For Immediate Release: August 14, 2008

Press Info: Karen Byrd, karen.byrd@gmail.com (615) 595-1500
General Info: Nancy Cardwell, nancyc@ibma.org (615) 256-3222

IBMA ANNOUNCES DISTINGUISHED ACHIEVEMENT
AWARD RECIPIENTS

Nashville, TN….IBMA is proud to announce this year’s recipients of the Distinguished Achievement Award, an honor which recognizes individuals, groups and businesses for ground-breaking work and fostering the music’s image and accessibility.  The following award recipients will be honored at the Special Awards Luncheon on Thursday, October 2, 2008, at the Renaissance Nashville Hotel during IBMA’s World of Bluegrass Business Conference:

• Bill Harrell                  
• The Banjo Newsletter
• The Ernest Tubb Record Shop
• Art Menius
• Joe Carr & Alan Munde

Band leader Bill Harrell has been an important figure in bluegrass music for almost five decades. A singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Harrell was born in Marion, Virginia, on September 14, 1934. Harrell cut his first recording for the Starday label in the late 1950s and headed up his own band, The Virginians, from 1960-66. They recorded for United Artists in 1963; hosted a weekly television program on WSVA in Harrisonburg, Virginia; guested on Jimmy Dean’s ABC-TV network program; and played dates up and down the East Coast. In 1966 Harrell joined forces with Don Reno & the Tennessee Cut-Ups, performing as partners for the next decade and recording albums for the King, Starday, Monument, Jalyn, Derbytown, King Bluegrass and CMH labels. In 1977 the partnership dissolved, and Bill put The Virginians back together with Carl Nelson, Ed Farris and Darrell Sanders. Over the course of the next 10 years The Virginians recorded one album for the Adelphi label and three for Leather Records.  They also recorded several projects for Rebel Records in the early 1990s. During his career Bill performed for three U.S. Presidents: Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.   

The popular magazine known as The Banjo Newsletter, based in Annapolis, Maryland, with an editorial office in Chilmark, Massachusetts, was founded by the late Hub Nitchie and his wife, Nancy, in 1972 as The Banjo Information Clearing House.  Hub also edited the publication.  In November 1973 it became The Monthly Newsletter That Covers the 5-String Banjo (Including the Banjo Tablature of the Month). The first publication under the current title, Banjo Newsletter, The 5-String Banjo Magazine, hit subscribers’ mailboxes in February 1974. Hub and Nancy’s sons, Spencer and Donald, serve today as business manager and editor, respectively. Each issue contains columns on various aspects of playing the 5-string banjo and technical advice, along with carefully annotated tablature for several tunes, Q & A style feature articles on notable banjo players, and album reviews.    

The Ernest Tubb Record Shop is a retail and mail order music outlet that has embraced bluegrass music since the genre’s beginning, opening its doors for the first time on May 3, 1947. The company’s mail order business, in particular, provided a valuable resource for early country and bluegrass fans who lived outside of the southeastern United States. Over the years The Ernest Tubb Record Shop, like bluegrass music itself, has found a loyal and growing niche of patrons.  Approximately 25% of the retailer’s huge stock is devoted to bluegrass music. The Ernest Tubb Midnite Jamboree, the second longest running live radio show in the world, also features bluegrass music on a regular basis and has for 61 years. The Ernest Tubb Record Shop now has three locations in Nashville; plus additional stores in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee; Branson, Missouri; and Dallas, Texas.

Art Menius became the new director of Appalshop, the Appalachian media and arts center in Whitesburg, Kentucky, on July 2, 2007. This followed a decade of handling marketing and sponsorship for MerleFest at Wilkes Community College in Wilkesboro, North Carolina—one of the largest festivals in the world that features bluegrass music prominently.  Menius entered the entertainment field as a writer and production assistant for The Nashville Network bluegrass and old-time music series, Fire on the Mountain, hosted by David Holt from 1983-86. In 1983 he began writing reviews and feature articles about roots music for publications ranging from Bluegrass Unlimited to The News & Observer in Raleigh, with a long tenure at the The Independent Weekly, based in Durham.  In addition to writing more than 500 articles to date, Menius also promoted a live performance bluegrass radio series on 117 commercial stations, emceed at dozens of music festivals, conducted the first survey of bluegrass festival attendees and served as consultant on the acclaimed film, High Lonesome: The Story of Bluegrass Music. In 1985 Menius was one of the two dozen founders of the IBMA, and he took the job as the organization’s first executive director later that year.  In 1990 the North American Folk Music & Dance Alliance elected Art the president of its first board of directors, and he served as their first manager from 1991-96. Art served on the IBMA board from 1998-2004, as well as on the board for the Old-Time Music Group from 1991-1998. He’s currently on the board for both the Americana Music Association and Folk Alliance.   

Alan Munde and Joe Carr are being recognized for their contributions as musicians, as well as educators.

Alan Munde, originally from Norman, Oklahoma, began his professional music career at age 22 with Sam Bush in Poor Richard's Almanac in 1969. Following a traditional bluegrass apprenticeship with Jimmy Martin and the Sunny Mountain Boys from 1969-71, Alan spent 21 years anchoring the landmark Country Gazette (1972-83), blazing a trail as one of the most innovative and influential banjo players of all time. From 1986-2007 he taught bluegrass and country music at South Plains College in Levelland, Texas—the institution which offered the first two-year college degree in bluegrass music in America. Alan's extensive body of recorded work, his instructional materials, and his work at South Plains (including the annual Camp Bluegrass, which attracts more than 100 students for a week every July) has solidified his status as one of the influential stylists of the 5-string banjo.

Originally from Denton, Texas, guitarist/vocalist Joe Carr started playing guitar at age 13, inspired by the folk musicians of the 1960s. He formed the band Roanoke in Texas in 1974, and later toured and recorded as a member of The Country Gazette from 1977-1984. Carr joined the faculty at South Plains College as a guitar/mandolin instructor and ensemble director in 1984, and he is currently an Associate Professor of Music in the Commercial Music Department. He received the SPC Faculty Excellence Award in May 2008. Carr has also produced more than 30 instructional books and DVDs for Mel Bay Publishing on various instruments. In addition to their two Country Gazette albums together for the Flying Fish label, Joe and Alan have performed as a duo and also co-authored an award-winning book about West Texas country music called Prairie Nights to Neon Lights (Texas Tech Univ. Press). Munde currently serves on the IBMA Board of Directors, and Carr is a member of the Bluegrass in the Schools Committee, now under the auspices of the new Foundation for Bluegrass Music.

For more info on IBMA’s World of Bluegrass, go to www.ibma.org or call 1-888-GET-IBMA.