The International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) announced that Boulder, Colorado bluegrass band Hot Rize will be inducted this year into Bluegrass Music’s Hall of Fame in Owensboro, Kentucky.
The band, whose classic lineup consisted of Tim O’Brien, Pete Wernick, Nick Forster, and Charles Sawtelle, first appeared onstage together throughout Colorado’s Front Range in 1978. By the time they retired from full-time performing in 1990, they had reached the top of bluegrass world as the first recipients of IBMA’s Entertainer of the Year Award, their stature widely recognized with a four-star review in Rolling Stone, television appearances including Austin City Limits, tours on four continents, and a legion of up-and-coming bands following in their footsteps.
The four members’ 20 years as a band ended when Sawtelle passed away in 1999, but the band reformed in 2002 with famed Nashville studio musician Bryan Sutton on guitar.
The band continued long after their 12-year full-time years, well into the 21st century, with a string of reunion concerts and occasional full tours including a 30-festival year in 2015, international appearances, and the release of two live albums and a studio recording. Their most recent performance was at the 2022 Rocky Grass Festival in Lyons, CO as the hometown band whose members performed at the festival as early as 1975, the festival’s third year.
Wernick, a Niwot resident since 1976, and Forster, the co-host of Boulder’s long-running national radio program eTown, still reside in and perform in the Boulder area. The other two band members now live in Nashville.
The band will perform together at the official Induction ceremony September 18 in Chattanooga TN at the IBMA Awards Show, part of the IBMA’s annual World of Bluegrass convention.
Other 2025 inductees are the Bluegrass Cardinals and the late Arnold Shultz, early mentor of the “Father of Bluegrass”, Bill Monroe, and the first African-American in the Bluegrass Hall of Fame.
Hot Rize performing on the Nashville Network, 1985; photo by Kathy Morgan, used by permission.
