The sheer number and variety of nominations prove Arnie wrong in his assertion that these exercises are ridiculous because no one can possibly have heard everything released in a given year.

My original choices at Salut! Live would have included both Oysterband's Meet You There and Steve Knightley's Cruel River, among others, if I had not stopped my list at 10. And even though my previous reviewing role means I probably get more albums than most, I don't pretend to have been able to listen to more than a fraction of the total folk and folk related output. There is music out there I will explore as a direct result of this thread.....