Nashville, TN -- AirPlay Direct is honored to announce that Ken Irwin, Co-Founder of Rounder Records, has been honored with AirPlay Direct's "Iconic Innovators" Award - 2017. AirPlay Direct's "Iconic Innovators" Award honors the visionaries who have openly embraced digital innovation in the music industry. The AirPlay Direct "Iconic Innovators" Award is presented annually to the member of AirPlay Direct that has proven vision and best executes upon the opportunities that digital innovation in the music industry has and continues to create.
World-renowned singer/songwriter/entertainer Dolly Parton continues racking up the honors! In 2014, The Recording Academy inducted Parton's self-penned hit "Jolene" into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Now, in 2017, that same song, released as a collaboration with Pentatonix, was awarded a Grammy in the Country Duo/Group Performance category. Watch the collaborative performance below.
Nashville, TN -- For five decades, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band has remained one of the most iconic names in American roots music. With one foot planted in the traditions of country-folk and the other pointing toward something new and unexpected, the group continues to tour and release music, influencing multiple generations of audiences and artists along the way. Nearly a dozen of those artists join the group on this year's Nitty Gritty Dirt Band & Friends - Fifty Years, Circlin' Back! PBS special, which was nominated for a Midsouth Regional EMMY® for Special Event Coverage on Friday. Produced for PBS by Todd Squared, Todd Jarrell, Todd Mayo, Steve Schweidel, and directed by James Yockey, Circlin' Back ran nationwide in conjunction with a PBS pledge drive in March 2016. Circlin' Back is also available as a cd/dvd combo with bonus songs and interviews, released Sept. 30 via Warner Music Nashville.
Chesterfield, VA -- Blue Highway's beloved bass player, songwriter, and vocalist Wayne Taylor was inducted into the Virginia Country Music Hall of Fame in a ceremony held on Saturday, October 8, in Chesterfield, VA.
Donna Ulisse left Raleigh last week named the 2016 International Bluegrass Music Association's Songwriter of the Year. It is an award she had been nominated for the past four years in a row with 2016 making it her fifth nomination. Having never won, it caused her to often joke that she was the IBMA's Susan Lucci, in reference to Lucci going nineteen years before winning an Emmy for best Daytime Soap Actress. When former winner Becky Buller announced the award, she smiled at Ulisse's table and said, "You are no longer the Susan Lucci of this award."
Los Angeles, CA -- Critically acclaimed singer, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter Rhiannon Giddens is the recipient of the seventh annual Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass. Described by T Bone Burnett as one of the “most profound musicians active today,” Giddens is the co-founder of the GRAMMY Award-winning string band Carolina Chocolate Drops, in which she sang and played banjo and fiddle. That group has long investigated and promoted the foundational role African-American performers and songwriters have played in folk-music history, while making recordings that are vital, contemporary, and exuberant.
The Grand Master Champion for 2016 is Maddie Denton of Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Denton took home $1,200 in cash, a $500 gift certificate courtesy of D’Addario, a Grand Master Fiddler plaque, and will appear on the Grand Ole Opry. The two-day 45th annual Grand Master Fiddler Championship is the nation’s premier championship event held at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville on September 3 and 4, 2016.
ASCAP, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, will present acclaimed bluegrass and country music songwriter-artist and Grand Ole Opry member Ricky Skaggs with its prestigious Founders Award at the 54thannual ASCAP Country Music Awards. The exclusive, invitation-only gala, which celebrates the songwriters and publishers of ASCAP's most performed country songs of 2015, will take place at the historic Ryman Auditorium in downtown Nashville, Tennessee on October 31st.
Entertainer Randall Franks, of Ringgold, was among the recent honorees at the 42nd annual Atlanta Society of Entertainers Awards receiving the Bluegrass Band of the Year Award with his Georgia Mafia Bluegrass Band. Franks, who is best known as “Officer Randy Goode” from the TV series “In the Heat of the Night,” starred in three TV series and 15 films. Musically, he is recognized as an International Bluegrass Music Museum Legend and Independent Country Music Hall of Fame inductee.
