A vision of the bluegrass life

Claire Lynch's band played at Omagh last year and will be among the headliners at this year's Didmarton Bluegrass Festival (at the end of a ten-day tour in four European countries). Yesterday Claire and mandolin wizard Adam Steffey co-hosted a press conference in Nashville for the nominations for this year's IBMA awards. A full list of nominees is on the IBMA website.

Claire Lynch's own version of 'My Florida sunshine' (written by Bill Monroe and recorded by him in 1977) is nominated for the Song of the Year award. Claire's latest e-newsletter expresses her appreciation, and adds:

here's what I truly appreciate most of all: the bluegrass life, more so than any awards or chart success, is a profound source of happiness and sustenance for me and so many people I know. Bluegrass music is great music, but it is also much more than music. It's a community, a family, and for many musicians as lucky as I and my band members are, it's a livelihood and a charmed life. Bill Monroe, Earl Scruggs, and all of those first-generation bluegrass greats created this bluegrass life. That photo, above, with me and my bandmates sitting in the glorious sunshine, sharing our music - for me, captures the essence of the bluegrass life.

You can read the whole of the newsletter here.