Doyle Lawson

Doyle Lawson. . Bluegrass and country gospel musician Doyle Lawson is a mandolinist, singer, and, since 1979, the leader of Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver. The winner of may International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) awards, Lawson was also the 2006 recipient of the United States’ most prestigious honor in folk music and traditional arts, the National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts., Doyle Wayne Lawson was born in the Fordtown community south of Kingsport on April 20, 1944. His father, Leonard, ran a farm and worked for Holston Defense during World War II and the Korean War. In 1954, Leonard moved the family near Sneedville and performed in a sacred quartet on WRGS Rogersville. A quartet member loaned a mandolin to Doyle, who had been inspired to learn the instrument after hearing Bill Monroe on the Grand Ole Opry. Later, he learned the banjo and guitar too., In February 1963, Lawson was hired as a banjo player by bluegrass star Jimmy Martin. He saw himself as part of “bluegrass generation one-and-a-half”. Lawson stayed with Martin until 1963, then moved to Louisville, Kentucky, where, in 1966, he joined Martin’s former banjo player J.D. Crowe. After leaving Crowe’s group, Lawson briefly rejoined Martin in 1969 before reuniting with Crowe., In 1971, Lawson left Crowe to join one of the groups bringing fresh influences to bluegrass, the Country Gentlemen. With them, he had primary responsibility for sourcing songs and working up the arrangements. When he left in 1979, it was to form his own band, of Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver. He decided that it was time to imprint himself upon his music and his recordings. He had made his first solo album, Tennessee Dream, while still with the Country Gentlemen, and, immediately upon forming Quicksilver, was signed to newly launched Sugar Hill Records, based in Durham, North Carolina. His primary affiliation remained with Sugar Hill until a few years after the label was sold in 1998., Lawson has recorded both secular and sacred bluegrass albums in almost equal number. On his secular albums, he has drawn from a wide variety of backgrounds, including classic pop. His willingness to embrace other music led him to a collaboration with singer-songwriter Paul Simon on Simon’s 2011 album So Beautiful or So What., Married in 1978, Lawson moved to his wife Suzanne’s hometown, Bristol, Tennessee, I 1984. In May 1985, re rededicated himself to Christianity and became a member of Cold Spring Presbyterian Church in Bristol., Of the changing trends in bluegrass, Lawson said, “In 1979, I wanted the group to e real versatile, that we wouldn’t paint ourselves into one particular corner. For the first several years, they considered [me] more contemporary. Now they consider me more traditional. My music has stayed pretty much the same.”, Lawson has received many awards and citations, including six Grammy nominations and many IBMA awards since the inception of the awards show in 1990. In 2012, he was inducted into the IBMA Hall of Fame.