2023 Reader’s Poll
Bluegrass Unlimited first conducted a Reader’s Poll in 1967, the year after the magazine was established. A second poll was conducted in 1971. I asked Dick Spottswood, who was working for the magazine in those days, if he knew why the Reader’s Poll was not continued. He replied, “In 1967 we were still trying to get a feeling for our readers and figure out what we could produce that they’d want to read.” He couldn’t recall why they stopped. I do know that in the early 1970s Muleskinner News was also conducting a similar poll. Perhaps after the 1971 poll, the staff at BU felt that two polls were one too many in the world of bluegrass.
Whatever the reason the poll was not continued, here we are in 2023 with our first poll of our readers in 52 years. I thoroughly enjoyed looking through the responses and crunching the numbers to determine the results. As explained back in the March issue when we announced the poll, we kept the categories fairly consistent with those that were presented in our 1971 poll, with only a few modifications. Our results are posted here in this issue.
You will see that I decided to list the top five places in each category. When there was a tie, I placed the tie at the same number and continued to fill in each number below. Sometimes when these kinds of poll result are printed and there is a tie, the spot after the tie is skipped—for instance if there were a tie for second place, the third place spot would be skipped. However, I filled in each spot so that more artists could be recognized. So, in cases where ties existed, there are more than five artists, songs or albums listed.
In this poll the results showed that there were no ties for the first place winner. In the majority of the categories, the first place winner was the clear winner by a fairly large margin, especially in the Dobro category where Jerry Douglass received an overwhelming 46% of the votes. The only real close category was mandolin where the winner (Ronnie McCoury) won by a margin of only two votes and there was a tie for second (Sam Bush and Sierra Hull). The fiddle category was another where the winner, Michael Cleveland, won by a very large margin. Also, J.D. Crowe and the New South (Rounder 0044) won all-time favorite album by a wide margin—almost as many votes were cast for J.D.’s album as all of the other top five albums combined.
The number of people/songs/albums that our reader’s selected was eye opening as these numbers indicate the wide range of people, songs, and albums that bluegrass fans are enjoying. In the new song category, 115 songs received votes. In the category of all-time favorite songs, 122 songs received votes. Here are the number of different individuals who received votes in each category—69 banjo players, 71 mandolin players, 64 fiddle players, 74 guitar players, 76 bass players, 30 Dobro players, 47 female singers, 83 male singers, 78 bands and 83 songwriters. There were 77 different new albums that received votes and 111 favorite albums of all-time got at least one vote.
A big difference between our 1971 poll and our current poll is the number of women who placed in the top five and the number of women who received votes. In the 1971 poll the results published in the magazine listed the top nine or ten in each category. In the 1971 poll, across the board there were a grand total of zero women! (There was no female singer category in 1971, the vocal categories were “tenor” and “lead” and no women were listed in either of those categories). In 2023, our top five listing includes nine women (not including the female singer category) and the top new album and top new song both went to a woman (Molly Tuttle). W0men placed in the top five in every category except for Dobro and, of course, male singer.
Looking through the 1971 listings, those who appeared in the top ten that year that also made the top ten this year (52 years later!), include Sam Bush for mandolin, Tom Gray for bass, Larry Sparks for guitar and Del McCoury and Doyle Lawson for vocals. All of the individuals who won each of the categories in 1971 are now deceased.
Speaking of deceased bluegrass musicians…our instructions for this poll clearly stated that all artists who received a vote were to be artists who are still living. However, some of our readers either did not read instructions, did not know some of their heroes were deceased, or decided to rebel against the rules because some deceased people received votes in every category. Five deceased guitar players received votes, four mandolin players, seven fiddle players, three bass players, five Dobro players, eight male singers, one female singer (Hazel Dickens), seven banjo players and eight songwriters. Six non-active bands also received votes. The deceased person who received the most votes was Tony Rice. Earl Scruggs also did pretty well.
If we were to declare an overall winner this year, it would have to be Molly Tuttle. Molly placed in the top five in five different categories. As mentioned previously, she won the favorite song and favorite album categories. She also placed third for guitar, fourth for female vocal, and fifth for songwriter. In addition to her album placing first, six of the songs from that album received votes for favorite song. The only other person who had that many songs voted as a favorite was Billy Strings. He also had six songs on the list.
Some other interesting facts about this year’s poll include two husband and wife pairs placing in the top five. Sierra Hull on mandolin and her husband Justin Moses on Dobro and Kenny Smith on guitar and his wife Amanda in the female singer category. A third couple came very close. Kristin Scott Benson placed second in the banjo category and her husband Wayne Benson missed making the top five in the mandolin category by just a few votes. Although not married, Jason Carter (third fiddle) and Bronwyn Keith-Hynes (fourth fiddle) are also a couple.
