bluegrass

In Chattanooga, TN last week, Billy Strings wrapped up an intimate duo tour with guitar hero Bryan Sutton and launched another stretch of his ongoing mega-tour with his versatile jamgrass band. Amid that, he delivered a keynote address to the IBMA World of Bluegrass that solidified his position as a leader and an ambassador of the music’s core traditions. Craig Havighurst was there and has this analysis.

Arena-filling guitar star Billy Strings won his fourth Entertainer of the Year prize at the 36th annual IBMA Awards, which were held for the first time in Chattanooga, TN. While fiddlers Michael Cleveland and Jason Carter’s collaborative album took three trophies. Women enjoyed historic success in the night’s instrumentalist of the year categories.

After 12 years in Raleigh, NC, the International Bluegrass Music Association is moving its long-running World Of Bluegrass industry convention to the East Tennessee city of Chattanooga, where it will take over the convention center, music venues, and city parks between Sept. 16 and 20, just one week after Americanafest. Ask the IBMA, and they’ll say there are no big shifts or surprises in the structure and nature of the convention. It’s the same idea in a new town. Except there is a big new dynamic, and his name is Billy Strings.

After a three-year tutelage with Old Crow Medicine Show, multi-faceted Appalachian artist Mason Via has set out on his own road. He was raised in bluegrass festival campgrounds and at picking parties hosted by his dad, songwriter and musician David Via. Bluegrass royalty hung out at his home near the North Carolina/Virginia border, and it’s rubbed off. After trying a few musical directions, Via’s self-titled album of this year shows range, depth, and a command of bluegrass and country moods. Meet a 28-year-old you’ll be hearing a lot more about if you follow acoustic roots.

Superstars Alison Krauss and Billy Strings stand out among this year’s IBMA Award nominations, which were announced on Wednesday morning. But a coincidentally timed show at Tuesday’s Bluegrass Nights At The Ryman series went at least as far in telling the story of where the genre is going in 2025. The co-bill featured AJ Lee & Blue Summit and East Nash Grass, artists enjoying their national breakouts and who are both now in the running for major awards in September when the International Bluegrass Music Association brings its World of Bluegrass convention for the first time to Chattanooga.

The story of how global banjo explorer Joe Troop (formerly of Che Apalache) met Venezuelan harpist and all-around folk music master Larry Bellorín is testimony to the magic of global culture and a cautionary tale about the stark turn US policy has taken against working asylum seekers this year. Over three years as the bilingual, genre-fusing, and multi-instrumental duo Larry & Joe, they’ve toured widely and made two albums together to great acclaim among folk music lovers. They’re one of the most charismatic and culture-crossing acts to come out of roots music in the past decade. Here in a special episode of The String, they tell their story in an interview that took place in Knoxville, TN in March.

A few years ago, Colorado’s Tyler Grant was twanging an electric guitar and touring with his band Grant Farm. After the pandemic, he joined the world of river guiding and entertaining customers on trips through some of the West’s most beautiful and important canyons. Now Grant has circled back to the music that propelled him into the spotlight as guitar player in the Emmitt-Nershi Band - bluegrass guitar. His new album Flatpicker is a mix of instrumentals and songs, but they’re all about the places and stories of the western land he cherishes.

Sierra Hull brings a measure of small-town delight and innocence to roots and bluegrass that perfectly compliments her innate gifts and her formal schooling in high level music-making. The mandolinist, songwriter, singer, and band leader has emerged, since her youthful debut in 2008, as a star of her field and an inspiring figure in Americana. Her four IBMA Mandolin Player of the Year awards are part of the story. But so is her composing, her collaborating and her records. The first in five years - and her first independent release - is A Tip Toe High Wire, coming March 7. This episode complements a bio-oriented show in 2018, emphasizing Hull’s recent work with Béla Fleck, Cory Wong and others, and of course the thought behind and production of her newest release.

Up in New York, Eric Lindberg and Doni Zasloff lead Nefesh Mountain, a one-of-a-kind progressive string band that has blended bluegrass, newgrass, and traditional Jewish folk music for just over a decade. Their Jan. 31 release, Beacons, is an ambitious double album with an Americana side and a bluegrass side. Then on Valentine’s Day, North Carolina couple Austin and Sarah McCombie - The Chatham Rabbits - offered their fourth album Be Real With Me, a nine-song set that sees their songwriting getting more personally candid and their sound enhanced by electric textures and percussion for the first time. As they both deal honestly with being married for love and music, I can hear these recordings in conversation with each other.

In one of the big surprise stories in roots music of the past six months, Georgia-based Russell Moore was named the newest member of Alison Krauss and Union Station, taking over the male vocal and guitar role held by Dan Tyminski for years. Moore is on the upcoming album Arcadia and set to go on extensive tours in 2025 and ‘26. It’s a big move for this fan favorite. Moore got his start with Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver in the 80s and then started his own band - IIIrd Tyme Out - in 1991. Since then he’s been perhaps the most awarded male voice in bluegrass. This is the story of how he launched and managed his impressive and influential career.