Gillian Welch & David Rawlings Win 2025 Grammy for Best Folk Album

At the 2025 Grammy Awards, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings snagged the Best Folk Album award for their record Woodland.

The duo triumphed over Adrianne Lenker’s Bright Future, Aoife O’Donovan’s collection of tunes in All My Friends, American Patchwork Quartet’s self-titled album, and Madi Diaz’s intriguing work titled Weird Faith.

This album marks a significant return for both artists—Welch hasn’t released original music since her 2011 album The Harrow & the Harvest, while Rawlings last shared new material in 2017 with his album Poor David’s Almanack. Even though these albums were presented as solo projects, they actually helped each other out.

Nestled in Nashville, their own Woodland Sound Studios was where they brought this project to life. “Woodland is at the heart of everything we do, and has been for the last 20 some years,” they expressed when introducing the album. “The past four years were spent almost entirely within its walls, bringing it back to life after the 2020 tornado and making this record.”

Fans sometimes wonder how artists keep creating magic together year after year.

Their song from Woodland, “Empty Trainload of Sky,” is also vying for Best Americana Performance at tonight’s event. It faces tough competition from Beyoncé’s “Ya Ya,” Madi Diaz and Kacey Musgraves’ duet “Don’t Do Me Good,” Madison Cunningham’s track “Subtitles,” Sarah Jarosz’s piece “Runaway Train,” and Sierra Ferrell’s tune “American Dreaming.”

A few years back in 2021, Welch and Rawlings also took home a Grammy for Best Folk Album with their covers project called All of the Good Times.

Noah Mitchell
Noah Mitchell
Noah Mitchell is a senior music writer at SongsDetails.com. Noah has been passionately covering the music industry for over five years, with a particular focus on live performances and the latest updates on artists.