For Immediate Release, August 13, 2009

 

Press Info: Karen Byrd, karen.byrd@gmail.com, (615) 595-1500

General Info: Nancy Cardwell, nancyc@ibma.org, (615) 256-3222

IBMA ANNOUNCES INTERNATIONAL BLUEGRASS MUSIC AWARDS NOMINEES

 

Dan Tyminski Band, Dailey & Vincent, Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper, The Grascals and Newcomer Steve Martin Lead the Pack with Nominations

 

Nashville, TN….IBMA is proud to announce the nominees for the 20th Annual International Bluegrass Music Awards, hosted by Grammy^®-winning country artist Kathy Mattea and the legendary bluegrass band, Hot Rize, on Thursday, October 1, 2009, at the historic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee.

 

Two decades after the very first IBMA Award Show—an intimate industry gathering at the Executive Inn’s Showroom Lounge in Owensboro, Kentucky hosted by Vince Gill and the Dirt Band’s John McEuen—bluegrass music’s premier night continues to be the most anticipated evening of the year. Now a generation away from that first show, the bluegrass tradition of passing the music on from one generation to the next also continues, evidenced by the six bands nominated for Entertainer of the Year in 2009. All have gained valuable experience as journeymen musicians with established artists in the past, and have now become the band leaders and musical stylists who will inspire future generations.   

 

Reigning Entertainers of the Year Dailey & Vincent apprenticed with legendary stars Doyle Lawson and Ricky Skaggs. Key members of The Grascals were members of the Osborne Brothers band. Doyle Lawson himself is a former member of The Country Gentlemen and Jimmy Martin’s Sunny Mountain Boys. Del McCoury is a former guitarist and lead singer with Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys. Members of Russell Moore & IIIrd Tyme Out were former sidemen in Lawson’s band, Quicksilver. And Dan Tyminski has been one of Alison Krauss’s right-hand men in Union Station for a number of years.

 

Dan Tyminski and two Union Station alumni, Adam Steffey and Barry Bales, have taken the opportunity to make a name for their own group the past two years, while Alison Krauss focused on a critically acclaimed recording and tour dates with Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant. On the strength of Tyminski’s chart-topping album Wheels, the band leads with nine nominations. In addition to Entertainer of the Year, Instrumental Group, Album of the Year, Song of the Year for the title cut and Male Vocalist nods, band members Ron Stewart, Bales and Steffey are nominated for their individual instrumental skills, with Stewart earning nods in both the Banjo and Fiddle Player categories.

 

Dailey & Vincent, whose popularity has only continued to grow since they received seven awards in 2008, including Entertainer of the Year, have a new album out on Rounder Records entitled Brothers from Different Mothers and seven new IBMA nominations. Along with nominations for Entertainer of the Year and Male Vocalist—an award Dailey took home last year—the band is up for Vocal Group; Album of the Year; Bass Player (Vincent); Gospel Recorded Performance for “On the Other Side,” a song written by Jimmy Fortune, Kevin Denney & Tom Botkin; and “After the Fire is Gone,” a song Vincent recorded with his award-winning sister Rhonda Vincent and the legendary Bobby Osborne.

 

Multiple Emmy^®- and Grammy^® winning actor, musician and best-selling author, Steve Martin, burst onto the bluegrass scene this year, trusty banjo in hand, to receive nominations in six IBMA award categories: Instrumental Recorded Performance of the Year for “The Crow,” Recorded Event of the year for both “Daddy Played the Banjo” and “The Crow,” Banjo Player, Best Liner Notes and Best Graphic Design for a Recorded Project. After charity appearances in Los Angeles and New York and an appearance on the Grand Ole Opry in May, Martin has recently announced a cross-country series of tour dates in support of his album, The Crow: New Songs for the Five-String Banjo. The Crow currently sits at the top of the Billboard Bluegrass Albums chart, and Steve has brought mainstream media attention to bluegrass music with a number of appearances on television and radio programs this year, including A Prairie Home Companion, American Idol’s season finale, Saturday Night Live, Good Morning America, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, CBS Early Show, Tavis Smiley and Late Night with David Letterman.  Martin, whose fans will remember his impressive banjo chops from his early days as a stand-up comedian, wrote all the songs on The Crow.

 

Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper have been recognized with six nominations, including Instrumental Group, Bass (Marshall Wilborn), Fiddle (Cleveland), Mandolin (Jesse Brock), Print Media Person (guitarist & lead singer, Tom Adams), and Instrumental Recorded Performance of the Year for the Bill Monroe classic tune, “Jerusalem Ridge.”

