Bryan Sutton

Recording Artist · Active 2000–present · Asheville, North Carolina · bryansutton.com · Also a musician
Contemporary Bluegrass New Acoustic

Bryan Sutton is the most-awarded bluegrass guitarist of his generation — a nine-time IBMA Guitar Player of the Year, a Grammy winner, and the first-call acoustic session musician in Nashville. His solo catalog on Sugar Hill and his own label showcases his Tony Rice-inherited flatpicking tradition, while his sideman credits span from Garth Brooks and Taylor Swift to the Dixie Chicks, Dolly Parton, and Hot Rize.

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  • Picked up guitar at age eight in western North Carolina; studied with his father Jerry Sutton and absorbed influences from Tony Rice, Doc Watson, and Clarence White.
  • Toured with Karen Peck (gospel) and Mid South (country-gospel) after high school, then joined Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder in the mid-1990s, a three-year stint that put him on Skaggs's acclaimed bluegrass comeback records.
  • Debut solo album Ready to Go (Sugar Hill, 2000) featured original bluegrass instrumentals, Rhonda Vincent vocals, two swing numbers, and a U2 cover — demonstrating his range beyond straight-ahead bluegrass.
  • Named IBMA Guitar Player of the Year for the first time in 2000; has since won the award nine times in total.
  • Bluegrass Guitar (Sugar Hill, 2003) returned to pure traditional material, featuring nine standards and a Tim O'Brien instrumental; considered a definitive demonstration of his Rice-White-Watson lineage.
  • Not Too Far from the Tree (Sugar Hill, 2006) was a concept album of duo sessions recorded in living rooms across the country with his heroes — Doc Watson, Earl Scruggs, Tony Rice, Norman Blake, Ricky Skaggs, George Shuffler, Dan Crary, Jerry Douglas, David Grier, Jack Lawrence, Russ Barenberg, and a father-son duet on “Billy in the Lowground” recorded in the house where Bryan grew up.
  • Into My Own (2014) and The More I Learn (Sugar Hill, 2016) showed Sutton developing as a vocalist and songwriter, with guests including Ronnie McCoury, Noam Pikelny, and Sam Bush.
  • Joined Hot Rize formally around 2012 in the guitar chair once held by the late Charles Sawtelle. The band's comeback album When I'm Free (2014) was nominated for two IBMA Awards; Sutton also plays the Slade character in the Red Knuckles and the Trailblazers alter-ego set.
  • Nashville session discography reads like a roll call: Garth Brooks, Taylor Swift, Blake Shelton, Eric Church, Brad Paisley, Carrie Underwood, the Dixie Chicks' Home, Dolly Parton's The Grass Is Blue, Dierks Bentley's Up on the Ridge, Charlie Haden's Rambling Boy, the Chieftains, Patty Loveless, Rhonda Vincent, Dailey & Vincent, and more.
  • Active as an educator through online flatpicking instruction (ArtistWorks) and workshop programs, where he has become a primary instructor for the next generation.

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