Rick Pardue told himself he wouldn’t win any awards.
But on Sept. 27 in the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, T.N., Pardue won Best Song and Album of the Year in the International Bluegrass Awards for his song “A Far Cry from Lester and Earl.”
“I just sat there for two hours saying, ‘I’m not going to win and I’m going to get my hopes up,’” Pardue said. “I can’t really tell you what happened for 15 minutes after they announced that we won. There was a lot of hugging and hollering before we got up on stage.”
Timmy Massey and Harry Sisk Jr. won the award with Pardue.
“This is a first time award for all of us except Timmy Massey, he’s won song of the year twice,” Pardue said.
Since returning home from the awards on Friday, Pardue has gotten hundreds of emails and phone calls of congratulations.
“It’s a little overwhelming, because I’m not used to this attention,” he said. “My cell and home phone have rung off the hook and I have over 100 e-mails. Some are people I haven’t heard from in years.”
“A Far Cry from Lester and Earl” is about how music is a ‘far cry’ from what it was. It was number one on the bluegrass charts starting last October until recently falling to number four. Junior Sisk and Ramblers Choice recorded the song and performed it to help gain exposure and popularity.
The fiddler in the band, Billy Hawks, is also a Surry County resident.
“I’m always working on songs and I had no idea that this song would do as well as it did,” Pardue said. “I was just walking around the kitchen after listening to some stuff on the radio that I didn’t like and started thinking how music had gone too far away from the Carter and Ralph Stanley.”
Reach Jessica Pickens at 835-1513 ext. 17 or jpickens@heartlandpublications.com
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