Claire Lynch

Multi-award winner, Claire Lynch, brings her crystalline voice and razor sharp band to Workplay Theatre in Birmingham, AL on March 10th as part of The Claire Lynch Band’s 2016 tour.

Twice Grammy-nominated, Claire Lynch is a pioneer and a traditionalist, continually pushing the boundaries of the bluegrass genre. Claire Lynch has long been recognized as a creative force in acoustic music and at the forefront of women who have expanded the bluegrass genre. Blazing her own trail in the mid ‘70s when there were few role models for a young woman in bluegrass, Claire made history when she fronted the Front Porch String Band, which evolved in the ‘80s and ‘90s into one of the most iconic post-modern bluegrass bands on the touring circuit. She formed the Claire Lynch Band in 2005, and is a three-time winner of the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA)  Female Vocalist of the Year award. She is a lifetime member of the Alabama Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame and a two-time GRAMMY nominee. Most recently, Claire won the 2014 IBMA Song of the Year award for “Dear Sister” and the Recorded Event of the Year Award for her participation in “Wild Montana Skies.”

Dolly Parton credits Claire with “one of the sweetest, purest and best lead voices in the music business today,” and longtime music critic and author, Robert K. Oermann says, “she sings like a hillbilly angel.”Emmylou Harris also says the singer has “the voice of an angel.”

On the heels of her IBMA awards and the success of her album Dear Sister, (Compass Records), Claire released her first-ever seasonal album, Holiday! on her own Thrill Hill Records label.

The Claire Lynch Band serves up a bluegrassy, jazz-infused Americana menu. This is an all-star supporting cast of master musicians. Mark Schatz has twice been named IBMA Bass Player of the Year. Jarrod Walker plays lead guitar and mandolin and sings background vocals. And Bryan McDowell is the only musician to ever win simultaneous national titles for guitar, mandolin and fiddle at the Walnut Valley National Flat Pick Guitar Championship.

Always an innovator, Lynch was awarded one of fifty USA Fellowships from United States Artists in 2012.  With only seven awards going to musicians, the USA Fellows represent the most innovative and influential artists in their fields – including cutting-edge thinkers and traditional practitioners from the fields of architecture and design, crafts and traditional arts, dance, literature, media, music, theater arts, and visual arts.

For years, Lynch has delighted audiences and enjoyed reverent standing ovations for her shows at prestigious music festivals and theaters around the world. She has crafted one of the most instantly identifiable sounds in acoustic music, encompassing classic bluegrass and thoughtful infusions of contemporary folk, country, rock, and swing. As a songwriter of inventive and evocative Music Row fare, her songs have been recorded by Kathy Mattea, Patty Loveless, and others, and she has performed as a backing/harmony vocalist with Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris and Pam Tillis — just to name a few. All of her own albums, thirteen to-date, feature Claire Lynch original songs.