//Mandolin Cafe/ Nashville, TN -- The Monroe Mandolin Camp, a traditional roots based music camp offering world class instruction on the music of the Founder of Bluegrass, Bill Monroe, is proud to announce the winner of the 2nd Annual Video Scholarship Competition, generously underwritten by Intelometry.
Fall Branch, TN -- For the second year in a row, East Tennessee Mountain Gospel artist, The Knight Family will receive Vintage Gospel CD of the Year honors. The group was informed this week that the Rural Roots Music Commission will bestow the honor in LeMars, IA in September at the National Traditional Country Music Association Convention.
Bristol, TN/VA -- The American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) proudly announces that the Birthplace of Country Music Museum is the recipient of an Award of Merit for their permanent exhibits on the history and legacy of the 1927 Bristol Sessions. The AASLH Leadership in History Awards, now in its 71st year, is the most prestigious recognition for achievement in the preservation and interpretation of state and local history.
Scotch Plains, NJ -- Mandolinist Barry Mitterhoff received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 42nd Annual New Jersey Folk Festival. “I’m honored and excited about getting this Lifetime Achievement Award for playing and teaching bluegrass music in New Jersey over the last 47 years,” says Barry.
Wilkesboro, NC -- The Austin Stage was packed for MerleFest 2016’s 24th Annual Chris Austin Songwriting Contest (CASC). The Chris Austin Songwriting Contest is a unique opportunity for aspiring writers to have their original songs heard and judged by a panel of Nashville music industry professionals, under the direction of this year’s volunteer contest chairperson Jim Lauderdale. Judging is based on a song’s originality, lyrics, melody and overall commercial potential.
David's "Bluegrass in the Backwoods" is an instrumental CD that features dazzling solos by Stuart Duncan, Sierra Hull, Rob Ickes, Ron Block, Jake Workman, Dennis Caplinger, Christian Ward, and other topnotch virtuosos. David Naiditch won the 14th Independent Music Awards (IMA) for Bluegrass Album. The surprise is that David Naiditch plays the chromatic harmonica, an instrument that is used in jazz but that, as far as we know, hasn't been recorded in bluegrass since Jimmy Riddle of Hee Haw fame released his "Country Harmonica" LP in 1964.
Nashville, TN -- AirPlay Direct is honored to announce that Ken Irwin, Co-Founder of Rounder Records, has been honored with AirPlay Direct's "Iconic Innovators" Award - 2017. AirPlay Direct's "Iconic Innovators" Award honors the visionaries who have openly embraced digital innovation in the music industry. The AirPlay Direct "Iconic Innovators" Award is presented annually to the member of AirPlay Direct that has proven vision and best executes upon the opportunities that digital innovation in the music industry has and continues to create.
World-renowned singer/songwriter/entertainer Dolly Parton continues racking up the honors! In 2014, The Recording Academy inducted Parton's self-penned hit "Jolene" into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Now, in 2017, that same song, released as a collaboration with Pentatonix, was awarded a Grammy in the Country Duo/Group Performance category. Watch the collaborative performance below.
Nashville, TN -- For five decades, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band has remained one of the most iconic names in American roots music. With one foot planted in the traditions of country-folk and the other pointing toward something new and unexpected, the group continues to tour and release music, influencing multiple generations of audiences and artists along the way. Nearly a dozen of those artists join the group on this year's Nitty Gritty Dirt Band & Friends - Fifty Years, Circlin' Back! PBS special, which was nominated for a Midsouth Regional EMMY® for Special Event Coverage on Friday. Produced for PBS by Todd Squared, Todd Jarrell, Todd Mayo, Steve Schweidel, and directed by James Yockey, Circlin' Back ran nationwide in conjunction with a PBS pledge drive in March 2016. Circlin' Back is also 
Chesterfield, VA -- Blue Highway's beloved bass player, songwriter, and vocalist Wayne Taylor was inducted into the Virginia Country Music Hall of Fame in a ceremony held on Saturday, October 8, in Chesterfield, VA.
