Kristin scott benson biography of barack

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She started playing mandolin and stepped on stage for the first time at the age of five. Benson appeared on the Grande Ole Opry for the first time when she was nineteen and has since played there over a hundred times.

An important part of Benson's legacy - which is rare among her peers - is her drive to move the art of the banjo to higher levels through her academic approach to the 3-finger style.

With an attentive ear to back-up, she is known and respected as a true team player among her peers.

Many consider her to be one of the first females to successfully be a side-musician in a top-tiered bluegrass band:

“There was one grass ceiling no woman could cut through—until Kristin Scott Benson came along, that is.

Not to front the band, not to sing, not to be eye candy, but instead to drive the group with her fivestring banjo. By the time she turned ten, Benson found herself drawn to the banjo and Bluegrass music. After receiving a much-anticipated banjo for Christmas when she was thirteen, Kristin became enthralled with the instrument and spent her teen years studying the playing of all the banjo greats from Earl Scruggs to Bela Fleck.

Both received stellar reviews, as well as an IBMA nomination for Instrumental of the Year for the self-penned, “Don’t Tread on Me”, on Second Season. She endorses GHS Strings, Blue Chip picks, Takamine guitars, Doc Fossey Guitars, Fishman pickups and Robin Smith at Heartland Guitar and Banjo.

After 13 years in Nashville, Kristin has relocated back near her original home, in the Carolinas, where she lives with her husband and son.

Bluegrass Banjo

Kristin Scott Benson was first nourished in her music tradition at home.

She has been a member of the Grammy-nominated bluegrass band, The Grascals , since 2008.

Kristin grew up in South Carolina, surrounded by a musical family. In 2018, she received the Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass. After 13 years in Nashville, Kristin relocated back near her original home, in the Carolinas, where she lives with her husband and son.

Kristin Scott Benson

Kristin Scott Benson is the four-time International Bluegrass Music Association’s Banjo Player of the Year.

The band has also performed for Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, as well as accumulating nearly 200 performances on The Grand Ole Opry.

Kristin plays a 1933 Gibson TB-3 banjo. Kristin Scott Benson is the four-time International Bluegrass Music Association’s Banjo Player of the Year.

kristin scott benson biography of barack

Benson grew up in Boiling Springs, as small community in a region of the state with a rich history of banjo pioneers: DeWitt “Snuffy” Jenkins, Earl Scruggs, Bobby Thompson, and Don Reno. After high school, she attended Nashville’s esteemed Belmont University, where she graduated Summa Cum Laude with a BBA in Marketing and a minor in Music Business.

Kristin has attained a national identity as one of the top bluegrass banjo players, exhibiting impeccable taste, timing, and tone.

This album has enjoyed more chart success than any other, having spent eight of its first 12 months at #1 on the Bluegrass Unlimited album chart. In addition to her latest album Stringworks, Benson recorded two earlier banjo albums, Straight Paths and Second Season.

Until then, no woman had ever been hired to play one of the most defining of the bluegrass instruments in an Alist, festival-headlining, all-male band….It’s a high profile gig, as Kristin takes the banjo where no woman has
taken it before.”

Larry Nager – “Kristin Scott Benson – Cutting the Grass Ceiling” Bluegrass Unlimited: Oct, 2010

Kristin’s latest solo album, entitled Stringworks, on Mountain Home Records, was released in July of 2016.

She also gave birth to her first child.

  • 2008, joined the Grascals.
  • 2008, released second solo album Second Season (Pinecastle).
  • 2016, released third solo album Stringworks (Mountain Home).
  • 2018, won the Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass.
  • 2019, won her fifth IBMA award for Banjo Player of the Year (also won in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011).
  • 2022, formed a duo called “Benson” with her husband mandolinist Wayne Benson.
  • 2024, was inducted into the American Banjo Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City.

    • Steve Martin Banjo Prize

    Banjo player extraordinaire Kristin Scott Benson is the 2018 recipient of the Steve Martin Banjo Prize.

    Her father was a musician and her grandfather, Orval Hogan, played mandolin with the WBT Briarhoppers.

    She started on the mandolin when she was just five years old. Since 2008, she has been a member of Grammy-nominated and two-time IBMA Entertainers of the Year, The Grascals, making an indelible mark on the bluegrass music industry.

    Kristin has attained a national identity as one of the top bluegrass banjo players on the scene, exhibiting impeccable taste, timing, and tone.

    Benson has been recognized as the International Bluegrass Music Association's (IBMA) Banjo Player of the Year four times and has been a member of the Grammy-nominated Bluegrass band, The Grascals, since 2008.