With over 35 albums to their credit, Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver have multiple Grammy, Dove, ICM, IBMA and SPBGMA Award nominations, and are seven-time winners of IBMA’s Vocal Group of the Year.  Doyle Lawson received two nominations in the 17th Annual Inspirational Country Music (ICM) Awards held in Nashville on October 28, 2011, with fellow nominees including such country giants as George Strait and Carrie Underwood. Lawson also won two IBMA Awards in September, and was recently heralded by journalist Craig Havighurst as “one of music’s lions at this point.”

Of Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver’s performance at the 2011 IBMA Awards Press Conference in August, which garnered three standing ovations from a sold-out crowd in Nashville, Havighurst wrote: “There was no question who was going to close the show. Doyle Lawson is one of music’s lions at this point, and when he came out in perhaps the most beautiful western jacket I’ve ever seen… he was a holy vision. … When DLQ, in quartet mode, nailed the final chorus of the a cappella gospel song “He Made It All Right,” I swear we were mainlining the holy spirit. You know how the word awesome gets overused and misused? Here’s where it applies.”  (www.musiccityroots.com/passionate-precision)

A native Tennessean, Lawson is being honored this year by Governor Bill Haslam and the State of Tennessee for his contributions to the state and America through his music (Senate Joint Resolution 467).  Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver (DLQ) were very visible in 2011 through multiple national television appearances, a European tour, and their album “Drive Time” spent several weeks atop the new Alternate Roots Top 66 International Bluegrass Chart at #1, reflecting radio airplay nationwide and across the globe.   “Drive Time” has also been heralded as an Essential Album of 2011 by “Acoustic Guitar” magazine (Feb 2012 issue).

DLQ’s Paul Simon-penned single “Gone At Last” reigned for the month of May as the most played song on Sirius XM Radio’s Bluegrass Junction, with “Gone At Last” and other singles from “Drive Time” appearing on various charts throughout the year.  DLQ’s version of “Gone at Last” also scored kudos from Paul Simon himself who praised, “Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver have done one of the best covers I have ever heard of a song of mine.”

Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver appeared with Paul Simon on Simon’s 2011 album release “So Beautiful or So What,” as well as on the acclaimed “Mark Twain: Words and Music” with such heavy-hitters as Jimmy Buffet, Clint Eastwood, Sheryl Crow, Brad Paisley, and Emmylou Harris.

Legendary in the Bluegrass genre and called a “mandolin virtuoso” with “perfectly silken harmony” by The New York Times, Doyle Lawson also broke new ground in 2011 with a benchmark Children’s Hospital and Arena Tour, the first tour of its kind in any genre, combining National Anthem performances at major sporting arenas with performances for boys and girls at Children’s Hospitals in the same cities or regions.  The tour combines helping hospitalized children with inspiring national patriotism, and Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver performed for nearly 108,000 people during six games in 2011 (not including live broadcast audiences for the NBA and NCAA games), as well as for children, families, and staff at four children’s hospitals.  Pretty impressive numbers from the little boy from Kingsport… who grew up to be a LEGEND.

(By Sherri George. Updated Jan 2012)

SELECT AWARDS & NOMINATIONS:

DOYLE LAWSON:
National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, 2006
Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts from King College, 2007
SPBGMA Awards – Male Vocalist of the Year: 1984, 1988, 1989, 1995
SPBGMA Awards – Mandolin Player of the Year: 1986-1990
2011 IBMA Awards – Recorded Event of the Year, with J.D. Crowe & Paul Williams
2011 IBMA Awards – Gospel Recorded Performance of the Year, with J.D. Crowe & Paul Williams

DOYLE LAWSON & QUICKSILVER:
2011 SPGMA Awards – Traditional Gospel Group of the Year
2007 IBMA Awards – Gospel Recorded Performance of the Year
2001-2007 IBMA Awards – Vocal Group of the Year
2006 IBMA Awards – Gospel Recorded Performance of the Year
2005 IBMA Awards – Gospel Recorded Performance of the Year
2003 IBMA Awards – Song of the Year
2003 IBMA Awards – Gospel Recorded Performance of the Year
2000 IBMA Awards – Gospel Recorded Performance of the Year
1996 IBMA Awards – Gospel Recorded Performance of the Year
1990 IMBA Awards – Song of the Year

SPBGMA Awards – Bluegrass Band of the Year, 1984-1988
SPBGMA Awards – Vocal Group of the Year, 1989-1993
SPBGMA Awards – Bluegrass Album of the Year, 1987-1991
SPBGMA Awards – Gospel Bluegrass Band of the Year: 1986, 1988, 1990-1992
SPBGMA Awards – Gospel Group of the Year: 1992, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2002, 2005, 2006

2011 GMA Dove Awards Nomination – Bluegrass Album of the Year
2008 GMA Dove Awards Nomination – Bluegrass Album of the Year
2008 GMA Dove Awards Nomination – Bluegrass Recorded Song of the Year
2001 GMA Dove Awards Nomination – Bluegrass Album of the Year
1997 GMA Dove Awards Nomination – Bluegrass Album of the Year

2011 ICM Award Nomination – Musician of the Year and Inspirational Bluegrass Artist of the Year
2002 Grammy Award Nomination – Best Bluegrass Album
2000 Grammy Award Nomination – Best Bluegrass Album
1999 Grammy Award Nomination – Best Bluegrass Album
1996 Grammy Award Nomination – Best Bluegrass Album