephews and nieces, interspersed with his expected complex and interesting songs. His topics range from technology to Bach to the cosmos and are utterly engrossing.

 

Sons Of the Never Wrong: On a Good Day (Waterbug WBG88)

Okay, this isn't the first Sons album I've selected as a favorite, but they space their CDs so far apart that each is a totally new experience from this trio. There's a creativity, freshness, and risk taking missing from nearly all contemporary singer-songwriter recordings. Yet, when they go out on a limb they produce a lot of branches, leaves and musical fruit.

 

Loudon Wainwright III: High Wide & Handsome – The Charlie Poole Project (2nd Story 161-003)

Wainwright's always been his own man, like no one else in his over 40 years as a singer-songwriter. In this two-CD set he collides with kindred artist from an earlier era, Charlie Poole, one of the fathers of country music. Wainwright and producer Dick Connette created a fascinating pastiche of songs for which Poole was known, or which Poole should have performed and a few originals that would have been perfect for Poole, ranging from wildly humorous to sentimental.

 

Here are a couple more that deserve your attention and consideration:

Anne Hills: Points of View (Appleseed APRCD1119)

This CD of originals, co-writes, and a Leonard Cohen song for spice, cover a wide range of topics with Hills' expected political consciousness and perceptive lyrics. Her lovely voice has never been better and this is her best release in years.

 

Zoe Mulford: Bonfires (Azalea City ACCD-0906)

The wide variety of song topics, styles and production, along with great singing by Mulford, really works on this CD.

I really wanted to include Jonathan Edwards: Rollin' Along – Live in Holland (Strictly Country SCR-68), but discovered it was released in 2008, although we first received it in 2009. In any event, it's a terrific CD.

As far as comedy. . .

David Mitchell & Robert Webb: That Mitchell & Webb Sound, Series Four (BBC Audio)

While the days of Peter Cooke & Dudley Moore, the Establishment and Beyond the Fringe may be in the distant past, Mitchell & Webb come the closest to carrying on the tradition.