The DC Bluegrass Union has announced that longtime WAMU broadcaster Katy Daley will be the recipient of their 2017 Monument Award. Katy will be presented with her award on Saturday during this weekend’s DC Bluegrass Festival, held at the Sheraton Tysons Hotel in Vienna, VA.
Since the festival was established, they have given the Monument Award each year to a leading figure in the bluegrass community in the Capitol area. Previous winners include Hazel Dickens, Bill Emerson, Lynn Morris, Tom Gray, Ben Eldridge and Eddie Adcock.
Katy was chosen for her life-long commitment to bluegrass music, and her many years of service as a radio host in the DC market. Beltway drivers headed for work with her show each weekday morning for many years on WAMU’s Bluegrass Country, where she played a mix of new and classic bluegrass, along with insightful interviews with interesting people, and frequent live, in-studio performances from top artists. In more recent years she had assumed an additional station management role, and took the occasion of WAMU’s recent split with Bluegrass Country as her time to step away from the microphone and pursue the next chapter of her bluegrass journey.
We at Bluegrass Today are delighted that part of that journey includes us. On top of hosting our annual red carpet interviews at the IBMA Awards show each year, she is now conducting print interviews for us with bluegrass artists and personalities, bringing her long experience in the music to bear. Katy grew up along with the burgeoning bluegrass scene in Washington, and followed artists like The Country Gentlemen and Seldom Scene from their beginnings to the pinnacle, getting to know most of the pickers and singers personally during that time.
You can read her various interviews by following this link.
Katy also continues her familiar role as MC at a number of bluegrass events along the east coast.
They say you’re never a hero in your own home town, but Katy Daley has turned that one on its head. Congratulations on being named for this honor!
Find more details about the DC Bluegrass Festival online.
