\n<\/p>\n
\n\tThough 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<\/a>! Robert Plant<\/a>! A Dolly Parton tribute<\/a> from Brandi Carlile<\/a> and I\u2019m With Her!), the evening was also full of folks snagging the actual trophies.<\/p>\n \n\tMolly Tuttle<\/a> took top honors for Artist of the Year, while Carlile snagged Song of the Year for \u201cReturning to Myself.\u201d Tyler Childers<\/a>\u2019 Snipe Hunter<\/a><\/em> was named Album of the Year. (Childers was not in attendance to accept.)<\/p>\n \n\tThe night\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWhen 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,\u201d Fer said, who plays with Amos Lee and Allison Russell.<\/a> \u201cAnd that became my life\u2019s work, to attempt at being a part at filling that void.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tGillian 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 \u201cAcoustic Reckoning<\/a>\u201d shows. \u201cI\u2019m standing here and I\u2019m quite overwhelmed,\u201d Welch said, \u201cabout what it feels like to be recognized just for playing a lot of music.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tWinning the title of Emerging Act of the Year was Ken Pomeroy<\/a>, whose LP Cruel Joke<\/em> was one of the best breakthroughs of 2025. Lifetime Achievement honors were awarded to\u00a0Parton, Plant, and\u00a0Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cRoots music, or what is now called Americana music, is what I grew up playing back in the Smoky Mountains,\u201d Parton said in video recorded before her death<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s that same music that drew me back to East Tennessee in 1997 to write and record my album Hungry Again<\/em>. 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.\u201d<\/p>\n