Though the 2026 Americana Honors & Awards, which took place Sept. 16 in Nashville, should probably get an award for stellar performances (Chris Stapleton joining the Heartbreakers! Robert Plant! A Dolly Parton tribute from Brandi Carlile and I’m With Her!), the evening was also full of folks snagging the actual trophies.
Molly Tuttle took top honors for Artist of the Year, while Carlile snagged Song of the Year for “Returning to Myself.” Tyler Childers’ Snipe Hunter was named Album of the Year. (Childers was not in attendance to accept.)
The night’s best speech was from Mandy Fer, who was named Instrumentalist of the Year, where she spoke from the Ryman Auditorium stage about seeing very few female lead guitarists growing up, and how she wanted to inspire other people of all gender identities to pursue music.
“When I was a 16 year old girl, first picking up the electric guitar, I noticed a huge void of women being highlighted on stage as lead guitarists,” Fer said, who plays with Amos Lee and Allison Russell. “And that became my life’s work, to attempt at being a part at filling that void.”
Gillian Welch & David Rawlings won for Duo/Group of the year, despite, as Welch pointed out on stage, not actually putting out any new music this year. What they did do, however, is tour nonstop, including a run of Grateful Dead “Acoustic Reckoning” shows. “I’m standing here and I’m quite overwhelmed,” Welch said, “about what it feels like to be recognized just for playing a lot of music.”
Winning the title of Emerging Act of the Year was Ken Pomeroy, whose LP Cruel Joke was one of the best breakthroughs of 2025. Lifetime Achievement honors were awarded to Parton, Plant, and Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers.
“Roots music, or what is now called Americana music, is what I grew up playing back in the Smoky Mountains,” Parton said in video recorded before her death. “It’s that same music that drew me back to East Tennessee in 1997 to write and record my album Hungry Again. And that project really opened the door to a series of bluegrass and acoustic albums that changed the course of my career in so many ways.”
2026 Americana Honors & Awards Winners:
Album of the Year: Snipe Hunter; Tyler Childers; Produced by Rick Rubin and Nick Sanborn
Artist of the Year: Molly Tuttle
Duo/Group of the Year: Gillian Welch & David Rawlings
Emerging Act of the Year: Ken Pomeroy
Song of the Year: “Returning to Myself,” Brandi Carlile; Written by Brandi Carlile
Instrumentalist of the Year: Mandy Fer
