Jim Hurst

Jim Hurst and Missy Raines

Rising bluegrass stars Jim Hurst and Missy Raines are talented in their own rights, but when you put the pair together, the result is magic. Nominated for the 2000 Emerging Artist of the Year Award by the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA), this talented duo draws on varied musical backgrounds to create original, new bluegrass, acoustic jazz, swing and country blues. Their Jubilee performance, taped in the summer of 2000 at the Master Musicians Festival in Somerset, Ky., proves that the future of bluegrass is in able hands.

Before collaborating on Two, their first release as a duet, Jim Hurst and Missy Raines were no strangers to the bluegrass and country music circuit. Both artists toured with Claire Lynch and the Front Porch String Band and collaborated on that group's 1997 Grammy-nominated album, Silver and Gold.

Hurst has toured with other premier artists, including Trisha Yearwood and Holly Dunn, and was featured on Sara Evans' chart-topping album, No Place That Far. Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine called Hurst, winner of the 2001 IBMA Guitar Player of the Year award, "a red-hot flatpicking guitarist, a strong, soulful vocalist and a dexterous, versatile fingerpicker."

Reigning, four-time winner of the IBMA Bass Player of the Year Award (1998-2001)--the first female to have won the honor--Raines "is among those reshaping the role of the bluegrass bassist," according to Bass Player Magazine. Her debut album, My Place In The Sun, was named one of the Top Five Bluegrass Recordings of 1998 by The Chicago Tribune and nominated for the 1999 Instrumental Album of the Year Award by the IBMA.

Jubilee is a KET production, produced and directed by H. Russell Farmer. The show is closed-captioned for the deaf and hard-of-hearing.