Artists Not to be Overlooked for the 2025 Grammy Awards

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The first round of voting for the 67th Annual Grammy Awards began on October 4th, and will run until October 15th. This will determine the nominees in the respective Grammy categories, which will be announced on November 8th. Currently, many labels, publicists, managers, and others are lobbying hard for their artists to be considered.

Since the Grammy Awards are one of the few awards that weigh artistic merit over commercial success—and also nominate and award performers in Americana, bluegrass, folk, and roots categories—it makes it a bit more important to pay attention to for fans and advocates of independent artists. A nomination, and especially a win can mean big things for an artist’s career.

These are not the obvious front runners or perhaps even the most deserving nominees. But just to make sure Grammy voters don’t pass over some of the artists who should deserve strong consideration in 2025, here’s some of the performers not to be overlooked.

Sierra Ferrell


Best Americana Album – Trail of Flowers

Best American Roots Song, Best Americana Performance – “American Dreaming”

Best New Artist

Like a lone flower sprouting up through a hairline crack in a barren field of blanched concrete stretching out for miles in every direction, Sierra Ferrell symbolizes the hope and determination of beauty to push through and not be vanquished even among the most trying of times, and the most foreboding of circumstances.

You sure hope that the folks who vote for the Grammy Awards are clued into the Sierra Ferrell phenomenon, and just how stellar the last year of her career has been. After all, she just won Album of the Year for Trail of Flowers, and Artist of the Year at the Americana Music Awards. But never underestimate the Recording Academy to overlook the rising up-and-comers for familiar, more established names.

In a just world, Sierra Ferrell would be a front-runner for nominations, and a top contender for wins. But since the Grammys have a history of being a year behind breakouts (Jason Isbell, Sturgill Simpson, etc.), we shouldn’t take anything for granted.

Charley Crockett


Best Americana Album – $10 Cowboy

Crockett may have made it to the top, but his new album $10 Cowboy isn’t about where he’s at. It’s about how he got here, the struggles he incurred, the setbacks he overcame, the perseverance he had to exhibit, and the characters and places he experienced along the way. It’s a road map, a travelogue, and an inspiring story of ultimate success told via three chords, and a diverse array of sounds that boldly pull from the entirety of the American roots music legacy.

Is Crockett’s $10 Cowboy the greatest album of his career? He’s released so many of them, it’s hard to give that assessment to any one title. What seems certain though is that he deserves Grammy recognition if anyone does as one of the hardest working musicians in all of music who has made the legacy of American roots music cool. 2025 is as good a year as any for the Grammys to recognize that work, if it’s not already a year or two behind.

Kaitlin Butts


Best Country Album – Roadrunner!

Uninterested in taking a conventional approach to making an album, Kaitlin Butts finds inspiration in the original Rodgers and Hammerstein stage production about her native state of Oklahoma to release a conceptualized work that is as epic, involved, entertaining, and thought-provoking upon the interpersonal relationships of men and women as the original award-winning play. But don’t be afraid that theatrics dominate the experience. Overall, this album is country.

No different than Sierra Ferrell and Charley Crockett, Kaitlin Butts has experienced a breakout year in 2024, has seen swelling crowds, her first headliner tour, and releasing this critically-acclaimed, landmark album. If we’re serious about supporting women in country—and women who’ve been doggedly pursuing it for years as opposed to sliding in recently—Kaitlin should be given strong consideration.

The Red Clay Strays


Best Americana Album – Made By These Moments

Best New Artist

Whether the world is ready for them or not, the Alabama-bred roots music collective known as the Red Clay Strays are here, and surging in a way that is reminiscent of the meteoric rise of other independent-minded performers with throwback sounds reorganizing the country music world in revolutionary ways. In bold, powerful songs, the Red Clay Strays take you places most other performers are unwilling or unable to.

Considered one of the fastest-rising live acts in all of music, the band’s recorded output has also been highly admired, but perhaps slightly in arrears from where they are live, unaided by the right producer to really coax the best out of them. This meant the Red Clay Strays still needed to codify their success through a proper studio effort. They achieve this with Made By These Moments.

2024 has been a breakout year for many performers across the country and roots world. But none has been bigger than the breakout of the Red Clay Strays.

Zach Top


Best Country Album – Cold Beer & Country Music

Best New Artist

It’s not just Zach Top’s music, nor just his history. It’s the cut of his jib. It’s the contours of his character. It’s the full package that assures you that Zach isn’t going to go venturing off into noise rock anytime soon, or start telling off his own fans to flex his creative autonomy. There is a level of assurance that comes with the Zach Top experience that the future of country music is in good hands. You feel like your witnessing a ’90s country superstar that just emerged from a time portal.

Zach Top is likely to be one of the biggest artists in country music in the coming years. The Grammy Awards would be smart to jump on the train now.

