Pat Enright
Best known for
Guitar
Pat Enright (1945–2026) was the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of the Nashville Bluegrass Band, the four-decade Sugar Hill / Rounder act whose tight a cappella gospel and traditional repertoire made them one of the most decorated groups in IBMA history. He was also one of the Soggy Bottom Boys, the trio whose work on the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack reached a multi-platinum mainstream audience.
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- Born April 22, 1945 in Huntington, Indiana; took up guitar in high school and gravitated to bluegrass through 1960s folk-revival recordings.
- Played the early-1970s San Francisco Bay Area scene with the Tonto Basin Boys and Rick Shubb's Hired Hands; co-founded Phantoms of the Opry with Laurie Lewis in the mid-1970s before moving to Nashville.
- Joined Tasty Licks in Boston in the late 1970s alongside Béla Fleck, Mark Schatz, and Jack Tottle; recorded two Rounder albums with the band before forming the Dreadful Snakes back in Nashville in 1983.
- Co-founded the Nashville Bluegrass Band in 1984 with Alan O'Bryant (banjo), Mike Compton (mandolin), Mark Hembree (bass), and Blake Williams (fiddle); fronted the band continuously across more than a dozen Rounder and Sugar Hill albums and multiple lineup changes.
- NBB won the Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album twice: Waitin' for the Hard Times to Go (1994 ceremony) and Unleashed (1996 ceremony).
- NBB won the IBMA Vocal Group of the Year award four straight years (1990–1993); Enright also took home IBMA Album of the Year and Recorded Event of the Year in 1997 for the Bill Monroe tribute True Life Blues: The Songs of Bill Monroe (Sugar Hill).
- One of the three Soggy Bottom Boys (with Dan Tyminski and Harley Allen) on the 2000 O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack — the multi-platinum album that won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 2002.
- Died in mid-August 2026, at eighty-one.
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The Nashville Bluegrass BandPlayed on recordings with The Nashville Bluegrass Band
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The Dreadful SnakesPlayed on recordings with The Dreadful Snakes
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David GrismanPlayed on recordings with David Grisman
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Hazel DickensPlayed on recordings with Hazel Dickens
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Peter Rowan and the Nashville Bluegrass BandPlayed on recordings with Peter Rowan and the Nashville Bluegrass Band
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Pat EnrightPlayed on recording with Pat Enright
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Stuart DuncanPlayed on recording with Stuart Duncan
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The Nitty Gritty Dirt BandPlayed on recording with The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
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The Soggy Bottom BoysPlayed on recording with The Soggy Bottom Boys
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Tyler GrantPlayed on recording with Tyler Grant
