2010 Industry Award Winners

2010 Musican Award Winners

The Founders of Rounder Records - Ken Irwin, Marian Leighton Levy and Bill Nowlin

In 1970, three Boston-area students – armed with a passion for traditional music and little else – embarked on an odyssey that now spans forty years and over 3,000 albums. Celebrating its fourth decade in 2010, Rounder Records has remained a bastion of independence in the increasingly corporate music industry. Along the way, they have released a staggering number of classic bluegrass, folk, and stringband albums, bringing American roots music to an audience that spans both dedicated enthusiasts and curious newcomers. In doing so, they have helped to insure the music’s survival and continued growth. In their first decade alone, Rounder issued influential recordings by the likes of J.D. Crowe, Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerard, Tony Rice, Norman Blake, Tony Trischka, David Grisman, New England’s own Joe Val, and many, many others, alongside essential archival releases. In 1987 they issued the debut album by Alison Krauss, then a humble young fiddler from Illinois, who eventually became the genre’s most popular and decorated act. The past decade has seen Rounder survive industry-wide turmoil to become not only the leading roots music outlet in America, but the premier independent label across the board, dealing in an eclectic array of sounds and styles, from contemporary pop to traditional music from around the world. They have been home to an astonishing percentage of today’s top bluegrass stars, including Krauss, Dan Tyminski, Claire Lynch, Rhonda Vincent, the Grascals, Blue Highway, IIIrd Tyme Out, NewFound Road, and Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver, and Rounder tirelessly continues to scout out and develop new talent, such as Michael Cleveland, Dailey and Vincent, Sierra Hull, Danny Paisley, and the Steeldrivers.