Diamond Rio is an American country music band. The band was founded in 1982 as an attraction for the Opryland USA theme park in Nashville, Tennessee, and was originally known as the Grizzly River Boys, then the Tennessee River Boys. It was founded by Matt Davenport, Danny Gregg, and Ty Herndon, the last of whom became a solo artist in the mid-1990s. After undergoing several membership changes in its initial years, the band consisted of the same six members from 1989 to 2022: Marty Roe, Gene Johnson, Jimmy Olander, Brian Prout (drums), Dan Truman (keyboards), and Dana Williams. After Prout and Johnson both departed in 2022, they were replaced by Micah Schweinsberg and Carson McKee respectively.
Mark O'Connor is an American fiddle player and composer whose music combines bluegrass, country, jazz and classical. A three-time Grammy Award winner, he has won six Country Music Association Musician Of The Year awards and, was a member of three influential musical ensembles; the David Grisman Quintet, The Dregs, and Strength in Numbers.
Charles Samuel Bush is an American mandolinist who is considered an originator of progressive bluegrass music. In 2020, he was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame as a member of New Grass Revival. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame a second time in 2023 as a solo artist.
This is a list of notable events in country music that took place in the year 1991.
Christopher Scott Thile is an American mandolinist, singer, songwriter, composer, and radio personality, best known for his work in the progressive acoustic trio Nickel Creek and the acoustic folk and progressive bluegrass quintet Punch Brothers. He is a 2012 MacArthur Fellow. From 2016 to its cancellation in 2020, he hosted the radio variety show Live from Here.
Rickie Lee Skaggs, known professionally as Ricky Skaggs, is an American neotraditional country and bluegrass singer, musician, producer, and composer. He primarily plays mandolin; however, he also plays fiddle, guitar, mandocaster, and banjo.
Shannon Lee Lawson is an American country music artist and songwriter.
Mark Elliott is a songwriter, author and guitarist whose career started in Washington, D.C., and later took him to Nashville. As a songwriter Elliott has penned hits which reached the Billboard Top Forty charts, notably "Every Man for Himself" for Neal McCoy. As an author, Mark is represented by Brandt & Hochman Literary Agents, Inc. New York, New York, and has released his debut coming of age memoir, entitled, "The Sons of Starmount: Memoir of a Ten-Year-Old Boy" on Valentine's Day 2019. The companion album to the book, featuring all original songs produced in the style of the 1970s is also available.
Punch Brothers is an American band consisting of Chris Thile (mandolin), Brittany Haas (fiddle/violin), Noam Pikelny (banjo), Chris Eldridge (guitar), and Paul Kowert (bass). Their style has been described as "bluegrass instrumentation and spontaneity in the strictures of modern classical" as well as "American country-classical chamber music".
Stuart Ian Duncan is an American bluegrass musician who plays the fiddle, mandolin, guitar, and banjo.
Zac Brown Band is an American country music band based in Atlanta, Georgia. The lineup consists of Zac Brown, Jimmy De Martini, John Driskell Hopkins, Coy Bowles, Chris Fryar (drums), Clay Cook, Matt Mangano, Daniel de los Reyes (percussion), and Caroline Jones.
The SteelDrivers are a bluegrass band from Nashville, Tennessee. Members include fiddler Tammy Rogers, bassist Mike Fleming, guitarist/vocalist Matt Dame, mandolinist Brent Truitt, and banjoist Richard Bailey. Past members include Kelvin Damrell, Chris Stapleton, Gary Nichols, and Mike Henderson. The band has recorded four albums on the Rounder Records label and one independent live album recorded at The Station Inn. The band has received several Grammy nominations and won a Grammy for the album The Muscle Shoals Recordings.
Kate Lee O'Connor is a Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter and fiddler. She is a co-lead singer, writer, and instrumentalist for the bluegrass band, O'Connor Band with Mark O'Connor, whose album, Coming Home, debuted at #1 on the Billboard Top Bluegrass Albums chart in August 2016. In 2019, she signed with Compass Records as half of the duo, O'Connor Lee, with Forrest O'Connor.
Brothers Osborne is an American country music duo consisting of brothers T.J. Osborne and John Osborne. Born in Deale, Maryland, the duo signed a recording contract with EMI Records Nashville in 2012 and began releasing music the following year. Their 2015 song "Stay a Little Longer" became a top five hit on the Billboard Hot Country Songs and Country Airplay charts, and their success led to the release of their debut studio album titled Pawn Shop the same year. Since then, Brothers Osborne have released the albums Port Saint Joe (2018) and Skeletons (2020).
Carly Pearce is an American country music singer and songwriter. Her material contains elements of both traditional and contemporary country-pop music. Pearce began performing professionally in her teens, appearing on several albums of bluegrass material in the 2000s. After moving to Nashville, Tennessee, she began gaining more widespread notice.
Molly Rose Tuttle is an American vocalist, songwriter, banjo player, guitarist, recording artist, and teacher in the bluegrass tradition. She is noted for her flatpicking, clawhammer, and crosspicking guitar prowess. She has cited Laurie Lewis, Kathy Kallick, Alison Krauss and Hazel Dickens as role models. In 2017, Tuttle was the first woman to win the International Bluegrass Music Association's Guitar Player of the Year award. In 2018 she won the award again, along with being named the Americana Music Association's Instrumentalist of the Year. In 2023, Tuttle won the Best Bluegrass Album for Crooked Tree and also received a nomination for the all-genre Best New Artist award at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards.
Coming Home is the debut album by the O'Connor Band. The album was produced by Gregg Field, Mark O'Connor, and Forrest O'Connor, and it was released by Rounder Records in August 2016. It debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Top Bluegrass Albums chart and won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album at the 59th Annual Grammy Awards in February 2017.
Elliott Ross Holmes is an American violinist, fiddler, composer and producer known for his progressive style that is genre fluid, mixing old and new world styles.
Billy Strings is an American guitarist and bluegrass musician. His album Home won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album in 2021.
Maggie O'Connor is a Grammy winning American violinist and singer. She is married to Mark O'Connor. She graduated from the Peabody Conservatory in 2014. As a member of the O'Connor Band, she performed for the 59th Grammy Awards in 2017. She is also a visual artist and educator.
