First, an explanatory note:
I refrain from calling these "The Best of 2008" 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 ten favorites this year. 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 2008, 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.

Susie Burke & David Surette: When the Small Birds Sweetly Sing
(Madrina MM104)

An absolutely charming, highly melodic CD from two people who lovingly perform the songs of others rather than writing their own. They've made wonderful choices from the likes of Pierce Pettis, Mark Simos, Pete Sutherland, Jean Ritchie, Pat Donohue, Elmer Beal, and even Stephen Sondheim. The instrumentation and production of this CD is as perfect as it gets. I'd buy this CD just for Burke & Surette's performance of Pat Donohoe's "All My Life." They only issue a new recording about once every seven or eight years, so they enjoy the luxury of making it perfect.

Joe Crookston: Able Baker Charlie & Dog (Milagrito JBJO 78)

Crookston is a weirdly eclectic songwriter and his songs vary widely. They range from inebriated roosters to the building of the runways on Tinian Island in the Pacific for the Enola Gay (which is the title song, the alpha designations for those runways). Crookston's pleasing voice and ample, but appropriate production supports his songs well. Although very simple, "Bird By Bird" is a song that's hard to get out of your head. It took awhile for this album to grow on me, but once I accepted its diversity and unusual topics I realized its greatness.

Kitty Donohoe: Northern Border (Roheen RR007)

Donohoe only records a new album about once every seven years. (More singer-songwriters should follow her lead.) So she whittles it down to her best songs carefully honed. This CD shows impressive attention to detail highlighting memorable songs. Her Irish roots imbue the CD with a strong Celtic flavor aided and abetted by rich acoustic production. She's one of the rare songwriters who composes truly sticky melodies. This is her first CD to include "There Are No Words," perhaps the best song drawn from the tragedy of September 11, 2001.

Greg Greenway: Standing on the Side of Love (Face SOH 005)

There's no defining Greenway, he's all over the map in context and style. He's a bit of Jacques Brel, Phil Ochs, and Ray Charles. He also knows how to compose great melodies and complex lyrics to weave into them. He's at home on guitar and piano. The production varies from loud to intimate, but the quality never wavers. His song for his mother "The Weight of Feathers" is worth the entire CD.

Cindy Kallet Ellen Epstein Michael Cicone: Heart Walk (Overall Music OM-3)

Heart Walk is the fruit of the tree of friendship. These longtime friends unite about once a decade to record a CD. Their personal styles widely vary, but when they come together it's a match made in heaven. About half the CD consists of original songs, which are very good and the other half their favorites by other writers. The performance style varies from a cappella harmonies to simple acoustic instrumentation. It's an amazing CD.

Enoch Kent: One More Round (Borealis BCD190)

If you like traditional music, Kent is your man. Raised in Scotland, resident in Canada, the music runs in his blood. I consider him the best traditional interpreter since Ewan MacColl and those are mighty words of praise considering my worship of MacColl. Of course, Kent sneaks in a few originals and a few by other traditional sounding writers, just as MacColl did. His assured voice and absolute love of the music affirm the timelessness of traditional music. And his own closing song, "Crematorium Song" shows his droll sense of humor.

Lowen & Navarro with Phil Parlapiano: Learning to Fall (Red Hen EGG 6)

This poignant CD could be the duo's last after a long and impressive career together. Many of the songs reflect upon or are colored by Eric Lowen's debilitating fatal illness, but none are bathetic or maudlin. While I normally don't choose a "pop" oriented CD as a favorite, this one is so well produced with such strong songs I could not resist. Since Eric no longer plays guitar, talented Parlapiano fills in admirably on a variety of instruments and back-up vocals. This CD richly flows out of the speakers with songs that make you think about life. And you can hum them while doing that thinking.

Magpie: In This World: Looking Back, Moving Forward (Sliced Bread CDSB75315)

There's always an exception to the rule. While compilations and collections rarely are favorites, this one is so radiant and phenomenal that I have to include it. Greg Artzner and Terry Leonino, who are Magpie, celebrated 35 years of making music together by recording this CD of 16 of their favorite songs from the past 35 years. These are fresh takes, recorded in 2008, of songs they truly love. These performances always match and usually exceed the original recordings. There's a new depth, maturity and inner radiance found in each song. It is a mixture of originals and covers, the latter extremely well chosen. Their originals "Before the Morning" and "Give Light" along with Rachel Bissex's "One Another" and Phil Ochs' "When I'm Gone," are worth twice the price of this CD. (This is a different version of "When I'm Gone" than the closing theme of The Midnight Special.) The instrumentation and its musicianship, harmonies, and of course songs, make this an outstanding recording.

KATHY MATTEA: Coal (Captain Potato 7653260-2)

One of the most gorgeous voices in Nashville put her successful country-folk career on hold to record this CD of conscience and passion. She was raised in coal country and felt the need to give back by making people aware of the struggle and strife through the 11 songs on this CD. Normally coal mining songs are performed by artists with more heart than voice. Mattea sings these songs with heart and voice, making them more accessible to a broader audience. She's chosen some of the best songs of the genre including Jean Ritchie, Utah Phillips, Billy Edd Wheeler, Si Kahn and Hazel Dickens. Mattea is accompanied by some of the best studio musicians in the trade. This is not casual listening, but it is beautiful.

Carrie Newcomer: The Geography of Light (Philo 11671-1253-2)

Newcomer is philosopher, sage, mystic and poet with an alto voice that I would follow to the ends of the earth. She also finally reached the perfect balance of accompaniment/production with her voice. The thoroughly engrossing songs require several listening to see all the light (and dark) within them. Newcomer improves with every CD and her poetry grows more complex and luminous. Or perhaps it's her voice that grows more complex and luminous. There's also a postscript on this CD in her hilarious and timely "Don't Push Send."

Here are some honorable mentions, which, if you caught me on a different day, might have made this list:

Debra Cowan: Fond Desire Farewell (Falling Mountain FM1054

Randall Williams: Praying for Land (Musafir 06)
(Just a note on this one: Incredible voice, outstanding songs, dreadful production.)

Tom May: Blue Roads Red Wine (Waterbug WBG80)

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.