Best Singer-Songwriter -- Female

It took three years for Victoria Woodworth to produce and unearth Faultline, her first solo recording. It took much longer than that to collect the wealth of experience and emotion at its heart. A small person with a big voice and a poetic bend, Woodworth concentrates on the Important Issues: longing, love and loneliness; faith, awakening and self awareness; memory and hope. But her work isn't bogged down by its own psychic weight. She's a songwriter's songwriter, a student of the chorus, the build and the bridge -- and her style suggests artists we can only assume are her teachers: Emmylou Harris, Patsy Cline, Gram Parsons. Woodworth often plays live with her band, the Heroes, though she is a fine solo performer, as well. Hopefully, the next record won't take three years. We can't wait that long.