Born Roy Alan Bookbinder in Queens, New York on October 5, 1943, he took up the guitar following a tour of duty in the U.S. Navy, after acquiring his first instrument in Italy and returning to New York. A student and friend of the Reverend Gary Davis, whom he met in 1966 and with whom he also toured during the late 1960s, Book Binder launched his career during the folk and blues revival in New York’s Greenwich Village, where he was a frequent participant in open mics hosted by Dave Van Ronk, The Mayor of MacDougal Street, In the early 1970s,Book Binder recorded Travelin’ Man, his first solo acoustic album on Adelphi Records, left his abode in the Village, and began rambling around the world. A real road warrior and contemporary itinerant bluesman, he traveled extensively across the U.S. in a motor home, while also playing festivals and other gigs around Canada, Europe and Australia. The Travelin’ Man and The Book, as he was alternately known, also joined Bonnie Raitt on an east coast tour and toured with Jorma Kaukonen (who recorded two of Book Binder’s songs – “The Preacher Picked the Guitar” and “Another Man Done A Full Go Round,” and invited him to teach guitar at his Fur Peace Ranch — which he did for some 20 years). During the late 1980s, Book Binder made nearly 30 appearances on Nashville Now with Ralph Emory on cable TV’s The Nashville Network (TNN).

A resident of St. Petersburg, Florida, Book Binder was a consummate entertainer known for his distinctive fingerpicking style and slide arrangements, along with his captivating storytelling. His engaging concert and festival performances were punctuated with humorous anecdotes and personal stories.

“I don’t play gigs in places where I wouldn’t go socially,” Book Binder once told thecountryblues.com. “I don’t play the bar blues scene. It’s not my thing. I am just a folk player. Until I started my own label, I didn’t know you could make money from selling records. I had recorded plenty of times, but I never got paid by the labels. So I started my own.”

Although Book Binder helped to keep old-time folk songs and the Piedmont blues tradition alive through the decades and had a vast repertoire, he also wrote and recorded his own songs. Beginning in the late 1990s, he released albums on his own independent label (Peg Leg Records) after having previously recorded for Adelphi, Blue Goose, Flying Fish, Kicking Mule, and Rounder Records.

Book Binder — who died just days after one of his acoustic blues and roots music contemporaries, John Hammond — leaves behind his second wife, Nancy, whom he married in 1999, his brothers Michael and Paul, and a vast repertoire of music and memories.

Here’s a complete listing of the nominees in the American Roots Music Field, while select nominees in other categories of particular interest to readers of AcousticMusicScene.com are mentioned in a paragraph following that:

Best Americana Album:

Big Money – Jon Baptiste
Bloom – Larkin Poe
Last Leaf On The Tree – Willie Nelson
So Long Little Miss Sunshine – Molly Tuttle
Middle – Jesse Welles

Best Americana Performance:

“Boom” – Sierra Hull
“Poison In My Well” – Maggie Rose & Grace Potter
“Godspeed” – Mavis Staples
“That’s Gonna Leave A Mark” – Molly Tuttle
“Horses” – Jesse Welles

Best American Roots Performance:

“Lonely Avenue” — Jon Batiste (featuring Randy Newman)
“Ancient Light” – I’m With Her
“Crimson And Clay” – Jason isbell
“Richmond On The James” – Alison Krauss & Union Station
“Beautiful Strangers” – Mavis Staples

Best American Roots Song:

“Ancient Light” – Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O’Donovan & Sara Watkins, songwriters (I’m With Her)

“Big Money” – Jon Baptiste, Mike Elizondo & Steve McEwan, songwriters (Jon Baptiste)                                                              “Foxes In The Snow” – Jason Isbell, songwriter (Jason Isbell)                                                                                                              “Middle” – Jesse Welles, songwriter (Jesse Welles)                                                                                                                                  “Spitfire” – Sierra Hull, songwriter (Sierra Hull)

Best Bluegrass Album:

Carter & Cleveland – Michael Cleveland & Jason Carter Carter                                                                                                           A Tip Toe High Wire – Sierra Hull                                                                                                                                                  Arcadia – Alison Krauss & Union Station
Outrun – The Steeldrivers                                                                                                                                                                Highway Prayers –- Billy Strings

Best Folk Album:

