For the Carolina Chocolate Drops' Rhiannon Giddens and Dom Flemons, their music has been a sparse affair: a fiddle, a banjo, and vocals. But the results were tremendous. They garnered a Best Traditional Folk Grammy for their 2010 album Genuine Negro Jig

Though he hails from Detroit, Jack White has made Nashville his home—and music laboratory—for several years. He was a devotee of dirty blues with his first band, the White Stripes, garage rock with his second band, the Raconteurs, and even dirtier blues with his third outfit, the Dead Weather. Working out of his Third Man Records headquarters south of downtown, he has helped rejuvenate the careers of legends like Loretta Lynn and Wanda Jackson, as well as developing new talent like sock-hop duo the Secret Sisters and honky-tonker Pokey LaFarge, artists who are steeped in the old-school sounds of country, rock, and blues.

Ruthie Foster Let It Burn (Blue Corn Music): Like her fellow Texan wonder Gary Clark Jr., Foster’s musical output has been all over the place—and that’s to our benefit. She’s a lauded folk musician as well as a Grammy-nominated blues artist. But on Let It Burn, Foster once again tests her comfort zone, recording the album in New Orleans with some of the Crescent City’s finest musicians, including members of the Funky Meters and saxophone wizard James Rivers William Bell.

Jessie Baylin lives in Nashville but there’s hardly a twang on her wistful, atmospheric new album Little Spark. Steeped in the laid-back sounds of 1970s California with a sprinkling of classic pop and a little blue-eyed soul, Little Spark is that soft-as-a-pillow record you put on late at night (or early morning if that’s your thing). Here the New Jersey native talks about making Grandma proud and how she won over her rock star husband.