The Grammy Award

Grammy Award

A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...

 for Best Regional Roots Music Album is an annual music award that will be part of the Grammy ceremony from 2012.

It is a new category in which the previous Best Hawaiian Music Album

Grammy Award for Best Hawaiian Music Album

The Grammy Award for Best Hawaiian Music Album was an honor presented to recording artists from 2005 to 2011 for quality Hawaiian music albums. The Grammy Awards, an annual ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, are presented by the National Academy of...

, Best Zydeco or Cajun Music Album

Grammy Award for Best Zydeco or Cajun Music Album

The Grammy Award for Best Zydeco or Cajun Music Album was an honor presented to recording artists at the 50th, 51st, 52nd and 53rd Grammy Awards for quality zydeco or cajun music albums...

 and Best Native American Music Album

Grammy Award for Best Native American Music Album

The Grammy Award for Best Native American Music Album was an award presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to recording artists for quality albums in the Native American music genre...

 categories have been merged. The change was the result of a major overhaul of Grammy categories, announced in April 2011.

The new category will also recognise other musical forms, such as polka

Polka

The polka is a Central European dance and also a genre of dance music familiar throughout Europe and the Americas. It originated in the middle of the 19th century in Bohemia...

, whose own Grammy category

Grammy Award for Best Polka Album

The Grammy Award for Best Polka Album was an award presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to recording artists for quality polka albums...

 was discontinued in 2009.

According to the Grammy organisation, this category is intended to recognise recordings of regionally based traditional American music, including but not limited to Hawaiian, Native American, polka, zydeco and Cajun music.

2010s

• Grammy Awards of 2012

Nominees

• C.J. Chenier for Can't Sit Down
• George Kahumoku Jr. for Wao Akua - The Forest of the Gods
• Rebirth Brass Band
  Rebirth Brass Band
  The Rebirth Brass Band is a New Orleans brass band. The group was founded in 1982 by tuba/sousaphone player Philip Frazier, his brother, bass drummer, Keith Frazier and trumpeter Kermit Ruffins, and other school marching band members from Joseph S. Clark Senior High School in New Orleans’ Tremé...
  
   for Rebirth of New Orleans
• Steve Riley
  Steve Riley
  Steve Riley is a rock drummer who has played in various bands including W.A.S.P., Roadmaster, The B'zz, Steppenwolf, and since 1987 he's been the drummer for L.A. Guns. Selling over six million records over three decades, Steve has been regarded as one of the best rock drummers of his generation...
  
   & The Mamou Playboys for Grand Isle
• Jimmy Sturr
  Jimmy Sturr
  James W. "Jimmy" Sturr, Jr. is a polka musician, trumpeter/clarinetist/saxophonist and leader of Jimmy Sturr & His Orchestra. His recordings have won 18 out of the 24 Grammy Awards given for Best Polka Album. Sturr's orchestra is on the Top Ten List of the All-Time Grammy Awards, and has acquired...
  
  & his Orchestra for Not Just Another Polka