I have a whole lot of New Year’s traditions, some of which you’ll be hearing about in the coming days. One of them is to assemble a “best of” list, of my favorite song from each of my favorite CDs that I got during the past year. And I limit the list to 20. A few notes. First, the CD doesn’t have to be from 2010, but I have to have acquired this year. Second, I omitted all CDs made by my pals from the Summer Acoustic Music Week (SAMW); my music camp buddies are all making a lot of CDs now and probably even deserve their own list. The list below names Artist – Song (Album). They’re in no particular order. Instead what I do is make an iTunes playlist (I’ve been doing this since I was in high school, but back then I put them all on a tape . . . ), and I often try to order them in a way that makes musical sense for listening. I’ve chosen the songs, but I haven’t fully ordered them yet. Actually, these days I make two lists – Best of 2010 and B-Sides 2010; I started B-sides about four years ago when I ran into trouble choosing only one song from an album. So my second favorite goes into that second list. These playlists continue, years after they were made, to be the soundtracks to our long drives. So: here’s the Best of 2010 list. All worth going to hear, if you haven’t heard ‘em before. We're About 9 – Born Again (Amalgam) The Yayas –Third Girl From The Left (Paper Boats) Chris Kokesh – Lucy (October Valentine) Crooked Still –Half Of What We Know (Some Strange Country) The Winterlings – Wildflowers (The Animal Groom ) Boxcar Lilies –The Ghost Tree (Heartwood) Brendan Hogan – Rock Cast In The Sea (Long Night Coming) James Keelaghan –House of Cards (House of Cards) Friction Farm – Wide Open Spaces (Every Mile A Memory) Jenee Halstead – Damascus (Hollow Bones) Vanessa Torres – Ain't No Grave (Witness) Pesky J Nixon – Who Will Love You (Monkey Business & Mislaid Hopes) Rising Appalachia – Say Darlin' Say (Leah & Chloe) Lucy Wainwright Roche – The Worst Part (Lucy) Brad Yoder – Again (Excellent Trouble) Gathering Time – Red Apples & Gold (Red Apples & Gold) Peter And Lou Berryman – A Chat With Your Mother (What Again) Billy Gewin – The Hand I Hold (River Of Stone) Redbird – Sad, Sad, Sad, Sad, and Faraway From Home (Redbird) Terry Kitchen – Life Is Hard Enough (Heaven Here On Earth)