The Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album is an award presented by the Recording Academy to honor quality folk music albums in any given year. The award was originally presented from 1987 to 2011, before being merged with Best Contemporary Folk Album to form the Grammy Award for Best Folk Album. The category was revived in 2026 and was re-presented at the 69th Annual Grammy Awards in 2027, with the Academy stating that the award honors “excellence in albums of traditional folk recordings.” The category sits in the Country & American Roots field.
The inaugural recipient of the award was Doc Watson, who won for his album Riding the Midnight Train at the 29th Annual Grammy Awards. June Carter Cash was the first and, to date, only female solo artist to win the award, first winning at the 42nd Annual Grammy Awards in 2000 for her album Press On. Watson and The Chieftains are tied for the most wins, with three, while Cash and Pete Seeger are the only other artists to win more than once. Norman Blake has the record for most nominations, with seven, as well as the most nominations without a win. The most recent recipients of the award are the Carolina Chocolate Drops, who won at the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards in 2011 for Genuine Negro Jig.
Background Prior to 1987, folk music was honored in the Best Ethnic or Traditional Folk Recording category. From 1987 to 1993 the award was known as the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Recording and was presented under its current name from 1994. The category and it's Best Contemporary Folk Album counterpart were discontinued after 53rd Annual Grammy Awards the in 2011 during a major overhaul of Grammy categories, with the Recording Academy citing "challenges in distinguishing between traditional and contemporary folk". From 2012 to 2025, all folk music was honored with the Best Folk Album category.
The revival of the Best Traditional Folk Album category was announced on June 16, 2026 alongside Best Asian Pop Music Performance, Best R&B Collaboration or Duo/Group Performance, Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance, and Best Latin Song. Of the announcement, Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. stated, "2027 is going to be an amazing year for the Grammy Awards, and one that reflects the extraordinary growth we're seeing across music. The changes advanced by our Recording Academy members speak to the breadth of today's music industry and the many genres, crafts and creators shaping it. We're excited to see these updates come to life in the year ahead as we celebrate the music people who are driving music forward". It was stated that the re-separation of the Best Folk Album category "provides more precise recognition across different forms of folk music and better reflects the breadth of that musical landscape". The Folk Alliance International, a non-profit organization centred around the folk genre, petitioned the Recording Academy for the return of the Traditional and Contemporary Folk Album categories, and celebrated the announcement, stating that it was something their membership had "long called for" and which "addresses a significant representation and credibility gap in the genre" and challenges a "long-held stereotype that folk music is exclusively Eurocentric", as well as their hope that this would allow for more culturally diverse folk and traditional music to be honored moving forwards.
Eligibility According to the Recording Academy's rulebook for the 2027 ceremony, eligible albums for this category include recordings "with folk song structures, harmonic structures, and rhythms" and traditional folk instrumentation such as piano, harmonica, strings, percussion, and woodwind from around the world. Song types including sea shanties, old-time music, a capella, work songs, ballads, and call and response songs are all considered eligible as long as they are sonically distinct from regional roots music recoridngs, which are honored in the Best Regional Roots Music Album category.
Recipients
1987–2011 YearWinner(s)TitleNomineesRef.1987 Doc Watson Riding the Midnight Train 1988 Ladysmith Black Mambazo Shaka Zulu 1989 various artists Folkways: A Vision Shared 1990 Bulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares, Volume II 1991 Doc Watson On Praying Ground 1992 Various Artists The Civil War -1993 The Chieftains An Irish Evening 1994 The Chieftains The Celtic Harp 1995 Bob Dylan World Gone Wrong 1996 Ramblin' Jack Elliott South Coast 1997 Pete Seeger Pete 1998 BeauSoleil L'Amour Ou La Folie 1999 The Chieftains Long Journey Home 2000 June Carter Cash Press On 2001 Dave Alvin Public Domain 2002 Various Artists Down from the Mountain 2003 Doc Watson Legacy 2004 June Carter Cash Wildwood Flower 2005 Various Artists Beautiful Dreamer 2006 Tim O'Brien Fiddler's Green 2007 Bruce Springsteen We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions 2008 Levon Helm Dirt Farmer David Bromberg for Try Me One More Time Peter Case for Let Us Now Praise Sleepy John Cathy Fink for Banjo Talkin''' Charlie Louvin for Charlie Louvin}} | align="center"| |- ! scope="row" align="center"|2009 | Pete Seeger | At 89| | align="center"| |- ! scope="row" align="center"|2010 | Loudon Wainwright III | High Wide & Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project| | align="center"| |- ! scope="row" align="center"|2011 | Carolina Chocolate Drops | Genuine Negro Jig''
2027 Year Work Artist 2027 TBA TBA
Artists with multiple wins 3 wins Doc Watson The Chieftains
2 wins June Carter Cash Pete Seeger
Artists with multiple nominations
7 nominations Norman Blake
6 nominations Ladysmith Black Mambazo The Chieftains
5 nominations BeauSoleil Doc Watson Nancy Blake
4 nominations Mike Seeger Pete Seeger Ramblin' Jack Elliott
3 nominations Bulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir Jo-El Sonnier John Hartford
2 nominations Bill Morrissey Bob Dylan Cathy Fink Dave Van Ronk David Holt Greg Brown Jody Stecher Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares Michael Doucet New Lost City Ramblers Ricky Skaggs Rosalie Sorrels Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys Tom Paxton
References