Top New Bluegrass Songs: Period ending 12/23/12

Top Newer Bluegrass Songs for the period ending 12/23/12

Reported to Bluegrass Unlimited

It's Christmas Season. There were a bunch of good holiday songs this year--my two favorite holiday projects were Donna Ulisse's All the Way to Bethlehem and Wayne Taylor's Praise His Holy Name, A Christmas Celebration. Donna's project is an all original telling of the Christmas story; Wayne's is a mixture of sacred and secular holiday songs done up with great cheer by Wayne and a bunch of his musical friends. I particularly like Keith Arneson's banjo work.

I'm picking tracks from both projects at the top of this month's list, with the nod going to.... Donna Ulisse's "You Cannot Stay Here," one of four tracks we played from her project during the holiday season.

1. Donna Ulisse, You Cannot Stay Here
2. Wayne Taylor and Friends, Go Tell It on the Mountain
3. The Boxcars, Crawford County
4. Bob Amos, Where the Wild River Rolls
5. The Spinney Brothers, Makin' a Killin'
6. Chris Brashear, Mama's Opry
7. Mark Houser and Bluegrass Drive, John the Baptist
8. Rhonda Vincent, Blue Sky Cathedral
9. The Grass Cats, The Mountains, My Baby, and Me
10. Detour, Quarterline Road
11. Steep Canyon Rangers, Natural Disaster
12. Akira Otsuka, Line Drive
    Holiday Honorable Mention: Wayne Taylor and Friends, Dueling Jingle Bells
    Holiday Honorable Mention: The Cockman Family, Maker of the Stars
    Holiday Honorable Mention: Donna Ulisse, All the Way to Bethlehem

In addition to submitting top new song reports to Bluegrass Unlimited, we also report Black Diamond Show playlists and actual airplay to Bluegrass Today and the the FOLKDJ-L email list and folkradio.org.

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