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Leavittsburg native Jerry Douglas won his 14th Grammy Award Sunday.
The Earls of Leicester’s self-titled debut release won the Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album in a ceremony Sunday afternoon in Los Angeles before the televised broadcast that night.
The Earls of Leicester is a tribute to bluegrass artists Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs that Douglas put together with Shawn Camp on lead vocals and guitar, Charlie Cushman on banjo and guitars, Tim O’Brien on vocals and mandolin, Johnny Warren on fiddle, Barry Bales on vocals and bass and Douglas on dobro.
In an interview with the Tribune Chronicle in July, Douglas said, “The Earls is a band I’ve been waiting to do for 40 years. My dad took me to see Flatt and Scruggs when I was really, really young. It knocked me out because I listened to them every morning and to see them work was an amazing thing. It was like seeing the Beatles to me at the time, it had that much of an impact on me.
“I’ve been looking for a long time to find the musicians who could pull that off, who had that same feeling for it that I did, and I found them. Soon as I did, I had to record it.”
The album, which was released in September, features such Flatt and Scruggs’ favorites as “Big Black Train,” “Don’t Let the Deal Go Down” and “Shuckin’ the Corn,” and Douglas said they recorded the songs the same way the originals were, live in the studio with no overdubs. The project gave him the opportunity to emulate the style of Josh Graves, who played dobro with Flatt and Scruggs.
“He’s the reason I play dobro guitar,” Douglas said. “Anytime I’ve found myself on a plateau in playing or needed to go back to ground zero and start over, I would go back to Josh Graves’ school.
“That’s what I’m doing here, staying in Josh Graves’ character. I love the way he plays and I’m thrilled to be playing these songs with these guys. The whole spirit is there,” Douglas said.
Douglas was nominated for two other Grammy Awards.
“Three Bells,” another collaborative project featuring Douglas and fellow dobro players Mike Auldridge and Rob Ickes, was nominated for Best Folk Album. Old Crow Medicine Show won for the album “Remedy.”
Douglas and Alison Krauss were nominated for their contributions to Billy Childs’ “And When I Die” in the category for Best American Roots Performance. Rosanne Cash won for “A Feather’s Not a Bird.”