Russell Moore and The Grascals win awards from UDMD

Russell Moore, band leader and primary vocalist with IIIrd Tyme Out has been announced as the recipient of the 2017 Heritage Award from the Uncle Dave Macon Days festival in Murfreesboro, TN.

Each year the festival honors a member of the country and bluegrass music community who have “dedicated their careers and life perpetuating, preserving and promoting old-time music and dance,” just as the great Uncle Dave did in his day. Previous recipients include Roy Acuff, John Hartford, Bill Monroe, Kitty Wells, Mac Wiseman, Eddie Stubbs, Ricky Skaggs, and Ralph Stanley going back to the award’s inception in 1980.

At the press conference where the awards were announced, Moore said…

“Getting to do what you love to do for a living is a blessing and I am so thankful for that. People who know me well, know that I’m not one to toot my own horn or pat myself on the back, so I’m going to leave it up to other people to qualify me being the recipient of this prestigious award. I’m really honored to be receiving the Heritage Award, albeit a gentle reminder that I’m not 20 years old anymore.”

Also announced at the press conference was the winner of the festival’s 2017 Trailblazer Award, given each year since 2004 to an “artist, musician, or individual who has developed old-time musical performance styles and techniques that blaze the trail for others to perpetuate, emulate, refine, and follow into contemporary genres.”

This year’s honor goes to The Grascals, which mandolinist Danny Roberts noted with enthusiasm was quite special for him as Murfreesboro is his home town. Previous winners include The Boxcars, Curtis McPeake, and J.D. Crowe.

Both Russell Moore & IIIrd Tyme Out and The Grascals will both be featured performers at Uncle Dave Macon Days, which also includes competitions for old time and bluegrass banjo and fiddle, mandolin, and buck dancing and clogging.

Full festival details can be found online.

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About the Author

John Lawless

John had served as primary author and editor for The Bluegrass Blog from its launch in 2006 until being folded into Bluegrass Today in September of 2011. He continues in that capacity here, managing a strong team of columnists and correspondents.