The IBMA Awards - And the winners are

It's all over for another year except for a few people with groggy heads from the celebrations after Thursday's Awards in all that is great and good in Bluegrass music. There's a cliché in many competitions proclaiming that there are no losers but in this case I think it holds true. Honors are bestowed on many for great work done for Bluegrass music but everyone mentioned deserves great praise. Almost all the people honored have made this music their lives long before it's new found popularity made it almost feasible to make a decent living at it.

Those names that were hand picked to accept honors reflected the great variety of styles and of characters currently dotted on the musical landscape. The big winners were the Del McCoury Band and Alison Krauss and Union Station.

McCoury and the band walked away with Entertainer of the Year for the 8 th time. They also took the Best Bass Player and Best Fiddle Player awards. Del McCoury himself was honored by being invited to be inducted as the newest member of the Grand Old Opry in late October. No one deserves it more. Del is the epitome of pure bluegrass right now and always puts on a show that always leaves you wanting more.

Alison Krauss and Union Station took the Album of the Year award for Live while Dan Tyminski took the Male Vocalist of the Year honor. Again these awards were well deserved. Union Station have taken their own brand of this music to a much wider audience than ever before and show no signs of losing their appeal. The excellent Rhonda Vincent won the Female Vocalist of the Year award.

Other noteworthy awards went to Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver including Vocal Group of the Year and Song of the Year.

Old favorite Ricky Skaggs was also among the winners with Instrumental Group of the Year for his band Kentucky Thunder an award they won in 1998, 99, 2000 and 2002 and Jim Mills took home the Banjo Player of the Year Award.

Again it holds true that everyone involved deserved praise and the real winner in all of this was Bluegrass music itself. It bodes well for the young players out there who have great role models to follow and for the growing legions of fans who have discovered that they are cool after all.

For a full list of the winners you can go to The IBMA website at http://www.ibma.org

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