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TITLE: Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver
SPEAKER: Doyle Lawson
EVENT DATE: 09/13/2006
RUNNING TIME: 70 minutes
DESCRIPTION:
Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver perform bluegrass and gospel music from Tennessee, another in the Homegrown Concert Series sponsored by the American Folklife Center.
Speaker Biography: Doyle Lawson is the recipient of one of the National Heritage Fellowship Awards from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2006. Born near Kingsport, Tenn., in 1944, Lawson began his career as a bluegrass musician in 1963 with International Bluegrass Music Association Hall of Honor member Jimmy Martin. Over the next 15 years, he became increasingly prominent as a powerful, expressive singer and distinctive mandolin stylist while working as a sideman with the Kentucky Mountain Boys and the Country Gentlemen. Lawson established Quicksilver in 1979 and quickly moved to the forefront of the bluegrass scene, releasing a series of acclaimed albums--including the pioneering all-gospel "Rock My Soul" in 1980--and influencing generations of younger musicians with a sound that blended traditional bluegrass and gospel elements with progressive material and superb execution. Drawing on shape-note hymnals and on the sounds of African-American gospel quartets and southern gospel groups, he made more than 15 all-gospel bluegrass albums that featured a wide range of styles, including a capella quartets. At the same time, as a member of the Bluegrass Album Band, he helped to bring the repertoire and musical approaches of the music's early giants to new generations of musicians and fans in a series of acclaimed albums made between 1980 and 1996. In recent years, Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver have earned numerous honors, including five consecutive Vocal Group of the Year and four Gospel Recorded Performance of the Year awards from the International Bluegrass Music Association, as well as multiple Grammy and Dove award nominations, while pursuing a busy performance schedule that has included appearances on "A Prairie Home Companion," Mountain Stage and the Grand Ole Opry.
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SERIES: Homegrown