Here’s some the best Americana and roots-type music releases for January 23rd, 2026. Click the artist or album links to find out more. The artist’s names link to their websites and the CD title links go to either Amazon, iTunes, Bandcamp or the artist’s site for ordering or downloading. A + sign means although not a featured release, it’s a notable album that’s still worth checking out. Also, this page will be updated as I find out about other new releases so check back again.
Della Mae
Magic Accident (Compass Records)
All-female bluegrass quartet Della Mae’s vocal strength and instrumental skill shine throughout this mostly original album, drawing inspiration from a wide range of roots music, including Americana-influenced songs, hard-driving bluegrass romps, and dreamy indie-folk-inspired tracks. About the new project, Della Mae says, “We are incredibly proud to share this album, produced by our hero Alison Brown. Magic Accident explores the complexity of being human and the drive to seize joy and possibility amid the sheer improbability of being here at all. Each of us contributed songs to this project — making it our most collaborative record to date — and it features co-writes with artists we’ve long admired.” Since forming in Boston in 2010, Della Mae has proved to the roots music world that an all-women band is no novelty. (from press release)
Lucinda Williams
World’s Gone Wrong (Lucinda Williams Records)
Lucinda Williams long ago earned the right to make any record she damn well pleases. In recent years, that freedom has led her down a gravel road to re-record earlier work, sample other genres, and pay tribute to her heroes as well as add to her own legacy as a great American songwriter. One of the reasons listeners have so readily followed Williams down these different paths is that she has remained an authentic voice with something to say—and on World’s Gone Wrong, boy, does she have a bone to pick. The latest from Williams doesn’t provide a survival guide to hard times, nor does it promise that things will necessarily get better. Instead, she offers a letter to listeners assuring them that they are not alone in their struggles or the fight to regain what America has lost. It’s hard to make a listenable album that focuses song after song on how our country is going to hell in a 10-gallon hat. And that’s the greatest fear of making an album like World’s Gone Wrong: that it’s already too late and will fall upon deaf ears, hardened hearts, and hopeless souls. God, let’s hope not. (edited from Paste Magazine review)
Also new this week…
Appalachian Road Show – Della Jane’s Heart (Billy Blue Records)
Sammy Brue – The Journals (Bloodshot Records) +
Kashus Culpepper – Act I (Big Loud Records)
Sophie Gault – Unhinged (Torrez Music Group)
Rusty Gear – Music City Drifters (Chickahominy Marsh Records)
The Glass Hours – Chapel Glass (Cornelius Chapel Records)
June Swoon – Big Truck EP (independent)
The Lowest Pair – Always As Young As We’ll Ever Be (independent)
Dave Miller – Party in the Pines (Howlin’ Dog Records)
Wreckless Strangers – Dirty Soul (independent)
Coming out soon… Steve Poltz, Eric Bibb, Emily Scott Robinson, Boy Golden, Keegan McInroe, Natalie Del Carmen, Big Richard, Steve Forbert, Owen Temple, Queen Esther, Cordovas, Laurie Lewis, The Infamous Stringdusters, The Band of Heathens, Clay Street Unit, Jeffrey Martin, Luke Winslow-King, Cat Clyde and more!
