IBMA DISTINGUISHED ACHIEVEMENT AWARD RECIPIENTS ANNOUNCED

• Greg Cahill
  
• Bill Knowlton
  
• Lilly Pavlak
  
• Geoff Stelling
  
• Roland White

Nashville, TN….The International Bluegrass Music Association is proud to announce the recipients of the Distinguished Achievement Award, an honor which recognizes individuals in the bluegrass music industry who have fostered the music’s image with developments that will broaden the genre’s recognition and accessibility.  The following people will be honored at the Special Awards Luncheon on Thursday, September 29, 2011, at the Nashville Convention Center during the IBMA Business Conference: Greg Cahill Bill Knowlton Lilly Pavlak Geoff Stelling Roland White

Originally from Chicago, Illinois, Greg Cahill has been playing bluegrass banjo since the early 1970s.  Greg co-founded The Special Consensus in Chicago in 1975, a group that continues to tour nationally and internationally.  Cahill created the “Traditional American Music Program” in 1984 to introduce students of all ages to bluegrass music.  Since then, Cahill has been responsible for introducing bluegrass music to more than 1 million students in schools in the U.S. and around the world.  “The reward for this,” Greg says, “is that as each year passes a few young bluegrass musicians make it a point to find me at the record table to let me know they first heard bluegrass music when Special C came to their schools.” Cahill has appeared on 15 Special Consensus recordings, on numerous recordings by other artists and on many national television and radio commercial jingles.  Greg is also featured on Lone Star (with Jethro Burns and Byron Berline – 1980), Blue Skies (with Don Stiernberg, 1992), and Night Skies (with Don Stiernberg, Sam Bush, Glen Duncan and Tom Boyd, 1998).  He has recorded and toured Europe with the ChowDogs, a band that also features Slavek Hanzlik, Dallas Wayne and Ollie O'Shea.  In addition to conducting workshops at festivals, teaching at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago and teaching banjo at music camps nationally and internationally, Greg has released four banjo instructional DVDs.  Cahill has served on the IBMA Board of Directors from 1998-2010 (Board Chair/President 2006-2010), and he was elected president of the Foundation for Bluegrass Music in 2011.  While on the IBMA board Cahill, along with Tim Stafford, was responsible for launching the Bluegrass in the Schools program, now administered by the Foundation for Bluegrass Music.
Bill Knowlton started his career in radio in 1959 with the Bluegrass Ramble show on WFUV-FM at Fordham, University, and later at WBZY in Torrington, Conn. in 1962.  Since 1973 he has produced the show at WCNY-FM in Syracuse/Utica/Watertown, N.Y. as a volunteer.  Knowlton’s Bluegrass Ramble Picnic originated in 1973, making it one of the oldest bluegrass festivals in New York, Pennsylvania and New England.  In the mid-1980s he produced and emceed 52 half-hour Bluegrass Ramble television shows for the Eastern Educational Television Network, which aired on PBS stations across the country. Dressed in his signature straw hat and colorful pants, Knowlton has been a well-known emcee since 1973—gracing the stage at numerous bluegrass events throughout the eastern US and Canada.  Bill has been an emcee at Uncle Dave Macon Days in Murfreesboro, Tenn. since 1982, and in 1992 he was the recipient of their Jesse Messick Award. Knowlton is the co-founder of the Central New York Bluegrass Association, was named Bluegrass Broadcaster of the Year by IBMA in 1997, and graduated from the first Leadership Bluegrass class in 2000.  Knowlton is the long-time editor of the CNYBA newsletter for the association he helped to found;  he has written liner notes for County Records and articles for Bluegrass Unlimited magazine.  In 1974, Bill was instrumental in the fight to save the Ryman Auditorium by getting renowned New York Timesarchitecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable to write about it and personally advocate for saving the auditorium.  Many of Knowlton’s accomplishments in the bluegrass and old-time music world were done while also serving as a Lt. Colonel in the U.S. Air Force.
Lilly Pavlak is a journalist, photographer and sometimes booking agent/tour manager originally from the Czech Republic (then Czechoslovakia), now living in Switzerland.  An active journalist for more than three decades who has been enormously important in telling the European bluegrass story in the U.S. (and vice versa), Pavlak is first and foremost a hardcore bluegrass fan who has devoted a large portion of her life and energy to promoting the music and artists she loves.  The first American artist Pavlak heard in Czechoslovakia was Pete Seeger, in 1964. “I had never seen a live American before,” Lilly recalls. “We learned the worst things about ‘American imperialists’ in school and some people even believed they ate little children!  After the first tones of the banjo, I knew this was the strange instrument from the hillbilly music I liked so much.  That was a defining moment for me, and for the bluegrass movement that followed.  Nowadays the Czech Republic claims the highest concentration of bluegrass musicians on earth!” In 1975 Pavlak went to her first folk festival at Lenzburg Castle in Switzerland..  The next day she flew to America for the first time, later returning with 20 pounds of bluegrass LPs and a guitar.  She taped the albums and sent cassettes to her “Tramp Music” friends behind the Iron Curtain in Czechoslovakia—which was their only opportunity to hear bluegrass for 12 years.  On a shoestring budget, Pavlak has returned to the States and Canada many times to hear and write about bluegrass music.  She subscribed to American bluegrass publications and bought music to educate herself and her friends in Europe about new bands and trends.  Lilly is one of the original members of the Swiss Bluegrass Music Association and the Bluegrass Association of the Czech Republic.  Despite health issues in recent years, Pavlak attends nearly every bluegrass event in central Europe, sending reviews and photos to the bluegrass press around the world.  “I feel home is where the heart is, and my heart is where good music is,” Lilly says.  “I was always kind of a bridge between East and West, trying to put musicians from different countries together and make them friends.” Since 1959, while still in high school,

