Alternately known as the King of Telluride and the King of Newgrass, Grammy-winning multi-instrumentalist SAM BUSH has been honored by the Americana Music Association and the International Bluegrass Music Association. “It’s overwhelming and humbling,” Bush says of his lifetime achievement award from the AMA. “It goes along with the title cut of my new album, Circles Around Me, which basically says, ‘how in the hell did we get this far?’ In my brain I’m still 17, but I look in the mirror and I’m 57.”

Bush has helped to expand the horizons of bluegrass music, fusing it with jazz, rock, blues, funk, and other styles. He’s the co-founder of the genre-bending New Grass Revival and an in-demand musician who has played with everyone from Emmylou Harris and Béla Fleck to Charlie Haden, Lyle Lovett, and Garth Brooks.

And though Bush is best known for jaw-dropping skills on the mandolin, he is also a three-time national junior fiddle champion and Grammy-winning vocalist.