What Did The Blackbird Say To The Crow – Rhiannon Giddens & Justin Robinson
Crown of Roses – Patty Griffin                                                                                                                                                              Wild And Clear And Blue – I’m With Her
Foxes In The Snow – Jason Isbell                                                                                                                                                      Under The Powerlines April 24-September 24 – Jesse Welles

Best Contemporary Blues Album:

Breakthrough – Joe Bonamassa                                                                                                                                                          Paper Doll – Samantha Fish
A Tribute To LJK – Eric Gales                                                                                                                                                        Preacher Kids – Robert Randolph                                                                                                                                                      Family – Southern Avenue

Best Traditional Blues Album:

Ain’t Done With The Blues – Buddy Guy
Room On The Porch – Taj Mahal & Keb’ Mo’                                                                                                                                      One Hour Mama: The Blues of Victoria Stivey – Maria Muldaur                                                                                                Look Out Highway – Charlie Musselwhite                                                                                                                                      Young Fashioned Ways – Kenny White Shepherd & Bobby Rush

Best Regional Roots Music Album:

Live At Vaughan’s – Corey Henry & The Treme Funktet
For Fat Man – Preservation Brass & Preservation Hall Jazz Band                                                                                            Church Of New Orleans  – Kyle Roussel                                                                                                                                            Second Line Sunday – Trombone Shorty And New Breed Brass Band                                                                                               A Tribute To The King Of Zydeco – Various Artists

Also of note: Nominees for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album include Bella Fleck, Edgar Castaneda & Antonio Sanchez for BEATrio, while Sierra Hull’s “Lord, That’s A Long Way” is in the running for Best Instrumental Composition. Angelique Kidjo’s “Jerusalema” is among the nominees for Best Global Music Performance. The soundtrack for A Complete Unknown, the Bob Dylan biopic, is nominated for Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media, while Joni Mitchell Archives – Volume 4: The Asylum Years – 1976-1980 is among the nominees for Best Historical album. Alison Krauss & Union Station’s Arcadia is up for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. Nominees for Best Country Solo Album include Chris Stapleton’s Bad As I Used To Be and Tyler Childers’ Nose On The Grindstone. Stapleton also snagged a nominations for Best Country Song for both “A Song To Sing” (with Miranda lambert) and “Honky Tonk Hall of Fame” (with George Strait), while Childers is also nominated for Best Country Song for “Bitin’ List” and with Margo Price for Best Country Duo/Group Performance for “Love Me Like You Used To Do.” In total, nominees were named in 95 categories on November 7 from among recordings released between August 31, 2024 – August 30, 2025.

Voting members of the Recording Academy (grammy.com), who represent all genres and creative disciplines, select the GRAMMY Award winners. These members include recording artists, songwriters, composers, producers, mixers, and engineers. Dedicated to ensuring the recording arts remain a thriving part of our shared cultural heritage, the Academy honors music’s history while investing in its future through the GRAMMY Museum, advocates on behalf of music creators, supports music people in times of need through MusiCares, and celebrates artistic excellence through the GRAMMY Awards.

The GRAMMY Awards show will be broadcast live from Los Angeles’ Crypto.com Arena on Sunday, February 1, 2026 on the CBS Television Network and streaming on Paramount+ from 8-11:30 p.m. ET/5-8:30 p.m. PT. However, the winners in the American Roots Music Field and select others will be recognized prior to the telecast during the GRAMMY Awards Premiere Ceremony at the Peacock Theater that will be streamed live on live.GRAMMY.com and the Recording Academy’s YouTube channel at 3:30 p.m. ET/12:30 p.m. ET.

Editor’s Note: Please excuse the formatting issues with the listing of nominees in some categories.

Katie Dahl (Baileys Harbor, WI), Martin Gilmore (Denver, CO), Sara Beth Go (Nashville, TN), Cindy Kalmenson (Ojai, CA), Abigayle Oakley (Nashville, TN), and Madeleine Roger (Winnipeg, MB, Canada) will each perform 20-minute sets during a Grassy Hill Kerrville New Folk Winners concert at the festival on Saturday afternoon, May 31. The concert will also be livestreamed on the Kerrville Folk Festival’s website (kerrvillefolkfestival.org) and Facebook page, as well as on the Kerrville Folk Festival Foundation’s YouTube channel.

