Grammys 2026: Who Will Win Best Traditional Blues Album?
Blues is a musical tradition with deep roots in Black Southern American history, dating back to the 1860s. In contrast to country music, which the Grammys have only this year divided into categories of traditional and contemporary, the Best Traditional and Best Contemporary Blues Album categories were established separately in the 1980s, only to be merged into the common Best Blues Album category in 2012 and then split back up in 2017. Appropriately, this year’s nominees in the traditional category are a group of very venerable blues musicians, one of whom made a notable contribution to a recent acclaimed film about the blues.
Buddy Guy – Ain’t Done with the Blues
The musician in question is Buddy Guy. Now 89 years old, he is famed as a tremendously influential pioneer of Chicago blues. He’s been playing since 1953, and he’s earned a total of eight Grammy Awards and 16 nominations, going back to 1991. He’s won Best Contemporary Blues Album four times, Best Traditional Blues Album twice, and Best Blues Album once. Ain’t Done with the Blues, which was released in July of last year, is his twentieth solo studio album (his first one came out in 1967), and the title alone reads like a proclamation that his best days are far from behind him.
As of 2025, you may also know Guy from his very memorable cameo in Ryan Coogler’s blues-centric, Oscar-record-breaking period piece “Sinners,” in which he plays Sammie, the transcendentally talented blues maestro (played by Miles Caton as a teenager for most of the movie), in the film’s six-decades-later coda. This character is a Black American who spends his youth picking cotton in the Jim Crow South before his blues career takes him to Chicago and great success – an accurate summation of Guy’s real biography.
Taj Mahal & Keb’ Mo’ – Room on the Porch
Room on the Porch, released in May of last year, marks the second studio-album collaboration between two blues artists who’ve also been working for decades. The first, a 2017 album with the rather on-the-nose title of TajMo, won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album. Individually, Taj Mahal and Keb’ Mo’ have been making albums since 1968 and 1980, respectively. Both musicians have won Best Contemporary Blues Album thrice on their own, and Taj Mahal has won Best Traditional Blues Album twice. He has received a total of 17 Grammy nominations and five wins, while Keb’ Mo’ has been nominated 12 times and also won five times (both totals counting their collaborative win).
Maria Muldaur – One Hour Mama: The Blues of Victoria Spivey
Maria Muldaur’s career began in 1963, when she became a prominent figure in the revival of American folk music. In addition to blues and folk, she is known for incorporating jazz, country music, and rhythm and blues into her work. She has received a total of six Grammy nominations (going back to 1975), including three previous nods in this category, but she has yet to win any. One Hour Mama: The Blues of Victoria Spivey, released in July of 2025, is her fortieth solo album.
Charlie Musselwhite – Look Out Highway
Charlie Musselwhite is yet another blues icon who has been working since the 1960s. Look Out Highway, released in May of 2025, is his forty-third album. Though he has received 16 Grammy nominations between 1992 and today, including seven previous nods for Best Traditional Blues Album, he has gotten a single win for Best Blues Album in 2013’s Get Up! (which he shares with Ben Harper). He also had a small acting role as an FBI agent in Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” (2023).
Kenny Wayne Shepherd & Bobby Rush – Young Fashioned Ways
The last entry on this list is a collaboration that spans two generations of blues musicians. Bobby Rush, born in 1933, began his career in 1951 and has garnered seven previous Grammy nods, including three wins in this very category. Kenny Wayne Shepherd is 44 years his junior and has been working for 35 years. He has received five previous Grammy nominations, one of which was in this category, but has no wins to date. Young Fashioned Ways, released in March of last year, marks the first collaboration between these two musicians.
The When and Where of the Grammys
The 68th Grammys will take place at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. They’ll be broadcast live on CBS between 5:00 and 8:30 PM (PST) on Sunday, Feb. 1. They will also be streamed on Paramount+. Comedian Trevor Noah will host the ceremony for the sixth time in as many years.