Jesse Welles


Best Folk Album – Hells Welles

It hasn’t just been the incredible keenness of the observances, or the tightness of the arguments, or the masterful turns of phrases from Welles that has made the whole phenomenon so compelling. It’s also been the curiously voluminous nature of Jesse Welles output that has rocketed him from a somewhat obscure semi-successful rock musician to America’s apocalyptic poet laureate. What Jesse Welles is doing right now truly is comparable to Dylan and Prine in their heyday, and it should be going viral and topping the charts like Oliver Anthony did a year ago.

If there was ever an album and an artist that defines our time and deserves Grammy Award to codify its importance for history, it would be Jesse Welles and Hells Welles.

Joshua Ray Walker


Best Americana Performance, Best American Roots Song – “Thank You For Listening”

Joshua Ray Walker is one of the greatest singers, and one of the greatest songwriters of the new generation of country music performers, full stop. The command and control he exhibits with his voice includes a dramatic range that leaves most of his peers in the dust, and his yodel is as crisp as any. His songs are so good, he won the Saving Country Music Song of the Year in 2020 with “Voices,” and had another song “Cowboy” nominated in 2021.

Late last year, Walker revealed that had colon Cancer, and released this new song along with acoustic renditions of some of his others. It’s since been revealed that the Cancer has moved to Walker’s lungs. Irrespective of his diagnosis, Walker has probably deserved multiple Grammy Awards throughout his career for the work he did on his album trilogy, and he at least deserves strong consideration for “Thank You For Listening.”

The Wonder Women of Country


Best Americana Album – Willis, Carper, Leigh

There is strength in numbers, and no doubt country music needs heroes to step up and help save the genre, especially when it comes to the representation of strong and talented women. More powerful than a locomotive, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, Kelly Willis, Melissa Carper, and Brennen Leigh have formed the Wonder Women of Country to help battle the forces of evil in country music, and perhaps to fight crime and save lives whenever called into action as well.

This was just supposed to be a simple EP for a side project, but this group and this album symbolize so much more. And yes, it’s a little frustrating that the Wonder Women of COUNTRY would be competing in “Americana,” but the music probably does fit better in that realm. Either way, they deserve serious regard.

Shane Smith and the Saints – Norther – Best Americana Album – The epicness and weight that Shane Smith and the Saints evoke through their songs is something virtually unparalleled in the modern era of music. Even assigning genre to it seems like a diminishing qualifier. You nearly have to hearken back to the era of symphonies and concertos, Bach and Beethoven to find comparable movements that stir the emotions of man, and awaken the audience of the gods.

Though this band from Austin doesn’t feel like the kind of outfit that the Grammy Awards favor, this album is one they should consider showcasing out of the crowded field of releases.

Noeline Hoffman – “Purple Gas” – Best Country Song / Best Country Solo Performance – Zach Bryan took himself out of contention for Grammy Awards this run, but this stellar song that Bryan helped blow up should not be overlooked by Grammy voters, nor the success Bryan had with it thanks to Hoffman’s writing.

Luke Combs – Fathers & Sons – Best Country Album – No, Luke Combs is not a guy you would normally worry about being overlooked by awards organizations. But it’s worth underscoring what an important and critically-acclaimed release Fathers & Sons is. This album didn’t do great commercially compared to other Combs albums, but it’s full of great songs, and was something a little different from one of mainstream country’s top performers. In a year where Beyoncé, Shaboozey, and Post Malone might compete for Best Country Album, let’s make sure Luke’s effort doesn’t go under-appreciated.

49 Winchester and American Aquarium – Best Americana Album – In such a busy year for big releases and breakout moments, the prospects might not be great for either of these bands. But it does feel like they deserve Grammy nods at some point, and both released remarkable albums during the eligibility period.

Swamp Dogg – Blackgrass: From West Virginia to 125 Ave. – Best Bluegrass Album – Sure, there are “better” bluegrass albums out there, and perhaps Swamp Dogg would be a long shot with an album that’s more of a side project. But it’s worth emphasizing here that this isn’t just a silly effort by Swamp Dogg. He used real top-flight bluegrass players, and included some fun and good original songs. This is a legitimate bluegrass album, and should not be taken as anything else.

Jason Hawk Harris – Thin Places – Best Americana Album – This is a long shot of course, but anyone who’s actually listened to this album knows that it is one of the most forward-thinking and involved projects of the last few years that it’s worthy of selecting out of the choir, and highlighting for it’s classically-inspired country compositions.

Pony Bradshaw – Thus Spoke The Fool – Best Americana Album – It’s unclear if this album was even submitted to the Grammy Awards. But Pony continues to be the premier wordsmith of Southern vernacular in the music space while finding surprisingly wide reception for his music. He’s the prime example of the kind of artist the Grammy Awards should highlight.

Melissa Carper – Borned in Ya – Best Americana Album // Emily Nenni – Drive & Cry – Best Country Album – A couple of other career efforts you’d love to see the Grammy Awards recognize.

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