Donna Ulisse left Raleigh last week named the 2016 International Bluegrass Music Association's Songwriter of the Year. It is an award she had been nominated for the past four years in a row with 2016 making it her fifth nomination. Having never won, it caused her to often joke that she was the IBMA's Susan Lucci, in reference to Lucci going nineteen years before winning an Emmy for best Daytime Soap Actress. When former winner Becky Buller announced the award, she smiled at Ulisse's table and said, "You are no longer the Susan Lucci of this award."
Los Angeles, CA -- Critically acclaimed singer, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter Rhiannon Giddens is the recipient of the seventh annual Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass. Described by T Bone Burnett as one of the “most profound musicians active today,” Giddens is the co-founder of the GRAMMY Award-winning string band Carolina Chocolate Drops, in which she sang and played banjo and fiddle. That group has long investigated and promoted the foundational role African-American performers and songwriters have played in folk-music history, while making recordings that are vital, contemporary, and exuberant.
The Grand Master Champion for 2016 is Maddie Denton of Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Denton took home $1,200 in cash, a $500 gift certificate courtesy of D’Addario, a Grand Master Fiddler plaque, and will appear on the Grand Ole Opry. The two-day 45th annual Grand Master Fiddler Championship is the nation’s premier championship event held at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville on September 3 and 4, 2016.
ASCAP, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, will present acclaimed bluegrass and country music songwriter-artist and Grand Ole Opry member Ricky Skaggs with its prestigious Founders Award at the 54thannual ASCAP Country Music Awards. The exclusive, invitation-only gala, which celebrates the songwriters and publishers of ASCAP's most performed country songs of 2015, will take place at the historic Ryman Auditorium in downtown Nashville, Tennessee on October 31st.
Entertainer Randall Franks, of Ringgold, was among the recent honorees at the 42nd annual Atlanta Society of Entertainers Awards receiving the Bluegrass Band of the Year Award with his Georgia Mafia Bluegrass Band. Franks, who is best known as “Officer Randy Goode” from the TV series “In the Heat of the Night,” starred in three TV series and 15 films. Musically, he is recognized as an International Bluegrass Music Museum Legend and Independent Country Music Hall of Fame inductee.
/
Fall Branch, TN -- For the second year in a row, East Tennessee Mountain Gospel artist, The Knight Family will receive Vintage Gospel CD of the Year honors. The group was informed this week that the Rural Roots Music Commission will bestow the honor in LeMars, IA in September at the National Traditional Country Music Association Convention.
Bristol, TN/VA -- The American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) proudly announces that the Birthplace of Country Music Museum is the recipient of an Award of Merit for their permanent exhibits on the history and legacy of the 1927 Bristol Sessions. The AASLH Leadership in History Awards, now in its 71st year, is the most prestigious recognition for achievement in the preservation and interpretation of state and local history.
Scotch Plains, NJ -- Mandolinist Barry Mitterhoff received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 42nd Annual New Jersey Folk Festival. “I’m honored and excited about getting this Lifetime Achievement Award for playing and teaching bluegrass music in New Jersey over the last 47 years,” says Barry.
Wilkesboro, NC -- The Austin Stage was packed for MerleFest 2016’s 24th Annual Chris Austin Songwriting Contest (CASC). The Chris Austin Songwriting Contest is a unique opportunity for aspiring writers to have their original songs heard and judged by a panel of Nashville music industry professionals, under the direction of this year’s volunteer contest chairperson Jim Lauderdale. Judging is based on a song’s originality, lyrics, melody and overall commercial potential.
David's "Bluegrass in the Backwoods" is an instrumental CD that features dazzling solos by Stuart Duncan, Sierra Hull, Rob Ickes, Ron Block, Jake Workman, Dennis Caplinger, Christian Ward, and other topnotch virtuosos. David Naiditch won the 14th Independent Music Awards (IMA) for Bluegrass Album. The surprise is that David Naiditch plays the chromatic harmonica, an instrument that is used in jazz but that, as far as we know, hasn't been recorded in bluegrass since Jimmy Riddle of Hee Haw fame released his "Country Harmonica" LP in 1964.
