Leonard Cohen is one of several artists scheduled to be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in June. Cohen, who received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammys in January, recently postponed his tour due to health issues.

Bonnie Raitt will be inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in May.

American folk musician Nanci Griffith and Scottish musician Dick Gaughan received Lifetime Achievement Awards at Monday night’s BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards ceremony at The Brewery in London. Other winners included Jon Boden, Folksinger of the Year; John Kirkpatrick, Musician of the Year; Bellowhead, Best Live Act; Show of Hands (Steve Knightley and Phil Beer), Best Duo; Lau, Best Group; Hill of Thieves, by Cara Dillon, Best Album; “Arrogance Ignorance and Greed,” by Steve Knightley, Best Original Song and “Sir Patrick Spens,” by Martin Simpson, Best Traditional Track. The Horizon Award, given to an emerging artist, went to Sam Carter.

In Sunday night’s Grammy Awards ceremony, Loudon Wainwright III was awarded Best Traditional Folk Album for High Wide & Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project, and Steve Earle took home the Best Contemporary Folk Album title for Townes, an album of songs written by Townes Van Zandt. Steve Martin’s The Crow: New Songs for the Five-String Banjo, mentioned in an earlier post, was named Best Bluegrass Album. Electric Dirt, recorded by Levon Helm, earned the Best Americana Album award, beating out Willie Nelson & Asleep at the Wheel, Bob Dylan, Lucinda Williams and Wilco.

The nominees for the 2010 Grammy Awards were announced Wednesday evening. One of the nominees for Best Traditional Folk Album is Cutting Loose, by David Holt and Josh Goforth. This compilation of comedy and music is a treat to listen to, with a surprise around every corner.

Until recently I had two variations on Steven Foster’s “Oh! Susanna” in my music library — one by The Be Good Tanyas and one by Ruthie Foster. I now have another to add to the list, from ukulele player James Hill and cellist Anne Davison’s first album together, True Love Don’t Weep. The collection of new and traditional music won Traditional Album of the Year at Canadian Folk Music Awards ceremony on Saturday November 21st.

Last night’s Native American Music Awards included the Best Folk Recording award, won by Atsiaktonkie for Four Wolves Prophecy, and the Best Blues Recording award, won by Graywolf Blues Band for Dancing in the Rain. The Best Compilation Recording award was presented to Joanne Shenandoah and Michael Bucher for Bitter Tears Sacred Ground, a Native history album that honors the music of Johnny Cash, Peter La Farge and Floyd Red Crow Westerman while recreating several cuts from Cash’s Bitter Tears album.

Blue Highway co-founder Rob Ickes was named Dobro Player of the Year at Thursday’s International Bluegrass Music Awards. Michael Cleveland took the Fiddle Player of the Year award for the seventh year out of nine, and Kristin Scott Benson was named Banjo Player of the Year for the second time.

Several years ago I happened on a stage performance by Arvel Bird at the Texas Indian Market. Since then I have driven many commuter miles to the sound of his Animal Totems album, a mixture of New Age and Celtic styles. Bird plays every kind of music from bluegrass to jazz and plays the Native American flute as well as the fiddle. The classically trained violinist’s latest CD, Tribal Music Suite, Journey of a Paiute, a reflection of his Scottish and Paiute heritage, tells a story of cultural conflict and of a life journey. Bird is one of the nominees for Artist of the Year in the 11th Annual Native American Music Awards, to be held Saturday, October 3 in Niagara Falls. The awards will be webcast live at 8:00 pm EST.

The Associated Press reports that singer/songwriter Buddy Miller was given the artist of the year award at Thursday night’s Americana Music Association awards ceremony, part of the Americana Music Festival and Conference. Buddy and his wife Julie Miller won the duo/group of the year award and won the album of the year award for Written in Chalk. The song of the year award was given for “Chalk,” a song on the same album, written by Julie Miller and performed by Buddy Miller and Patty Griffin.

Assuming all went as scheduled, Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts presented Bernice Johnson Reagon with an honorary doctorate of music last Friday at their annual Liberal Arts Symposium. Reagon founded the a cappella group Sweet Honey in the Rock and is curator emeritus of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History. She already holds a doctorate in U.S.A. History with a concentration in African American History, Cultural and Oral History Methodologies, earned at Howard University near the beginning of her long career as a folklorist, singer and composer.

A National Headliner Award in the Public Affairs category was recently given to the “Texas Music Matters” program of KUT 90.5 radio, based at the University of Texas at Austin, for the audio documentary “Amazing Grace: The Story of Willie Nelson.” The documentary was produced by David Brown of KUT along with journalist Michael May. The awards are given by the Press Club of Atlantic City.

Awards shows tend to be unpredictable, but some very impressive talents were rewarded Sunday as Canada handed out its annual music awards in Vancouver.

Dallas Green, who performs solo as folk artist City and Colour, received a Juno award for Songwriter of the Year for songs from his album Bring Me Your Love.  Green is also a rock musician with Alexisonfire.

Longtime folk artist and activist Buffy Sainte-Marie won Aboriginal Album of the Year for Running for the Drum. Jayme Stone, a banjo player from Canada, and Mansa Sissoko, a singer and kora (12-string harp) player from Mali, won World Music Album of the Year for their collaboration Africa To Appalachia. Julian Fauth accepted the award for Blues Album of the Year, for Ramblin’ Son, and the group Doc Walker won Country Recording of the Year for the song “Beautiful Life.”

Banjo picker and singer Old Man Luedecke took home a Juno for Roots and Traditional Album of the Year (Solo) for Proof of Love, and independent folk group Chic Gamine was awarded Roots and Traditional Album of the Year (Group) for its self-titled debut album.