 

The Grascals, who were named Entertainers of the Year in 2006 and 2007, have nominations in five categories. Along with nods for Entertainer and Album of the Year for Keep on Walkin’, current Banjo Player of the Year Kristin Scott Benson is nominated for Instrumental Recorded Performance for her original composition “Don’t Tread on Me,” and she receives a new Banjo Player nomination. The entire band is recognized in the Recorded Event of the Year category for their collaboration with Vince Gill, “Sad Wind Sighs.”

 

The following groups received four nominations each for their outstanding contributions during the current eligibility period: Blue Highway, The Isaacs, Danny Paisley, The Del McCoury Band, Junior Sisk & Ramblers Choice and Rhonda Vincent & the Rage.

 

The bluegrass industry’s highest honors of the year go to the new members of the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame. This year’s inductees are The Lonesome Pine Fiddlers, the legendary string band formed in 1937 by Ezra, Ray and Ned Cline in West Virginia and The Dillards, the influential band from Salem, Missouri known for their popular appearances on The Andy Griffith Show who blazed a trail on the West Coast in the 1960s for progressive bluegrass bands and were instrumental in laying the foundation for the “country rock” music genre.  (For complete information on this year’s inductees, please visit http://www.ibma.org/ibma.awards/currentpress/HOFPress.asp.)

 

IBMA’s Distinguished Achievement Award is an honor which recognizes individuals, groups and businesses for ground-breaking work and fostering the music’s image and accessibility. This year’s recipients are early bluegrass pioneer Hylo Brown; long-time event producer from Maine, Pati Crooker; veteran performer and radio announcer Jody Rainwater; author, musicologist and radio broadcaster Dick Spottswood; and the National Council for the Traditional Art’s Joe Wilson.. (For complete information on this year’s recipients, please visit http://www.ibma.org/ibma.awards/currentpress/distachieve.asp.)

 

Tickets for the 20th Annual International Bluegrass Music Awards, bluegrass music’s biggest night of the year, are available at 888-438-4262, (615) 256-3222 and www.ibma.org. Tickets go on sale at the Ryman Auditorium box office on August 15.

 

The award show will be broadcast live on Sirius XM Satellite Radio (“Bluegrass Junction” Channel 14) and syndicated to more than 300 U.S. markets and 14 foreign networks, thanks to the sponsorship of Martha White, GHS Strings, Sugar Hill Records, Deering Banjos, Bluegrass Music Profiles and the International Bluegrass Music Museum.  Program directors and station managers may sign up to be affiliates online at www.ibma.org.

 

The International Bluegrass Music Awards are voted on by the professional membership of the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA), which serves as the trade association for the bluegrass music industry. The IBMA Award Show is the centerpiece of the World of Bluegrass week, including the industry’s Business Conference and Bluegrass Fan Fest, slated for September 28 – October 4 in Nashville. 

 

Interesting Facts from the 2009 Slate of Nominees: 

• Ron Stewart continues his role this year of being the only person ever named as a final nominee on two instruments the same year: banjo and fiddle.
    
• Leading nominee Dan Tyminski was the singing voice of George Clooney in O Brother, Where Art Thou? the popular film directed by the Coen Brothers that brought bluegrass and acoustic music to the forefront of mass media attention in 2000.  In addition to being a nearly professional-level golfer, Dan was also the high school foosball champion in his home state of Vermont.
  
• Steve Martin’s high school jamming buddy, multi-instrumentalist John McEuen, of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, returns this year with three nominations for production related to Martin’s album, The Crow. As noted above, McEuen was the first co-host of the International Bluegrass Music Awards in 1990.
  
• John’s co-host at the 1^st Annual International Bluegrass Music Awards, Vince Gill, is also nominated for an award this year: Recorded Event of the Year for “Sad Wind Sighs,” with The Grascals.
  
• The members of Hot Rize, co-hosts for the International Bluegrass Music Awards this year, were the first recipients of IBMA Entertainer of the Year Award in 1990.
  
• Michael Cleveland, one of the most highly-awarded bluegrass musicians still in his 20s, has received the Fiddle Player of the Year six times in the past eight years. If he wins in 2009, he’ll be closing in on Stuart Duncan, who currently has eight IBMA fiddle trophies on his mantel at home.
   
• Band leader Alecia Nugent, originally from Louisiana, is a first-time nominee this year for Female Vocalist of the Year. Jesse Brock, a member of Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper, is nominated for the first time in the Mandolin Player of the Year category.
   
• Junior Sisk & Rambler’s Choice and Danny Paisley & the Southern Grass, both who are nominated in the Emerging Artist category this year, are competing head-to-head in three more categories this year: Male Vocalist, Album of the Year and Song of the Year.
   
• Voting is close this year, as evidenced by ties in two categories, leading to six finalists for Entertainer and Dobro Player of the Year, instead of the customary five.
  
  Click Here for a complete list of this years Award Nominees

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