So Long, 2012!

Brad Paisley is a critically acclaimed singer, songwriter, guitarist, and entertainer whose talents have earned him numerous awards, including three Grammys, two American Music Awards, 14 Academy of Country Music Awards, and 14 Country Music Association Awards (including Entertainer of the Year), among many others. He has been a proud member of the Grand Ole Opry since 2001. The most recent of Brad's dozen albums is 2014's Moonshine in the Trunk (Arista Nashville).

During her childhood in Aledo, Illinois, Suzy Bogguss loved music. She joined the church choir, played the piano and drums, and bought her first 12-string with the money she earned from babysitting. Since moving to Nashville in the mid-1980s, she has won acclaim in both country and contemporary music circles. Her latest CD, Lucky, is a collection of songs written by the great Merle Haggard. It was released earlier this year on the Loyal Dutchess label.

Growing up in rural Maine, Heather Masse sang hymns and folk songs around home with her family. Now based in New York, this New England Conservatory of Music alum is a one-third of the Juno Award-winning Canadian trio The Wailin' Jennys. Lock My Heart is her recording with piano legend Dick Hyman. A new album, August Love Song - on which she joins forces with trombone great Roswell Rudd - was recently released on Red House Records.

Growing up in a musical family, Aoife O'Donovan took an interest in the American folk tradition. And after graduating from the New England Conservatory of Music, she formed the progressive bluegrass band Crooked Still and the trio Sometymes Why. She recently collaborated with Sara Watkins and Sarah Jarosz to create the "I'm With Her" tour, which took the trio to the U.K., Europe, and across the U.S. Aoife's latest recording, In the Magic Hour, was released earlier this year on Yep Roc Records.

Sam Bush was just 11 when he got his first mandolin. By the time he was 17, he had won the title of National Junior Fiddle Champion for three years running. And he had made his recording debut, Poor Richard's Almanac. Founder of cutting-edge bands like New Grass Revival and Strength in Numbers, he has also been the go-to sideman for Lyle Lovett, the Flecktones, and dozens of others. The most recent of his solo albums is Circles Around Me (Sugar Hill Records).

It's hard to put a label on Punch Brothers. These five virtuosic musicians have been pushing boundaries as performers, recording artists, composers, interpreters, technicians, and stylists, since they first came together in 2006. That's when they made the album How to Grow a Woman from the Ground, which earned them a Grammy nomination. Suffice it to say, Chris Eldridge (guitar), Paul Kowert (bass), Noam Pikelny (banjo), Chris Thile (mandolin), and Gabe Witcher (fiddle) are stirring things up with their extraordinary sound. Their new album is The Phosphorescent Blues (Nonesuch).

Singer-songwriter and fiddle player Sara Watkins - along with her brother Sean and mandolinist Chris Thile - was a founding member of the Grammy-winning progressive bluegrass group Nickel Creek. In 2015, Sara and Sean released their "family-band-of-sorts project," Watkins Family Hour, and then embarked on a tour that included stops at Conan, NPR's Tiny Desk Concert, and the Newport Folk Festival. Sara's latest recording: Young in All the Wrong Ways (New West Records).