Band of the year — The Imposters
I'm not in the band, so I'm not just being boastful. We've been on the road since last September and they always know what to do with any song I throw at them. We've had terrific company: David Hidalgo from Los Lobos and Howlin' Wolf guitarist, Hubert Sumlin, both sat in on guitar and we're doing a number of dates with Emmylou Harris as guest vocalist — it doesn't get any better than singing harmony with Emmy.
"The Knowing" by Lucinda Williams
One of six new songs she played at a concert I attended, all of which were superb. The most fun was "Jailhouse Tears," which I learned while she was getting ready and we sang together as the final song. Now, that is spontaneous.
Robert Gordon
For assembling Shakespeare Was a Big George Jones Fan: "Cowboy" Jack Clement's Home Movies, a documentary about the maverick producer Jack Clement. Very funny and poignant. I'd also mention Peter Guralnick. I'm only a couple of chapters into Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke, the long awaited biography but I can't wait to finish it and don't want it to end at the same time.
Breakthrough
I did run into an excellent singer and songwriter in Norway called Thomas Dybdahl, whose album One Day You'll Dance for Me in New York City I'd recommend. I really dig The Zutons, and I also like the Coldplay song, "Fix You."
Bettye LaVette
She cut the great "Let Me Down Easy" way back, and now Joe Henry — who produced Solomon Burke's Don't Give Up On Me — has done a great new record with her I've Got My Own Hell To Raise.
Funniest moment
More tragi-comic really — turning up at a circus in Konstanz, Germany and finding that we were sharing the bill with a puppet theatre was rather Spinal Tap.
Bruce Springsteen in New Jersey
A dead heat with my wife, Diana [Krall]'s swinging show in Shanghai. Singing about being a son and a father isn't easy rock 'n' roll territory, but Bruce really drew people in.
Lifetime achievement — Joe Bussard
Check out the DVD, Desperate Man Blues. He's an eccentric record collector who's preserved all sorts of magical corners of music — although be says things like, "There are no good jazz records made after 1927."
Invent a category you would have won hands down
Person least likely to cut a Christina Aguilera song. (Actually, I have...)
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