The nominations are in! Voting will begin MONDAY, January 26, 2026.

As the reader, you helped nominate the artists in each category. Our task was to ensure each nominee was eligible and placed in the correct category based on their own streaming service designations. For example, if an artist was nominated for ‘Alternative’ but is officially listed as ‘Pop,’ we honored the nomination but moved them to the appropriate category.

Take time to listen to each artist before voting opens.

Eligibility requirements are listed below. Without further ado, here are the nominations for The 2025 Born & Bred Best of COUNTRY:

MASON ADKINS Listen HERE

A.M. BENSON Listen HERE

PHILIP BOWEN Listen HERE

DALCHORD Listen HERE

CASSIDY DICKENS Listen HERE

SIERRA FERRELL Listen HERE

JOEY FERRIS Listen HERE

NAT FREDERICK Listen HERE

CHARLES WESLEY GODWIN Listen HERE

LEFT ON READ Listen HERE

JAMIE LESTER Listen HERE

JOHN R. MILLER Listen HERE

WILL SARVER Listen HERE

SENECA Listen HERE

ELLA WHEELER Listen HERE

ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS

This part is very important. To be eligible to be nominated, an artist must have released ORIGINAL music between December 1, 2024 and November 30, 2025. Music that came out in December 2025 will be eligible for the 2026 awards. The other requirement is that the artist must be either from West Virginia or live here now and base their career out of the state. So if an artist was born in Grafton, but now calls Nashville their home and released music in June of 2025 , they meet the eligibility requirements. If an artists was born in Wisconsin, but now calls West Virginia home and released original music in September 2025, they are eligible.