Natalie Anne Merchant is an American alternative rock singer-songwriter. She joined the band 10,000 Maniacs in 1981 and was lead vocalist and primary lyricist for the group. She remained with the group for their first seven albums before leaving to begin her solo career in 1993. She has since released nine studio albums as a solo artist.
The Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album is an award presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to recording artists for quality works in the bluegrass music genre. Honors in several categories are presented at the ceremony annually by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to "honor artistic achievement, technical proficiency and overall excellence in the recording industry, without regard to album sales or chart position".
Michael Martin Murphey is an American singer-songwriter. He was one of the founding artists of progressive country. A multiple Grammy nominee, Murphey has six gold albums, including Cowboy Songs, the first album of cowboy music to achieve gold status since Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs by Marty Robbins in 1959. He has recorded the hit singles "Wildfire", "Carolina in the Pines", "What's Forever For", "A Long Line of Love", "What She Wants", "Don't Count the Rainy Days", and "Maybe This Time". Murphey is also the author of New Mexico's state ballad, "The Land of Enchantment". Murphey has become a prominent musical voice for the Western horseman, rancher, and cowboy.
David Anthony Rice was an American bluegrass guitarist. He was an influential acoustic guitar player in bluegrass, progressive bluegrass, newgrass and acoustic jazz. He was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 2013.
Old Crow Medicine Show is an Americana string band based in Nashville, Tennessee, that has been recording since 1998. They were inducted into the Grand Ole Opry on September 17, 2013. Their ninth album, Remedy, released in 2014, won the Grammy Award for Best Folk Album. The group's music has been called old-time, folk, and alternative country. Along with original songs, the band performs many pre-World War II blues and folk songs.
Christopher Scott Thile is an American mandolinist, singer, songwriter, composer, and radio personality, best known for his work in the progressive acoustic trio Nickel Creek and the acoustic folk and progressive bluegrass quintet Punch Brothers. He is a 2012 MacArthur Fellow. From 2016 to its cancellation in 2020, he hosted the radio variety show Live from Here.
Sara Ullrika Watkins is an American singer-songwriter and fiddler. Watkins debuted in 1989 as the fiddler of Nickel Creek, the progressive bluegrass group she formed with her brother Sean and mandolinist Chris Thile. In addition to singing and fiddling, Watkins also plays the ukulele and the guitar, and also played percussion while touring with the Decemberists. In 2012, she and her brother played with Jackson Browne during his "I'll Do Anything" acoustic tour.
Syd Straw is an American rock singer and songwriter. The daughter of actor Jack Straw and songwriter Barrie Jean Garvin, she began her career singing backup for Pat Benatar, then took her distinctive and powerful voice to the indie/alternative scene and joined the ever-evolving line-up of Golden Palominos from 1985 through 1987, appearing on their second and third albums. Straw was a frequent lead singer and occasional co-songwriter for the group, which was spearheaded by drummer Anton Fier and also featured vocal turns by Michael Stipe, Matthew Sweet, Don Dixon, Jack Bruce and others. She left the group in 1987 to establish her solo career.
Rob Ickes is an American dobro player in San Francisco, California. Ickes moved to Nashville in 1992 and joined the contemporary bluegrass band Blue Highway as a founding member in 1994. He currently collaborates with guitarist Trey Hensley, with whom he has released three albums. Ickes has been nominated for numerous Grammy Awards, winning two in 1994 for bluegrass and gospel albums he contributed to.
Aoife O'Donovan is an American singer and Grammy award-winning songwriter. She is best known as the lead singer for the string band Crooked Still and she also co-founded the Grammy Award-winning female folk trio I'm with Her. She has released three critically acclaimed studio albums: Fossils (2013), In the Magic Hour (2016), and Age of Apathy, as well as multiple noteworthy live recordings and EPs, including Blue Light (2010), Peachstone (2012), Man in a Neon Coat: Live From Cambridge (2016), In the Magic Hour: Solo Sessions (2019), and Bull Frog's Croon (2020). She also spent a decade contributing to the radio variety shows Live from Here and A Prairie Home Companion. Her first professional engagement was singing lead for the folk group The Wayfaring Strangers.
Punch Brothers is an American band consisting of Chris Thile (mandolin), Brittany Haas (fiddle/violin), Noam Pikelny (banjo), Chris Eldridge (guitar), and Paul Kowert (bass). Their style has been described as "bluegrass instrumentation and spontaneity in the strictures of modern classical" as well as "American country-classical chamber music".
George Ryan Bingham is an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist whose music spans multiple genres. He is currently based in Los Angeles. As of 2019, Bingham has released six studio albums and one live album, the last four of which were released under his own label, Axster Bingham Records.
Them Crooked Vultures is an American rock supergroup formed in Los Angeles in 2009 with American musician Josh Homme on lead vocals and guitar, English musician John Paul Jones on bass and keyboards, and American musician Dave Grohl on drums and backing vocals. The group also includes Chilean-American guitarist Alain Johannes during live performances.
The Dixie Bee-Liners are an American bluegrass group, formed in New York City in 2002 by Buddy Woodward and Brandi Hart. Their music has been called Bluegrass, Americana, alt-country, Folk, and "Bible Belt Noir".
Sierra Dawn Hull is an American bluegrass singer-songwriter, mandolinist, and guitarist.
Hard Bargain is the twenty-sixth studio album by American country music singer-songwriter Emmylou Harris, released on April 26, 2011, and recorded at Tragedy/Tragedy, TN. The album is her fourth solo recording for Nonesuch Records.
Molly Rose Tuttle is an American vocalist, songwriter, banjo player, guitarist, recording artist, and teacher in the bluegrass tradition. She is noted for her flatpicking, clawhammer, and crosspicking guitar prowess. She has cited Laurie Lewis, Kathy Kallick, Alison Krauss and Hazel Dickens as role models. In 2017, Tuttle was the first woman to win the International Bluegrass Music Association's Guitar Player of the Year award. In 2018 she won the award again, along with being named the Americana Music Association's Instrumentalist of the Year. In 2023, Tuttle won the Best Bluegrass Album for Crooked Tree and also received a nomination for the all-genre Best New Artist award at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards. Also in 2023, Tuttle and Golden Highway won International Bluegrass Music Awards for album Crooked Tree and the title track in the categories of Album of the Year and Song of the Year, respectively, while Tuttle won Female Vocalist of the Year.
Billy Strings is an American guitarist and bluegrass musician. His album Home won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album in 2021.
Crooked Tree is the third studio album by American bluegrass singer and musician Molly Tuttle. Released on April 1, 2022, it is Tuttle's first album for Nonesuch Records and the first to feature her band Golden Highway, who receive star billing. The album was co-produced by Tuttle and dobro player Jerry Douglas and includes collaborations with Margo Price, Billy Strings, Old Crow Medicine Show, Sierra Hull, Dan Tyminski and Gillian Welch. It was preceded by the single "She'll Change", which was released on November 17, 2021.
Ketch Secor, is a Grammy award-winning American musician and a co-founder and current frontman for the band Old Crow Medicine Show. Secor is a multi-instrumentalist, playing fiddle, banjo, harmonica, guitar and other instruments, and is known for infusing old-time Americana and Appalachian music with more modern punk influences.
