Best Roots Music Albums '06

picked by Roots Café co-founder and music critic Geoffrey Himes

1. Jon Dee Graham: Full (Freedom)
2. Drive-By Truckers: A Blessing & a Curse (New West)
3. Allen Toussaint & Elvis Costello: River in Reverse (Verve Forecast)
4. Los Lobos: Town & City (Mammoth/Hollywood)
5. The Decemberists: The Crane Wife (Capitol)
6. Anthony Hamilton: Ain’t Nobody Worryin’ (So-So Def/Zomba)
7. Bob Dylan: Modern Times (Columbia)
8. Bobby Lounge: Ten Foot Woman (Abitan)
9. Don Rigsby & the Midnight Call: Hillbilly Heartache (Rebel)
10. Willie Nelson: You Don’t Know Me (Lost Highway)
11. Rosanne Cash: Black Cadillac (Capitol)
12. Burnside Exploration: The Record (Lucky 13)
13. Tom Waits: Orphans (Anti-)
14. The Hold Steady: Boys and Girls in America (Vagrant)
15. Ray Wylie Hubbard: Snake Farm (Sustain/Universal)
16. Bruce Springsteen: The Seeger Sessions (Columbia)
17. Pine Leaf Boys: La Musique (Arhoolie)
18. J.J. Cale & Eric Clapton: The Road to Escondido (Reprise)
19. The Bottle Rockets: Zoysia (Bloodshot)
20. The North Mississippi Allstars: Electric Blue Watermelon (ATO)
21. Julie Roberts: Men & Mascara (Mercury)
22. Kasey Chambers: Carnival (Warner Bros.)
23. Alejandro Escovedo: The Boxing Mirror (Back Porch/Narada)
24. David Krakauer & Socalled with Klezmer Madness: Bubbemeises: Lies My Gramma Told Me (Label Bleu)
25. Michael Hall: The Song He Was Listening to When He Died
26. Dale Ann Bradley: Catch Tomorrow (Compass)
27. Alan Jackson: Like Red on a Rose (Arista)
28. The David Grisman Quintet: Dawg's Groove (Acoustic Disc)
29. Shawn Camp: Fireball (Skeeterbit)
30. Crooked Still: Shaken by a Low Sound (Signature Sounds)
31. Dashboard Confessional: Dusk and Summer (Vagrant)
32. Sunny Sweeney: Heartbreaker's Hall of Fame (Sweeney)
33. Solomon Burke: Nashville (Shout Factory)
34. Eric Church: Sinners Like Me (Capitol)
35. Van Morrison: Pay the Devil (Lost Highway)
36. Marty Stuart & his Fabulous Superlatives: Live at the Ryman (Superlatone/Universal South)
37. The Del McCoury Band: The Promised Land (McCoury)
38. Dierks Bentley: Long Trip Alone (Capitol)
39. Van Hunt: On the Jungle Floor (Capitol)
40. Old Crow Medicine Show: Big Iron World (Nettwerk)