On the heels of last week’s Academy of Country Music Awards, we’re already onto the next awards cycle for the greater country universe.
The Americana Music Association has announced the slate of nominees for their 2026 awards, which mark their milestone 25th anniversary. While this year’s crop of nominees don’t exactly address the “Americana So White” or “Country Music For Liberals” criticisms of this particular “AMA,” there’s certainly a high bar for quality represented on the ballot.
Artist of the Year
Brandi Carlile
Charley Crockett
Margo Price
Molly Tuttle
Jesse Welles
It’s rare for the Americana Music Awards to set one artist up to run the table, so here we find Carlile nominated elsewhere only for Song Of The Year and Price nominated only for Album of the Year, while the other three nominees for recognition as the premier artist in Americana apparently did so without putting out one of the year’s best albums or songs. Which is to say that these awards are always one of the more idiosyncratic.
Which is to also say that we continue to find Jesse Welles to be, at best, a nuisance. Carlile and Price are here on the strength of career-best / career-rejuvenating works, while Tuttle used 2025 to make a quite effective rebrand, and Crockett out-hustled damn near everybody in the game. An 80% shot at landing on a deserving winner.
Album of the Year
Billionaire, Kathleen Edwards (Our Review)
Cruel Joke, Ken Pomeroy (Our Review)
Hard Headed Woman, Margo Price (Our Review)
Planting by the Signs, S.G. Goodman (Our Review)
Snipe Hunter, Tyler Childers (Our Review)
We certainly wouldn’t expect this voting body to atone for the ACM’s unforgivable sin of claiming Parker McCollum’s album was better than Carter Faith’s, but they did come up with a real murderer’s row for this category. We rated four of these five albums at a full ****1/2, and the fifth was the parent album for our 2025 Single Of The Year. No way to be mad about that at all. This could honestly go to any of the five and not be a shock– even Bari Weiss fangirl Edwards’ record was produced by Jason Isbell– but also landing in the Song of the Year category might point toward Goodman having the edge?
Duo or Group of the Year
Flatland Cavalry
I’m With Her
Mumford & Sons
Turnpike Troubadours
Gillian Welch & David Rawlings
Wild to see one of the ACM nominees for Vocal Group of the Year in the running here, too, but what a testament to how great Flatland Cavalry are. If only the ACMs had the chutzpah to nominate Turnpike. Mumford & Sons stick out here– would have swapped them out for Ghost Hounds without a second’s hesitation– but the other four nominees all did stellar work during the last year. Head says I’m With Her will win, but Turnpike has my heart until they actually start getting their proper due.
Emerging Artist of the Year
Boy Golden
Crowe Boys
Kashus Culpepper
Ken Pomeroy
Mon Rovîa
A tremendous line-up, and the one category that really embraces how diverse contemporary Americana (country…) music actually is. We’ve reviewed all of these acts favorably and have highlighted their very real promise in doing so. Recency bias has me pulling for Boy Golden, but Ken Pomeroy’s album is tremendous, too, and I do think the centering of Indigenous women’s voices in Americana has been one of the most important and fascinating trends of the last couple of years. But I’ve also listened to Crowe Boys’ “Bootstraps” and Culpepper’s “After Me” the most out of these five acts, so… Truly, they can’t pick a bad winner here.
Song of the Year
“Returning To Myself,” Brandi Carlile; Written by Brandi Carlile
“Snapping Turtle,” S.G. Goodman; Written by S.G. Goodman
“Wild and Clear and Blue,” I’m With Her; Written by Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O’Donovan & Sara Watkins
“Heavy Foot,” Mon Rovîa; Written by Grant Averill, Eric Cromartie, Cooper Holzman & Andrew Lowe
“The World’s Gone Wrong,” Lucinda Williams (feat. Brittney Spencer); Written by Tom Overby,
Doug Pettibone & Lucinda Williams
The Carlile song really serves as a thesis statement for her most recent album in a way I found powerful, and “Heavy Foot” is probably the best song they could’ve selected to highlight what makes Mon Rovîa such a unique talent. But it’s hard to fathom I’m With Her– who’ve kind of turned into an awards magnet– not winning something, as they continue to get better and better as a singular act. Still, Goodman’s deepening talents as a songwriter are among the absolute finest in the country space right now, and “Snapping Turtle,” if not the future standard that “Space and Time” is turning into, is just sublime.
Utterly wild to think that a song by no less than Lucinda Williams (!!!) is the weakest in a songwriting category, and with an awfully good song, at that.
Winners will be announced during a ceremony held at The Ryman Auditorium on Wednesday, September 16, as the capstone event for the 2026 AMERICANAFEST in Nashville, now in its 26th year.
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