The IBMA Awards - And the winners are ..

It's all over for another year except for some people I know who have slight hangovers and sore fingers from too many late nights. And why not? This is the time of year when many old friends get together and enjoy a few tunes and a bit of catching up on old times. New young artists get to meet and play with those who inspired them and many new friendships and alliances are formed.

Those names that were hand picked to accept honors reflected the great variety of styles and of characters currently dotted on the musical landscape. The big winner once again though was Del McCoury.

McCoury and the band walked away with Entertainer of the Year for the 9th time. They also took the Album of the Year for It's Just The Night. This is well deserved success for a man and a band who keep the spirit of pure bluegrass alive while appealing to a huge worldwide audience.

The awards were presented again this year by Alison Krauss and Dan Tyminski and as always the evening featured many performances from the winners and nominees.

Other noteworthy awards went to Rhonda Vincent for Female Vocalist of the Year and the excellent Blue Highway received an award for Gospel Recorded Performance of the Year for the Alan O'Bryant produced album Wondrous Love on Rounder Records.

Old favorite Ricky Skaggs was also among the winners with Instrumental Group of the Year for his band Kentucky Thunder an award they won in 1998, 99, 2000 and 2002 and last year.

Again it holds true that everyone involved deserved praise and the real winner in all of this was Bluegrass music itself. It bodes well for the young players out there who have great role models to follow and for the growing legions of fans who have discovered that they are cool after all.

For a full list of the winners you can go to The IBMA website at http://www.ibma.org