McCoury, Del

For fifty years, Del McCoury’s music has defined authenticity for hard core bluegrass fans. A living link to the days when bluegrass was made only in honkytonks and on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry, Del got his first taste of the limelight when he joined Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys in early 1963. The Father of Bluegrass moved Del from the banjo to guitar, made him his lead singer, and gave him a lifetime worth of bluegrass tutelage direct from the source. In June 2010, Del received a lifetime achievement award from the National Endowment of the Arts and in 2011 he was elected into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame.