JUNO_Black_ENThe Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS) has revealed the nominees for the 2018 JUNO Awards – including those for Contemporary Roots Album of the Year and Traditional Roots Album of the Year. The coveted awards will be presented on Sunday, March 25 at Rogers Arena in Vancouver, British Columbia. Hosted by Michael Buble, the ceremonies will be broadcast live on CBC and may be viewed online at www.cbcmusic.com/junos.

In the running for Contemporary Roots Album of the Year are Inuusiq (The Jerry Cans), The Weather Station (The Weather Station), Watershed (Amelia Curran), Bone On Bone (Bruce Cockburn), and Medicine Songs (Buffy Sainte-Marie).

Traditional Roots Album of the Year nominees include Jayme Stone’s Folklife (Jayme Stone), What We Leave Behind (The East Pointers), Illusion & Doubt (The Dead South), The Willow Collection (Cassie and Maggie), and Rove (Coig).

The Dead South (a Regina, Saskatchewan-based folk-bluegrass ensemble) and The Jerry Cans (a band from Iqualui, Nunavut, who fuse folk and country music with traditional Inuit throat singing) also are among the five nominees for Breakthrough Group of the Year. Amelia Curran, an award-winning singer-songwriter from St. John’s, Newfoundland, also is among the nominees for Songwriter of the Year — as is Rose Cousins, an award-winning singer-songwriter based in Halifax, Nova Scotia; both are previous JUNO Award recipients.

Medicine Songs by Buffy Sainte-Marie, a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist known for her thought-provoking lyrics and her passionate advocacy for Aboriginal people, also is among the nominees for Indigenous Music Album of the Year. In addition to a music career spanning more than 50 years, Sainte-Marie has been a social activist, educator and philanthropist and has sought to protect indigenous intellectual property and championed indigenous artists and performers. In recognition of those efforts, she received the Alan Waters Humanitarian Award during last year’s JUNO Awards ceremonies.

A complete list of JUNO Awards nominees can be found, along with additional information, online at www.junoawards.ca.