Lydia and Laura Rogers, aka the Secret Sisters, are among the nominees announced on Monday for the annual Americana Music Association Honors and Awards to be given in October. The sisters, along with Jessica Lea Mayfield, The Civil Wars, and the British group Mumford and Sons, have been nominated for the New/Emerging Artist of the Year award. Mumford and Sons and The Civil Wars are also candidates in the Duo/Group category.

Justin Townes Earle‘s “Harlem River Blues” is up for both Album of the Year and Song of the Year. Lucinda Williams‘s album “Blessed” is another Album of the Year nominee. Elizabeth Cook, Buddy Miller and Robert Plant are nominees in multiple categories. The full list of nominees is available on the American Songwriter, Country Music Television and Music Row sites.

Tickets for the Newport Folk Festival will be available on the festival website starting Thursday, March 31 at 10:00 a.m. The festival will be held July 30-31 in Fort Adams State Park, Newport, Rhode Island. Musicians scheduled to perform span a variety of folk music, from traditional to pop-folk to folk rock to blues and even a brass band, and a variety of experience levels from classic to newfound. I enjoyed going through the groups and finding a few new candidates for my personal music library.

Saturday’s lineup includes The Decemberists, Gillian Welch, Gogol Bordello, Earl Scruggs, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Tegan and Sara, Mavis Staples, The Felice Brothers, Delta Spirit, Freelance Whales, The Devil Makes Three, Pokey LaFarge and the South City Three, Typhoon, River City Extension, PS22 Chorus (a nationally recognized elementary school chorus), The Wailin’ Jennys, The Ebony Hillbillies and the What Cheer? Brigade (that’s the brass band). Events also include a Song Circle with Dar Williams, Ellis Paul, John Gorka and Liz Queler. (Note for Mac users: the PS22 website crashed my Safari browser twice in a row but worked fine with Firefox.)

Sunday’s performers are Emmylou Harris, Elvis Costello, Amos Lee, M.Ward, Wanda Jackson, Middle Brother, Justin Townes Earle, Carolina Chocolate Drops, The Civil Wars, Trampled By Turtles, The Cave Singers, The Head & The Heart, Secret Sisters, David Wax Museum, Mountain Man, Brown Bird and The Seeger Clogging All-Stars, led by Tao Seeger.

Tickets are expected to go quickly, so early purchases are advised.

English folk musicologist Cecil Sharp and his secretary Maud Karpeles spent several months of 1916-1918 on multiple trips through the Appalachian Mountains collecting folk songs, largely those Sharp believed to be of British origin. Sharp’s Appalachian diaries are the focus of an upcoming residential project sponsored by the English Folk Dance and Song Society and the Shrewsbury Folk Festival.

Participants include British folk artists Steve Knightley, Jackie Oates, Andy Cutting, Jim Moray, Patsy Reid and Kathryn Roberts; American folk artist Caroline Herring and Canadian folk artist Leonard Podolak. The week-long project begins March 18 and is intended to result in new folk music works. Concerts and a CD release will follow.

[Photo © rosta - Fotolia.com.]

For those of you who celebrate Christmas, does folk music play a part in your Christmas celebration? What’s on your folk Christmas wish list? I’ve been looking around for Christmas music in various folk styles. If you’re doing the same, About.com has a Christmas folk music series that might give you some ideas. Richard Gillmann’s Seattle Folk Music Page lists Christmas music you may not have thought of as folk music — for instance, Ernest Tubb’s version of “Blue Christmas!” Even Amazon.com has a Christmas folk music list all put together. It’s fairly short, but convenient for a busy shopper. At the top of the list is the Seeger family’s collection, American Folk Songs for Christmas, a 2-disc set containing 53 songs in all.

My Christmas folk collection is tiny but growing. Light of the Stable, by Emmylou Harris, was the first folk Christmas album I acquired. I’ve had it for quite a few years now and enjoy listening to it every time. Mary Chapin Carpenter’s Come Darkness, Come Light: Twelve Songs of Christmas is a warm, beautiful, low-key mixture of original and traditional Christmas songs. Odetta’s Christmas Spirituals CD is a joy to listen to. And the child’s reading of the Christmas story in “Dickens’ Dublin” on Loreena McKennitt’s Parallel Dreams album was a pleasant surprise. This year I added the mostly instrumental Christmas Grass CD, by various artists including several name performers. It’s calming for my long work commute and it has a lively version of Joy to the World.

If you enjoy listener-supported folk music radio, Folk Alley is holding its holiday contribution drive. What better way to make folk music an important part of your Christmas?

If you’re looking for last-minute gift ideas for folk-related books rather than music, what about Ralph Stanley’s autobiography, now in paperback? Reviews can be found in the Bluegrass Journal and USA Today. Or Lawrence Epstein’s Political Folk Music in America from Its Origins to Bob Dylan, released earlier this year?

Folk music is alive and well in many forms. Enjoy your choice of folk music this Christmas.

At the recent National Folk Festival in Canberra, the Australia Council for the Arts presented the Don Banks Music Award to folk artist and publisher Warren Fahey. The award is given only once to a particular artist. Among Fahey’s many accomplishments are the founding of the Larrikin folk music label and the Folkways music retail business, the writing of numerous books and the collection and recording of bush folk songs and folk stories….

Concord Music Group, home of an already-wide variety of jazz, rock, pop, R&B, world and classical music, recently announced its acquisition of Rounder Records, the roots label whose better-known artists include Alison Krauss, Willie Nelson and Mary Chapin Carpenter. Rounder was celebrating its 40th year in business this year.

Southern folk singer Caroline Herring was recently given a 2010 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters award in the Popular Music Composition category for her album Golden Apples of the Sun. Herring will be performing at the All Good Cafe in Dallas on Friday evening.

The Old Settler’s Music Festival will be held Thursday, April 15 through Sunday, April 18 near Austin, Texas. Among the scheduled artists are Green Mountain Grass, The Joe Ely Band, Jimmy LaFave, The Wronglers, Ruthie Foster, The Special Consensus, Mindy Smith, Elizabeth Cook and many others including Patty Griffin with Buddy Miller.