Legend Sam Bush To Host International Bluegrass Music Awards

This year the 22nd annual International Bluegrass Music Awards will be hosted by legend Sam Bush, a recipient of numerous bluegrass awards who is known as the “Father of Newgrass.” The awards will be held at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium on September 29, just two weeks after what would have been Bill Monroe’s 100th birthday. 

 

“It is my pleasure to return as the host for the 2011 IBMA Awards,” Bush says. “As a bluegrass fan and fellow Kentuckian, it’s especially important to me in the 100th year anniversary of Bill Monroe’s birth. I look forward to spending the evening with the nominees and the winners, as this is their special night.” 

 

The IBMA Awards Show is the main event of the World of Bluegrass week, including the industry’s Business Conference and Bluegrass Fan Fest, which takes place September 26 – October 2 in Nashville.

 

Though he has broken ground on new styles of music and won a variety of IBMA awards and Grammys, including a Lifetime Achievement Award from the AMA, Sam is still as humble as can be, saying it is not the accolades that drive him forward, but his own desire to improve and grow. 

 

“I didn’t get into music to win awards,” he says. “I’m just now starting to get somewhere. I love to play and the older I get the more I love it. And I love new things. I want to grow as a songwriter, as a song collaborator,” he says. “There are still a lot of things I haven’t discovered about playing mandolin. I want to be able to be secure in the styles that I know how to play well, but I also want to explore other styles that I haven’t learned yet. I want to improve as a singer,” he adds. “I have to work harder on singing than I do on playing.”

 

He also states that he is flattered whenever someone claims him as an influence to their own music, since he still looks up to many of his own predecessors and realizes what an impact they can have. “In the acoustic world I’ve been pretty lucky to play with almost every one of my heroes. I’ve gotten to play with Bill Monroe, Doc Watson, Earl Scruggs…. I’ve been to the mountain,” Bush says. 

 

Yet he also realizes that the continuation of bluegrass depends on those who will follow him, those who are just now discovering and leaving their own mark on the style.  “I’m secure with what I can do and I know what I can’t do,” he says. “You just have to stand there and applaud the great young talent. Chris Thile, Wayne Benson, Shawn Lane, Matt Flinner, Ronnie McCoury, Mike Marshall—they play in ways that I can’t play,” he says of the current field of mandolin players. “I’m hoping to be around for the next generation that comes along after that group. That’s going to be something. The music keeps evolving.”

 

Sam’s current album, Circle Around Me, is a mix of contemporary and bluegrass favorites. “It felt right at this moment in my life to go back and re-visit some things that I’ve loved all my life, which is bluegrass and, unapologetically, newgrass,” says Bush. “After all these years of experimenting —and there’s experimentation on this record too —I’ve come full circle.” He adds that, “As long as I’m alive I hope I have the ability to play. When the ability to play is taken away, it’s humbling. It teaches you a lesson: don’t take it for granted.” It is safe that say that fans of Sam, both longtime listeners and newcomers to the bluegrass scene, hope that he will be playing for many years to come.

 

For more information on World of Bluegrass, including tickets to the International Bluegrass Music Awards, go to www.ibma.org, join us on Facebook, or call 615-256-3222 (888-GET-IBMA). Tickets are on sale now at the website.