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Charlie Cushman

Musician · b. 1959 · Clarksville, Tennessee
Best known for Banjo

Charlie Cushman is one of the leading torch-bearers of Earl Scruggs's three-finger banjo style, anchoring fourteen years of Mike Snider's Grand Ole Opry stringband and the banjo chair in Jerry Douglas's Earls of Leicester since the band's founding in 2013.

  • Born August 23, 1959 in Clarksville, Tennessee; took his first banjo lessons at age 7 after hearing Earl Scruggs records.
  • Performing on Carl Tipton's WLAC-TV show in Nashville six days a week starting at age 14; played the Opryland USA house band from 1986 to 1990.
  • Joined Mike Snider's Stringband in September 1990, anchoring Snider's Grand Ole Opry slot for fourteen years through 2004.
  • Co-founded the Earls of Leicester in 2013 with Jerry Douglas, Shawn Camp, Tim O'Brien, Johnny Warren, Jeff White, and Daniel Kimbro — an idiomatic Flatt & Scruggs tribute that Cushman's Scruggs-style picking helped define.
  • The Earls of Leicester won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album for their 2014 self-titled debut and swept the IBMA awards in 2015 (Album of the Year, Gospel Recorded Performance, Instrumental Group, Entertainer of the Year), retaining IBMA Entertainer of the Year in 2016 and 2017.
  • Won the IBMA Banjo Player of the Year award in 1996.
  • Has appeared on more than twenty Grammy-nominated projects, including Tim O'Brien's Fiddler's Green (Best Traditional Folk Album, 2006) and Vince Gill's These Days.
  • Runs a banjo repair and setup business with clients including Billy Strings, Ron Block, and Vince Gill, after stints at the Gibson factory and Gruhn Guitars.

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