Grammy Award for Best Folk Album

The Grammy Award for Best Folk Album is an award presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards,^[1] to recording artists for releasing albums in the folk genre. Honors in several categories are presented at the ceremony annually by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to "honor artistic achievement, technical proficiency and overall excellence in the recording industry, without regard to album sales or chart position".^[2]

According to the 54th Grammy Awards guideline the Best Folk Album category includes authentic folk material in both traditional vocal and instrumental styles, as well as contemporary material by artists who use traditional folk elements, sounds and instrumental techniques as the basis for their recordings. Folk music is primarily but not exclusively acoustic, often using contemporary arrangements with production and sensibilities distinctly different from a pop approach.^[3]

This award - established in 2012 - combines the previously used categories for Best Contemporary Folk Album and Traditional Folk Album. The Recording Academy decided to create this new category for 2012 upon stating there were "challenges in distinguishing between... Contemporary and Traditional Folk".^[4]

Like most album categories, the performing artist (of greater than 50% of playing time on the album) receives a nomination. The actual Grammy is awarded to the performing artist, the producer and the engineer/mixer.

The inaugural recipients of the award were The Civil Wars, who won in 2012 for their album Barton Hollow. To date, Chris Thile, Gillian Welch, and David Rawlings have won this award twice each; the latter two act as the current recipients of the award for Woodland at the 67th Annual Grammy Awards.