This year’s Kerrville New Folk competition drew a record-breaking 1341 entries. The six performing songwriters named as 2025 New Folk Winners were selected by judges Adeem the Artist, Rj Cowdery, Matt Nakoa, Raina Rose, and J Wagner. Their songs were evaluated based on originality, lyrics, melody, harmonic structure, and other elements of song-craft. In addition to receiving $750 cash awards and two wristbands each for Kerrville’s 2025 “Welcome Home” Fest in the fall, the winners are also invited to participate in a New Folk Concert Series tour in the spring prior to next year’s festival. Being named as a Kerrville New Folk Winner is regarded as a very prestigious honor in singer-songwriter circles.

Established in 1972 at the urging of Peter Yarrow, the Kerrville New Folk Concerts have become a highlight of the annual festival that is geared towards singer-songwriters of various musical styles and is the longest continuously running festival of its kind in North America.

Now in its 55th year, the Kerrville Folk Festival extends through Sunday, June 8, and features more than 100 artists and acts. Besides concerts each evening, it features “Ballad Tree” song-sharing sessions, late-night and afternoon song circles and jam sessions at various campsites, concerts and activities for children, organized canoe and kayak trips on the Guadelupe River, Hill Country bike rides, guided nature walks, yoga, beer and wine seminars, a Young Artists Performance Incubator, a professional development program for teachers, as well as a songwriters school and instrumental workshops.

A listing of all of this year’s New Folk Finalists was included in a previously posted article: https://acousticmusicscene.com/2025/04/19/finalists-named-in-2025-kerrville-new-folk-competition/

Here are links to view the New Folk Concerts that took place on May 24 and 25:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a99XF8DZrRQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-zPMCRHcps

Poss frequently acknowledged that he didn’t have a very conventional career path. “I used to joke that I had the perfect qualifications for being in the music business,” Poss once wrote. “I had no business training; in fact, no formal music background either but I teach Sociology of deviant Behavior.”

After graduating from Duke, he took a position with County Records in Floyd, Virginia. Poss and its owner, Dave Freeman, launched Sugar Hill Records in 1978, embracing what Poss called “contemporary music grounded in traditional music roots.” A self-described “wayward academic in an entrepreneurial role,” Poss assumed full control of the label in 1980, and moved it to Durham. He operated the label from there until its sale to Welk Music Group 20 years later. He became the group’s chairman in 2002. It’s now part of Concord Music, which also owns Rounder Records.

Among the many artists of note who recorded for Sugar Hill Records during Poss’ tenure were Pat Alger, Byron Berline, Ronnie Bowman, Sam Bush, Guy Clark, Mike Cross, Rodney Crowell, Jerry Douglas, Sara Evans, Cathy Fink, Butch Hancock, Hot Rize, The Infamous Stringdusters, Chris Hillman, Wanda Jackson, Sarah Jarosz, Robert Earl Keen, Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver, Lonesome River Band, Lyle Lovett, Nashville Bluegrass Band, Nickel Creek, Tim O’Brien, Dolly Parton, Dirk Powell, The Red Clay Ramblers, Peter Rowan, Ricky Skaggs, Darrell Scott, Marty Stuart, Bryan Sutton, Chris Thile, Townes Van Zandt, Doc Watson, and Jesse Winchester.

“The identity peg for Sugar Hill is having that traditional connection to contemporary music,” Poss Told Blue ridge Outdoors in 2008. “Some have taken to describing a ‘Sugar Hill Sound,” but I am not going to try to define that. To me, it’s what connect Doc Watson to Chris Thile, ricky skaggs to Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt to dolly Parton. They all exhibit a rootedness in their contemporary expressions of music. I like it because the music comes from a place. It’s not prefabricated or manufactured.”

Douglas and Skaggs had been part of a bluegrass group called Boone Creek, whose One Way Track album was Sugar Hill’s first release in 1978. In a May 18 Facebook post, Douglas wrote of Poss: “His dream was to have a label that mirrored the same idea as Sam Phillips and his famous Sun label, which catered to a specific audience and created a new genre, Rockabilly Plus. Barry knew an audience was there for a specific form of music (bluegrass) and there were certain bands who could grow that audience and the music would evolve with the growth of that audience.”

Douglas, who also produced a number of recordings for Sugar Hill Records, noted that he and Poss were “very close friends. Confidants really. He was like my wingman and brother at any event we collided with. We would spend hours talking about the direction of the music and the parameters he wanted his label to maintain no matter the current climate.” Poss was also godfather to Douglas’ daughter Nola. “Barry loved my family, and Jill and I, along with our children, will forever press his memory closer to our hearts.”

