The First Ladies of Bluegrass—Alison Brown, Becky Buller, Sierra Hull, Missy Raines, and Molly Tuttle—share the stage at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s CMA Theater during this 2019 concert, a rare collective performance from the first women to win the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Instrumentalist of the Year honor on their respective instrument.

Throughout the show, the five bluegrass bandleaders—recognized together as the First Ladies of Bluegrass in the Museum’s “American Currents: The Music of 2018” exhibition—trade off providing support and taking the lead on songs.

Bass player Raines leads a performance of the Laurie Lewis song “Swept Away” (the IBMA’s 2018 Recorded Event of the Year and a track on Raines’s Grammy-nominated, Brown-produced album “Royal Traveller”), and Brown drives an instrumental ode to Earl Scruggs’s famous tune “Earl’s Breakdown,” reimagined as “Girl’s Breakdown.”

Buller reminisces about learning to play fiddle with her musical family, and gets emotional talking about her great-grandfather’s fiddle, included in the exhibition. She leads the group in a performance of the bluegrass song “Never Again.”

The band joins guitarist Tuttle on original tunes, including “Over the Line” and “Friend and a Friend,” which Tuttle wrote when she first moved to Nashville. Mandolin player Hull leads the group in an instrumental she wrote at fifteen called “Hullarious,” and in a performance of deep Loretta Lynn cut “You Wanna Give Me a Lift.” All five gather around one microphone to perform “Wagoner’s Lad” a cappella.

Fiddlers Deanie Richardson of Sister Sadie and Kimber Ludiker of Della Mae make guest appearances, along with mandolin player Roland White, who joins for a spirited performance of “Christmas Time’s A-Comin’” to close out the show.

FOR MORE

Find out more about our public programming: https://countrymusichalloffame.org/plan-your-visit/exhibits-activities/public-programs/

Explore the Museum’s current exhibitions: https://countrymusichalloffame.org/current-exhibits/

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