Join free

Charles Sawtelle

Recording Artist · Active 2001–1999 · Austin · Also a musician
Classic Bluegrass Contemporary Bluegrass

Charles Sawtelle was the soft-spoken guitar foundation of Hot Rize, a flatpicker known as "The Bluegrass Mystery" whose playing, recording engineering, and quiet leadership shaped one of the most influential bluegrass bands of the 1980s and 90s.

Assisted by AI. Spot something off? Help us fix it.
  • Born September 20, 1946 in Austin, Texas; settled in Boulder, Colorado in the late 1970s.
  • Co-founded Hot Rize on January 18, 1978 with Tim O'Brien (mandolin), Pete Wernick (banjo), and Mike Scap (guitar); when Scap left a few months later and Nick Forster joined on bass, Sawtelle moved to lead guitar — the lineup that defined the band.
  • Played the silent-bassist character "Slade" in Red Knuckles and the Trailblazers, Hot Rize's western-swing comedic alter-ego that performed mid-show in vintage Western suits.
  • Hot Rize won the inaugural IBMA Entertainer of the Year award in 1990 and earned a Grammy nomination for Take It Home (1990, Sugar Hill); Pete Goble and Leroy Drumm's “Colleen Malone,” cut on that album, won IBMA Song of the Year in 1991.
  • Recorded and ran his Rancho deVille studio outside Boulder, engineering and producing for himself and other Front Range acts; led his side band Charles Sawtelle and the Whippets in the 1990s.
  • Diagnosed with leukemia in 1993; received a bone marrow transplant in 1997.
  • Died March 20, 1999 at age 52; his solo album Music From Rancho deVille was completed and released posthumously by Laurie Lewis with guests including Vassar Clements, Jerry Douglas, Norman Blake, Sam Bush, and Flaco Jiménez.
  • Hot Rize was inducted into the IBMA Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame on September 18, 2025; Bryan Sutton has held the band's guitar chair in its post-1999 reunions.

Roulette Settings

Calculating…
Popularity
Type
Genres
Bluegrass
Folk
Country
Old-Time
Other
Popularity
Difficulty
Type
Key
Featured Instruments
Origin

Share Playlist