I was going to call this My Favorite Things III: Music, but I am sick to death of sequels and movies with numbers at the end. This is pretty much a list of the albums that have made up the soundtrack to my life (hence the title of the blog) and have spoken to the quiet places in my soul and put my feelings to words better than I could have at the time. Again, this list is not definitive or set in stone.

Most of these will be albums you probably have not heard of, and a great many of these are no longer in print. These reflect my drift away from top 40 fare to more independent musical tastes. They are (cue the drum roll, please) as follows:

1) Julie Miller – Orphans and Angels

2) The Choir – Chase the Kangaroo

3) Over The Rhine – Drunkard’s Prayer

4) U2 – October

5) Iona – The Book of Kells

6) Miles Davis – A Kind of Blue

7) Joni Mitchell – Blue

8) Tori Amos – Scarlet’s Walk

9) Vince Gill – These Days

10) Elizabethtown Soundtrack

11) Sara Groves – Add to the Beauty

12) Evanescence – Fallen

13) Dar Williams – The Beauty of the Rain

14) The Band – The Last Waltz

15) JJ Heller – Painted Red

16) Michael Boggs – More than Moved

17) Jonny Lang – Turn Around

18) Mark Heard – High Noon

19) Bob Dylan – Slow Train Coming

20) Over The Rhine – Till We Have Faces

21) Joni Mitchell – Clouds

22) Allison Kraus and Union Station – So Long So Wrong

23) Andrew Peterson – Resurrection Letters: Vol. II

24) Coldplay- Viva la Vida

25) Regina Specktor – Far

26) Sandra McCracken – The Builder and the Architect

27) Lori McKenna – Lorraine

28) Sam & Ruby – The Here and the Now

29) Patty Griffin – Children Running Through

30) Eastmountainsouth – Eastmountainsouth

31) Russ Taff – Under Their Influence Vol. I

32) Elvis Presley – Sunrise (The Sun Studio Recordings)

33) Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong – Porgy & Bess

34) Queen – Flash Gordon

35) Levon Helm – Dirt Farmer

36) Keith & Kristyn Getty – In Christ Alone

37) Emmylou Harris & Mark Knopfler -All the Roadrunning

38) Ricky Skaggs & Bruce Hornsby – Ricky Skaggs & Bruce Hornsby

39) Alison Kraus & Robert Plant – Raising Sand

40)  The Innocence Mission – Glow

41) The Little Willies – The Little Willies

42) Anna Nalick – Wreck of the Day

43) Sara Watkins – Sara Watkins

44) Radiohead – In Rainbows

45) Sixpence None the Richer – The Fatherless and the Widow

46) Leign Nash – Blue

47) The Avett Brothers – I and Love and You

48) Caedmon’s Call – Overdressed

49) Derek Webb – Mockingbird

50) Courtyard Hounds – Courtyard Hounds

I probably left off quite a few that were very impactful in my life and I probably went with a lot of newer releases just because they were fresher in my mind. But this is a sampling of what kind of music is playing in my head most of the time.

Again, I’d like to hear your own favorite albums, especially if they are off the beaten path, non-top 40, independent, obscure, or otherwise just plain weird. Send ’em my way!