Doyle Lawson to receive National Heritage Fellowship

Two weeks after appearing with his band Quicksilver as headliners at the Omagh festival, Doyle Lawson will be presented with a National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship at a ceremony in Washington, DC, on 15 September. This is the highest award conferred by the NEA on folk and traditional artists 'whose contributions, primarily through teaching, advocacy, organizing, and preserving important repertoires, have greatly benefited their artistic tradition'; previous bluegrass recipients include Bill Monroe, Earl Scruggs, Doc Watson, Ralph Stanley, and Jerry Douglas (headliner at the Longford festival on the weekend of Doyle Lawson's award). The conferring involves a banquet (13 September) to honour Fellowship recipients, a presentation ceremony 14 September), and a concert appearance with Quicksilver (15 September).

Born near Kingsport, Tennessee (1944), Lawson began his career in 1963 as banjo-player for Jimmy Martin's Sunny Mountain Boys, and built a reputation as a singer and mandolinist with J. D. Crowe's Kentucky Mountain Boys and Charlie Waller's Country Gentlemen. In the 1980s and 1990s, as a member of the Bluegrass Album Band, he helped to make the foundations of bluegrass known to new generations of musicians and fans.

His own group, Quicksilver (founded 1979), quickly established themselves as leaders of 'solid contemporary grass', blending traditional bluegrass elements with progressive material and superb execution, and redefining and invigorating the field of gospel quartet singing (especially a cappella) with more than 15 all-gospel bluegrass albums. In recent years the band's numerous honors include five consecutive Vocal Group of the Year and four Gospel Recorded Performance of the Year awards from the IBMA, as well as multiple Grammy and Dove award nominations.

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