The band that had the most personnel appear in the top five was the Del McCoury Band. Ronnie McCoury won the mandolin, Jason Carter place third in the fiddle, Del was the top male singer and the band placed second (additionally, the Traveling McCoury’s were in the top ten in the band category). Although he didn’t make the top five, Rob McCoury also scored well in the banjo category (placing sixth). The McCoury family surely received the most votes of any other people that are related. Del’s brother, Jerry, even received a vote as someone’s favorite bass player.
In addition to multiple members of Del McCoury band placing the top five, two members of Becky Buller’s band were in the top five (Becky on fiddle and Ned Luberecki on banjo), two members of the Seldom Scene made the top five (Ron Stewart on banjo and Fred Travers on Dobro) and Bronwyn Keith-Hynes is in Molly Tuttle’s band.
The new song that was nominated the most different number of times, as recorded by different artists, was “Church Street Blues.” That song was recorded on three different albums this past year—the Tony Rice tribute by Dan Tyminski, the Tony Rice tribute by The Punch Brothers, and the Norman Blake tribute by Bob Minner. All of those cuts received votes as favorites. Although, even collectively, that song did not receive enough votes to make the top five.
For the all-time favorite song, we did not include the artist who recorded the song because many artists have recorded all of these songs. When readers voted in this category, some included the artist whose recording they preferred, but others did not. So, here we simply list the songs. Artists who were well represented in this category included Flatt & Scruggs, Bill Monroe, Stanley Brothers, Johnson Mountain Boys, Seldom Scene, Jimmy Martin, Country Gentleman and J.D. Crowe and the New South.
I hope you enjoy looking over our list of favorites and I thank everyone who participated in the voting process.
Favorite Banjo Player
Béla Fleck
2nd: Kristin Scott Benson
3rd: Ned Luberecki
4th: (tie) Sammy Shelor & Ron Stewart
5th: Jeremy Stephens
Favorite Fiddle Player
Michael Cleveland
2nd: Stuart Duncan
3rd: Jason Carter
4th: (tie) Becky Buller, Jason Barie
& Bronwyn keith-hynes
5th: (tie) Laura Orshaw & Deanie Richardson
Favorite Dobro player
Jerry Douglas
2nd: Rob Ickes
3rd: Justin Moses
4th: Fred Travers
5th: Gaven Largent
Favorite Guitar player
Billy Strings
2nd: Bryan Sutton
3rd: Molly Tuttle
4th: Kenny Smith
5th: Cody Kilby
Favorite Song
All-Time Foggy Mountain Breakdown
2nd: Old Home Place
3rd: (tie) Uncle Pen & Blueridge Cabin Home
4th: Wait A Minute
5th: Rocky Top
Favorite Female Singer
Rhonda Vincent
2nd: Alison Krauss
3rd: Dale Ann Bradley
4th: Molly Tuttle
5th: Amanda Smith
Favorite Mandolin Player
Ronnie McCoury
2nd: (tie) Sierra Hull & Sam Bush
3rd: Jesse Brock
4th: (tie) Alan Bibey & Mike Compton
5th: Chris Thile
Favorite New Album
Crooked Tree – Molly Tuttle
2nd: Authentic Unlimited – Authentic Unlimited
3rd: (tie) Never Slow Down – Po’ Ramblin’ Boys
& Lost & Alone – Junior Sisk
4th: The Future of The Past – Tennessee Bluegrass Band
5th: Radio John – Sam Bush
Favorite New Song
Crooked Tree – Molly Tuttle
2nd: I’m Warming Up To An Old Flame – Tennessee Bluegrass Band
3rd: Heyday – Lonesome River Band
4th: Grand Ole Circle – Brooke & Darin Aldridge
5th: Before You Miss Me – Authentic Unlimited
Favorite Album All-Time
J. D. Crowe and the New South (Rounder 0044)
2nd: Bluegrass Album Band (Volume 1)
3rd: Will The Circle Be Unbroken — Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
4th: (tie) Live At Carnigie Hall — Flatt & Scruggs & Foggy Mountain Banjo — Flatt & Scruggs
5th: (tie). Foggy Mountain Jambaree — Flatt & Scruggs & Live At The Cellar Door — The Seldom Scene
Favorite Male Singer
Del McCoury
2nd: Russell Moore
3rd: Junior Sisk
4th: Tim O’Brien
5th: (tie) Larry Sparks & Billy Strings
Favorite Band
Balsam Range
2nd: Del McCoury Band
3rd: Billy Strings
4th: Earls of Leicester
5th: Po’ Ramblin’ Boys
Favorite Bass player
Missy Raines
2nd: Mike Bub
3rd: (tie) Mark Schatz & Tom Gray
4th: (tie) Barry Bales & Todd Phillips
5th: Marshall Wilburn
Favorite Songwriter
Jerry Salley
2nd: Larry Cordle
3rd: Mark “Brink” Brinkman
4th: Tim Stafford
5th: Molly Tuttle
