The Americana Music Association announces the selection of Buffy Sainte-Marie, Don Henley, Gillian Welch & David Rawlings, Ricky Skaggs and Los Lobos as Lifetime Achievement Award winners to be presented at its 14th Annual Honors & Awards ceremony, presented by Nissan, on Wednesday, Sept. 16 at the historic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. Each of these artists will perform and the show will be taped for air on PBS later in the year.
 
Watch a live video webcast of the entire show at NPR.org – music starting at 8PM ET / 5PM PT. Fans can also catch live broadcasts from WKSU’s FolkAlley.com and participating public radio stations.
 
Ricky Skaggs will be honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award as an Instrumentalist. The 1990s revival of bluegrass music depended on a number of indispensible things happening almost at once, and one of those was Ricky Skaggs assertively returning to his Kentucky roots. His wide ranging musicianship and deep feeling for mountain music had been on display from his appearance at age seven on the Flatt & Scruggs TV show, and it carried on through career stages with Ralph Stanley and Keith Whitley and then to country radio, where he helped fuel a timely neo-traditionalist movement. Skaggs’ country records and his road bands were charged with top flight picking, including his own on mandolin, an instrument he studied at the feet of Bill Monroe himself. In the years since his era-shaping Bluegrass Rules album came out, he’s promoted the art of the bluegrass instrumental and collaborated with unexpected instrumentalists, such as Bruce Hornsby, with unexcelled evangelism and craft. 
 
“These artists have not only influenced the Americana community, but the musical landscape on the whole,” said Jed Hilly, Executive Director of the Americana Music Association, “they all have been an inspiration to our community and we are humbled they will honor us in song at the Ryman this fall.” 
 
About the Americana Music Festival & Conference
The 16th Annual Americana Music Festival & Conference, presented by Nissan will take place September 15-20, 2015 in Nashville, TN, kicked off by the 14th Annual Americana Honors & Awards Show on Sept. 16 at the historic Ryman Auditorium. Tickets for the Honors & Awards are only available with the purchase of a conference registration.