In addition to spending many years at the helm of Sugar Hill Records, Poss was a founding board member of the Bluegrass Hall of Fame & Museum in Owensboro, Kentucky and helped to launch the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA).

“Barry Poss was not just a champion of roots music and the artists that made it, but he was instrumental in the founding of our organization,” Ken White, IBMA’s executive director, said in a statement. “For that and so much more, we will always be grateful.”

Poss was a recipient of the IBMA’s Distinguished Achievement Award in 1998. The Americana Music Association also honored him with its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006 in recognition of Sugar Hill’s pivotal role in both preserving and reinvigorating traditional music, while he was inducted into the Oak Ridge Music Hall of Fame in 2023.

Closer to home, Poss also served on the boards of the Carolina Theater, the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, MerleFest, the North Carolina, Folklife Institute, and WUNC-FM.

While many artists and others have shared tributes to Poss since his passing, for his part Poss once said: “It’s the artists who make the music to which I’m the most indebted. They had something important to say. They needed to be heard. And I wanted to be part of their creative lives – because it mattered.”

“It’s hard to fathom that a person so full of life – such a life force – is no longer with us. We were compatriots for 30 years. We wrote a song about the 70s together. She said, in utter sincerity, ‘We have to have Patty Hearst. We thought about her so much …’ And in 2015, she was on stage about to sing “I Kissed a Girl” in Philly and I was in the dressing room reading that marriage equality had just passed. I walked right onto the stage … and kissed her. Because it was Jill, and I knew she’d be cool with it! And she was! In my heart forever, Jill”

— Dar Williams

“Goodbye, angel-woman. Your light and humor touched me and so many. This world is just not as bright without you in it. Thank you for singing about kissing and being with girls and for being irreverent and illuminated and effervescent and brilliant.”

— Paula Cole

[Here’s a link to an official video for “I Kissed a Girl”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUi11Cz4ZUg.]

“Jill Sobule was a funny, insightful, one-of-a-kind talent. She was a champion of misfits and weirdos. She was the Queen of outcasts. We hit the road together last year and I was amazed by her wide-eyed wonder of the world. We made a vow to tour more together and I had talked about having her coming to teach at the retreat I started for songwriters up in New England. She would’ve shook place to its foundations. Just by being herself.

And her songs— Just when a song seemed like it was headed in a straight line she’d find a way to make it spin around your mind with a 180-degree turn. They were perfect three-minute masterpieces of pop and folk with a broad range of topics that pulled empathetic laughter and insight to your soul.

“… We don’t have many people like her on the planet. She was Tinkerbell, hitting us on the head with a magic wand.”

— Ellis Paul

“I’ll never forget how much fun that song swap lineup was – me, Ellis, Paul, and Jill Sobule. We did a handful of really wonderful shows and honestly, I don’t remember where, but backstage Jill and I bonded with the idea of someday doing an album of the saddest songs we could think of. When we were last hanging out, the list looked like this:

Ballad Of The Sad Young Men
Sweet Bitter Love
Do What You Gotta Do
Train Off The Track

While we were waiting to go on, I’d play one of these songs and Jill and I would cry, and then try to put on some kind of game face while laughing for the set

Just last year I had signed with a new agency, Black Oak Artists, and Jill and I shared an agent and there were plans for sending us out together to do shows.

Tomorrow really is never guaranteed. I will forever feel the loss of not having that future time together.

Goodbye Goddess. I’ll dedicate this Monday night’s Pajama Party to you, and I’ll string together the saddest songs I can come up with, because I know you’d give me a wink and a nod.”

— Vance Gilbert

“Gutted by the news of Jill Sobule’s passing.

She was a friend for many years and I quite simply adored her – her delightfully witty and musically ambitious recordings first, then as a person once we actually met.

She played our MPress charity benefits at places like “Mo Pitkins” in downtown NYC starting in the early 2000’s, donating her song “Jet Pack” to our Hurricane Relief compilation and we became fast friends who had so much in common it felt like an instant sisterhood, aka mishpuchah. I first played with her at the old Cutting Room – it was a party for Women In Rock magazine I think…I had been a fan for years but then she was just a friend – and whether performing generously as part of our “Bravery On Fire” Women’s Cancer benefit in lockdown, or laughing backstage at a Joe’s Pub tribute to the wonderful Judy Collins…or kvelling at opening night of her fantastic [Off-Broadway] show “F*ck 7th Grade” – she had a way of making so many of us feel seen, included, inspired, comforted and challenged. Her powerful presence as a performer was a beautiful thing – utterly original, vulnerable and courageous.

Jill’s wordplay and melodic sensibility was unparalleled and for me she was on par with my #1, Elvis Costello – so much intelligence and also so much heart in her songs. No one looked like her, no one sounded like her – the character of her voice itself was as unique as they come and her work ethic and prolificness inspired me on a daily basis. I literally looked at her FB wall every day – where was dear, talented, hilarious and hardworking Jill?

Following her and witnessing her ongoing creative adventurous and activism gave me continual hope that there was a way to do this pop music thing with integrity – to make a genuine difference, joyfully and fearlessly and with as much chutzpah and irreverence as beauty and light. I looked up to her unabashedly, but she made me feel appreciated and understood. She was proof positive not only that meeting your heroes can be fantastic but that the likeminded, down-to-earth heroes can become family.

Love and condolences to her friends, family and fans. May her memory be a blessing.”

— Rachael Sage

“… We met around 1998, when Eric Lowen and I were talking with her about writing together. We never got there, but more than 20 years later, we saw each other three times in four months, at Hey Nonny in Arlington Heights in September (when Jesse Lynn Madera was opening for her, and I sat in), in October at McCabe’s Guitar Shop (on another shared bill sit-in with Jesse Lynn), and in January when we all were playing the 30A Songwriters Festival. We got to spend much more time together then, hung and laughed, talked her into doing a cruise, and resolved to do some more hanging, and writing, soon. Jill was richly talented, artful, quirky, unique, sweet and soulful, and a hoot and a half. I adored her, and am blessed to call her my friend. Color me gutted.”

— Dan Navarro

“Oh my god, no, my god…what an insane tragedy.

My friend and fellow truth-slinging, life-affirming, hardworking, wide-open-hearted and immensely talented musician Jill Sobule just died in a house fire.

She was such a force majeur of musical power and brought hope and joy and mad laughter to so many people…and like many of my friends who made made made and toured toured toured constantly, she was always coming up with the next beautiful idea, always responding to the moment with a musical quip and smart response, and always putting her heart into her art.

She was a crowd-funded wonder, an unapologetic queerdo and a great communicator. Compassionate. Kind. And a truly good friend who always came calling with concern when shit hit the fan with me in my always-toppling world and business.

And my god, she was a sharp diamond of a songwriter, satirizing, poking, writing on the edge, cutting through clichés to the heart of the matter in a way only a long-suffering journey woman songwriter can. I loved her. I loved her work. Her voice was becoming funnier and funnier and more sharply critical of the regime. We have lost an important voice today, an important folk hero…

To the community: waste no time. Act from love. Life can vanish in a second.

Dear dear beautiful Jill…rest in power, rest in song, rest in community, wherever you’ve gone.

We will play your songs and we will continue the musical fight for freedom and laughter and justice.”

— Amanda Palmer

“Man. How do you even write about Jill Sobule? When the breaking news broke, I was en route to Stowe, Vermont and I was looking at my maps to make a turn to not miss my exit. Boom! The news alert telling me that Jill Sobule died in a house fire. I gasped out loud.

She had just sent me a video message in February saying that we needed to do a tour together. And why hadn’t it happened yet. With her typical amazing delivery and east coast accent with attitude it really made me smile. She was in the middle of doing a sound check with KC Turner and she had KC video the message with KC saying, “I’d book that tour!” And now she’s gone. Just like that.

There are certain singer songwriters that grab you and have a way with words and delivery and you just instantly fall in love with them. Jill just had it. I first met her back in the 90s and she was simply the coolest.

I remember getting to hang with her backstage at 4th and B in San Diego. She was touring with Warren Zevon and she introduced me to Warren. When I shook his hand I felt so nervous but Jill just had a way of making everything seem so at ease. She was gracious, warm, inquisitive, and funny as all get-out.

We really lost a good one folks. One of the best to ever do it. Up there with the great Dan Bern. Seriously legendary. She’s leaving quite a legacy of music.

I’m so sad our tour will never happen. It would’ve been so fun to listen to her play every night, and I just know we would’ve written some songs. I would’ve learned so much.

Now she’s a shooting star somewhere up there. Floating around. Hopefully spreading joy. Any interaction with Jill always made me smile. She’s a gem and a peach and now a long gone troubadour. We were lucky to have her…”

— Steve Poltz

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