Twenty years into reviewing CDs and the occasional book for Rambles.NET, I am struck by how much I continue to adore tradition-based music as well as by the large role it has played in my life for so much of it. Since drugs are not among my habits, I consume alcohol moderately, and I am religiously indifferent, roots sounds must be what fill that space in my life. Frankly, I don't know why everybody doesn't share my enthusiasm. But then, as I am wont to lament in many comparably bewildering situations, nobody ever asks me.

The albums listed below, in no order except alphabetical, gave me particular joy over the past year. Obviously, and just as well, I don't get to hear everything. These represent what fell within my hearing and into my possession, either as review discs or as those I purchased for myself. Those that I reviewed have attached asterisks. Some of those that don't will be covered in coming weeks.

Far and away the finest box set the past 12 months gifted us is Playing for the Man at the Door: Field Recordings from the Collection of Mack McCormick. It comprises three CDs (66 selections) of downhome blues finally available to all of us after being guarded obsessively by the late Houston-based McCormick, a self-educated folksong scholar who suffered paranoia, mental illness and deep suspicion of just about anyone who expressed interest in his holdings. Smithsonian Folkways has done a brilliant job on all levels, beginning with production and continuing with packaging, including a big book of essays with photographs of the time and place that generated these extraordinary performances. This is not just 2023's top box set but the recording event of the year. - Jerome Clark

* Ray Bonneville, On the Blind Side (Stonefly)
* Dale Ann Bradley, Kentucky for Me (Pinecastle)
* Michael Jerome Browne, Gettin' Together (Borealis/Stony Plain)
Kevin Burt & Big Medicine, Thank You Brother Bill (Gulf Coast)
* William Lee Ellis, Ghost Hymns (Yellow Dog)

Furrow Collective, We Know by the Moon (Hudson)
* Hog-Eyed Man, Kicked up a Devil of a Row (Tiki Parlor)
* Steve Howell, Gallery of Echoes (Out of the Past Music)
* Lorraine Jordan & Carolina Road, A Little Bit of Bluegrass (Pinecastle)
Terry Klein, Leave the Light On (independent)

* Lankum, False Lankum (Rough Trade)
Taj Mahal, Savoy (Stony Plain)
* Lynn Miles, tumbleWeedyWorld (True North)
Van Morrison, Moving on Skiffle (Exile/Virgin)
* Tracy Nelson, Life Don't Miss Nobody (BMG)

* Omar & the Howlers, What's Buggin' You? (Big Guitar Music)
* Alasdair Roberts, Grief in the Kitchen & Mirth in the Hall (Drag City)
* Marina Rocks, Texcentric (independent)
* Leon Rosselson, Chronicling the Times (PM Press/Free Dirt)
* Martin Simpson & Thomm Jutz, Nothing but Green Willow (Topic)

* April Verch & Cody Walters, Passages & Partings (Slab City)
Colter Wall, Little Songs (Honda/RCA)
The Winch Family & Co., The Irish Riviera (independent)
* Mitch Woods, Friends Along the Way (Club 88)