2006 BEST Female Vocal CD/SACD/XRCD

Alison Krauss - Forget About It (simply amazing SACD!)
KD Lang - Songs from the 49th Parallel (Not Audiophile, but wow!)
Janice Ian - Folk is the New Black

Calgarian

I have fallen in love with an acoustic band that features Jessica Havey on vocals. This young group of players from Canada called The Duhks plays an interesting mix of Celtic, Traditional, Gospel, Zydeco, even Reggae, and more. Jessica Havey has a voice that can be clean and clear, a little smoky and soulful at times and compelling without flashy pyrotechnics or style for its own sake. Their recent release, Migrations, is well recorded and features a variety of styles. Between Havey's vocals and Tania Elizabeth's sweet violin, my ears are caught in an aural love triangle.
Just listen to the track "Who Will Take My Place?". A true relief from over produced rubbish and a lesson on how to take a simple song and cut directly to the heart.

And Margo Timmins (Cowboy Junkies) is ALWAYS a great pick. Her brothers and her put together another great album, Early 21st Century Blues. it's mainly a great covers album, but the 3 originals are some of my most favorite Junkies songs in the past few years. Saw them in Kent OH last month and they were incredible.

Over the Rhine - Ohio

Available on double cd, or vinyl.

www.overtherhine.com

A really great band with a dozen albums out. No one seems to know them because they never really had a radio hit.

John C.

John,
I have a couple OTR albums and really like them. Another CDBaby find was Third Road Home - Sister/brother act, and Trinity has a very good voice with better songwriting talents ... al but one cut is hers.

One of my fav's is Tift Merritt - her first sounds like the premature reincarnation of Emmylou Harris, her second is more roots rock, and again she writes almost all her own music. And she's a great kid (well, not a kid anymore actually)

Some other somewhat different non-traditional-best-female vocals:

Ruthie Foster (try 'Hymns' - it's not what it sounds like)
Kasey Chambers (first one more 'country', second and third more rock, but categorization is blurry)
Ollabelle - bluegrass and gospel

And a final favorite - Maura O'Connell. Try 'Stories' - produced by Jerry Douglas (who also plays on it along with Edgar Meyer, James Taylor and many others). More of the 'traditional best voice' with a Celtic/Country/rock twist.