 Geoff Stelling has been either playing the banjo or trying to improve on its design. Stelling Banjo Works was established in 1974 while Geoff was stationed at a Naval Base in San Diego, California.  As a banjo and bass player in various bands since the mid-‘60s, Geoff developed an ear for banjo tone and experimented with the construction until he patented a revolutionary design that his banjos are known for today: the wedge-fitted pot assembly.  Prior to Geoff's design, tone rings and flanges were machined to slip-fit over the wood rim—a design affected by changes in humidity and temperature.  According to many banjo players, the Stelling wedge-fit results in a pure tone and unparalleled power. Stelling also patented a "pivot-pin" tailpiece for the banjo.  Strings are easily changed without having to thread any of them through a hole in the tailpiece because each string has its own access slot, and the tailpiece is adjustable in six directions.  In addition, Geoff developed a unique bridge made from birch wood chosen for its grain direction and number of growth rings.  All those jokes about the difficulty in tuning a banjo have at least some basis in the truth, so Stelling also invented a compensated nut for his instruments.  In addition to his contributions to the design of the modern banjo, Stelling was one of the first luthiers to offer quality, custom-made instruments for musicians, as an option to vintage instruments and traditional brands.  Stelling Banjo Works is now based in Afton, Virginia.
After hearing country music on the radio at age eight at home in Maine, Roland Whitedecided he wanted to be a musician.  The eldest sibling, Roland convinced his brothers Eric and Clarence to participate in “band practices” every evening when they were still children.  Their sister Joanne sang and occasionally played the bass.  Roland became a pioneer of the West Coast bluegrass scene beginning in the 1950s with his groundbreaking work with The Country Boys—later known as The Kentucky Colonels.   The live tapes of the band, distributed as underground treasures, revealed a traditional repertoire with a new and wildly rhythmically and melodically exciting approach. The band also featured Clarence White, Billy Ray Latham and Roger Bush.  The Colonels influenced musicians like Alan Munde, Byron Berline and Eddie Shelton, among many others, and the band appeared on The Andy Griffith Show a few times before The Dillards assumed their roles as The Darling family. Roland left California and joined Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys in 1967 on guitar, and helped record classics like: “Gold Rush,” “Virginia Darling” and “Sally Goodin.”  Next Roland performed and recorded with Lester Flatt & the Nashville Grass for four years, and in 1973 he rejoined his brothers to tour briefly as the New Kentucky Colonels.  Their plans were cut short by Clarence’s tragic death, and the New Kentucky Colonels – Live in Sweden album released in 1976 by Rounder provides a glimpse of the band’s potential. Roland returned to Nashville and joined Alan Munde and Roger Bush in The Country Gazette, his musical home for the next 15 years.  In 1989 he joined the Nashville Bluegrass Band, recording two Grammy-winning and three Grammy-nominated albums with them.  In recent years he has formed The Roland White Band with his wife, guitarist Diane Bouska.  Their album, Jelly on My Tofu was nominated for a Grammy in 2003.  In addition to touring and recording, White focuses on his work as an educator—giving lessons, leading workshops and publishing books, and he is also involved in a number of charity projects.  White’s enthusiasm for jamming and his support of new artists and bands in the genre has not diminished over the decades, and he continues to be known for, as one critic describes it, “his simple, uncluttered and relaxed style of playing the mandolin, with a clock-like sense of timing.” For more information about IBMA’s World of Bluegrass Events, go towww.worldofbluegrass.org, call 888-GET-IBMA, or find us on Facebook.