Nashville, TN….IBMA is proud to announce the recipients of the Distinguished Achievement Award, an honor which recognized individuals in the bluegrass music industry who have fostered the music’s image with developments that will broaden the genre’s recognition and accessibility.  The following people will be honored at the Special Awards Luncheon on Thursday, October 1, 2009, at the Renaissance Hotel in Nashville, Tenn. during the IBMA Business Conference: Hylo Brown, Pati Crooker, Jody Rainwater, Dick Spottswood and Joe Wilson.

This year’s recipients include two former members of Flatt & Scruggs’ Foggy Mountain Boys, Hylo Brown and Jody Rainwater—the latter who also pursued a career in radio. Pati Crooker is a long-time bluegrass festival producer from Maine; Dick Spottswood is an author, musicologist and Washington, D.C. radio personality; and Joe Wilson is known for his accomplishments as a folklore advocate and presenter.

Bluegrass and country singer Frank “Hylo” Brown earned his nickname because of a wide vocal range that became his trademark. Born in 1922 in River, Kentucky, Brown started performing radio in Ashland, Kentucky when he was just 17. After moving with his family to Springfield, Ohio in 1949, Brown began an association with country singer Bradley Kincaid, which included working at Kincaid’s radio station and playing in his band. Brown’s songwriting credits include “Lost to a Stranger” (Capitol Records), his signature song that made it to the pop radio charts in 1954, and “Grand Ole Opry,” which Jimmy Martin made a hit.

Hylo went to work as a featured artist for Flatt & Scruggs in 1958, later forming a second band called The Timberliners that helped Martha White extend their reach throughout the South with additional live television programs. With Brown as front man, the band included Red Rector, Jim Smoak, Clarence “Tater” Tate and Joe Phillips. After the advent of video and television syndication, The Timberliners disbanded and Brown re-joined Flatt & Scruggs’ Foggy Mountain Boys. Hylo signed with Starday in 1971 and performed as a solo artist through the ‘70s, continuing to record. He passed away January 17, 2003. A compilation of his Capitol recordings was released on Bear Family Records in 1992, as Hylo Brown and the Timberliners, 1954-1960.

Pati Crooker has produced the award-winning Thomas Point Beach Bluegrass Festival in Brunswick, Maine for 30 years. Located on an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean with one of the largest natural clam beds in the state, the festival site is unlike any other. In 1956 Pati’s parents, Harry and Marion Crooker, purchased and developed the property, making it into a public recreation facility with a focus on families. Pati has managed and operated the park since 1972, and in 1993 she became the sole owner of Thomas Point Beach, Inc., the home of the Annual Maine Highland Games and numerous family reunions, weddings, corporate outings and church picnics, along with the well-known bluegrass festival.

Thinking back to 1979, Pati Crooker says, “The first festival was a huge learning process. I was fortunate to have the guidance of local Maine musicians, The Prindall Family Band for the first two years. Nancy Talbot, the original promoter for Winterhawk Festival in New York, now known as Grey Fox, was very helpful. She shared her experience as a lady promoter and, like me, not a musician. Most all promoters I had met were musicians and knew their music, but I needed to know the audience. My goal was to produce a solid, old-time, traditional roots bluegrass festival—but with a bit of a classy twist. It’s important to offer something that appeals to everyone—young, old, in-betweens, women, kids, musicians and campers. I learned to listen and try to give everyone a little something. I learned to be good to my neighbors and make the community part of the weekend. Bluegrass music is everyone’s music.”

Jody Rainwater (Charles Johnson) has been a pioneer in bluegrass music in the areas of performance, booking, promotions, radio and emcee work for nearly 50 years. He began his career as a musician in 1936, appearing on WMFR in High Point, North Carolina with his brother, Herman as “Chuck & Slim, The Johnson Brothers.” After returning from service in World War II, Jody teamed with Woody Houser and formed the Blue Ridge Mountain Boys, performing on WTOB in Winston Salem. During this time Jody began to hone his skills as a comedian, adopting the name “Little Jody.” In 1948 Jody joined Smokey Graves & the Blue Star Boys at WDBJ in Roanoke, Virginia, playing mandolin or bass, doing comedy routines and booking the band.

He joined Flatt & Scruggs’ Foggy Mountain Boys in 1950 in Lexington, Kentucky as a comedian and booking agent/promoter. Lester Flatt had the idea to give him the stage name, “Little Jody Rainwater,” brother of bass player Cedric Rainwater. When Cedric left the Foggy Mountain Boys, Jody took over as bass player. Jody left Flatt & Scruggs in 1952 to pursue a career in radio, settling at WSVS in Crewe, Virginia. He played country and bluegrass music as the morning DJ for almost 20 years, becoming one of the station’s most popular on-air personalities. Rainwater once received more than 4,000 cards and letters in a 10-day period. He also sold all of his own advertising and kept a loyal fold of sponsors. Departing in 1971, Jody worked a various stations around Virginia, including WKLV in Blackstone, WTTX in Appomattox, and WKDE in Altavista. In 1982 he moved to a station in Fair Bluff, North Carolina where he worked as disc jockey and station manager until retiring in 1983. Now 90 years old, Jody is involved at WSVS radio again as a consultant and occasional on-air “elder statesman.”

Dick Spottswood is a musicologist, author and radio personalisty from Maryland who has cataloged and been responsible for the re-issue of many thousands of recordings of vernacular music in the United States. Spottswood’s master work, Ethnic Music on Records: A Discography of Ethnic Recordings Produced in the United States, 1893-1942 (Univeristy of Illinois Press) is a nine-volume listing of sound recordings by minority groups issued in the U.S. He also edited and annotated the 15-volume LP series Folk Music in America for the Library Congress, and he co-authored Country Music Sources: A Biblio-Discography of Commercially Recorded Traditional Music.

Dick was a founder of Bluegrass Unlimited magazine in 1966, serving as editor until 1970. He introduced bluegrass programming to public radio in the Washington/Baltimore area in 1967, when he co-hosted a weekly show with Gary Henderson on WAMU at American University in Washington.  Since 1985, the Dick Spottswood Show (aka: The Obsolete Music Hour) has been heard on WAMU and its website affiliate www.bluegrasscountry.org. In 1974 he assembled the Rounder Records series Early Days of Bluegrass, soon to be re-released in a box set. Spottswood is a founding member of The Association for Recorded Sound Collections and a 2003 recipient of its Lifetime Achievement Award. His book Banjo on the Mountain: Wade Mainer's First Hundred Years, is scheduled for publication in 2010 by the University Press of Mississippi.

Folklorist, advocate and presenter Joe Wilson served as the director of the National Council for the Traditional Arts from 1976-2004, and now holds the position of NCTA chairman. Wilson also directs the Blue Ridge Music Center co-founded by the NCTA with the National Park Service and located near Galax, Virginia. During his career Wilson has produced 42 large-scale music festival in 11 states, 21 national tours by musicians and dancers, 9 international tours that visited 33 nations, and 131 LP and CD audio recordings of various forms of folk music. He has also been involved in the production of 12 films.