And the winner is ... fifth annual Lexington Music Awards honors local artists

Lexington Music Awards 2019

6 p.m. Jan. 27 at the Lyric Theatre and Cultural Arts Center, 300 E. Third. $11. 859-280-2218. lexingtonlyric.tix.com, lexingtonmusicawards.org.

Five years in, David McLean still views the Lexington Music Awards as part of a “ready-or-not-here-we-come program.”

Attribute much of that to the inevitable bustle of final preparatory plans surfacing before the event, of which he is founder and producer, is presented for the fifth time at the Lyric Theatre and Cultural Arts Center.

But “ready or not” is also something of a credo for the Lexington Music Awards. It’s the reflection of a milestone honoring local music and those that play it, produce it and promote it.

“That first year, some of the people we talked to about sponsorship said, ‘Well, let’s see how you do in a couple of years,’” McLean said. “Hey, I’m self-employed. I totally get that. But five ... that’s kind of a magic number.”

When the Awards’ fifth annual ceremony commences on Sunday, honors will be given in five sets of categories. Lifetime Achievement Awards will be go to: Greg Austin of the Greg Austin Band; educator William Harry Clarke, the late Jarrod Figgs, touring trombone player Caroll Hall and retired band director Jeff Hood.

Special Awards will celebrate community service and education as well as album and song of the year. Awards by Genre will cover a dozen categories from folk to funk, Individual Artists Awards will be highlight various vocal and instrumental fields and Industry Awards will spotlight offstage work in music retail, recording studios and radio.

That covers a bit of growth from when the Awards debuted in 2015. McLean hopes to expand the lineup even more in coming years.

“When we wrap year five, we will hopefully be in a position to plan a little further ahead than we’ve been able to in the past. We separated the bluegrass from the country category a couple of years ago. Next year, we’re going to separate either a punk or metal category or both from the regular rock category. We need to expand all the categories to some degree. That’s what we’re looking toward as we continue to grow.”

As with any awards ceremony, pleasing all artists and their audiences is an impossibility. McLain is used to that. His remedy is simple — keep minds and, especially ears, open for input.

“There is an old saying in recording studios. If everybody is unhappy, that means you’ve got it right. If the guitar player is happy, it probably means the guitar is too loud. If the vocalist is happy, then the vocals are too loud. I’m being somewhat facetious, of course. I don’t want everybody angry. What I try to do when someone is bent out of shape is understand what the problem is, because most of the time, they just want to be heard. I rely heavily on the harshest critics to find out exactly what their point of view is and how we can do this better.

“I try to make them understand we’re just coming into year No. 5. It’s a learning process and we’re trying to improve all the time. The way to do that is for them to be involved actively. I’m very pleased with the input we continue to get. I’m hoping to get more of it.

“I mean, I’m happy to add more categories, but there is a financial side to that. The Grammys have something like 81 categories. We don’t have the money for that. Yet. But with any luck…”

The Valley of the Jolly

She is called the “Tennessee Ukulele Lady.” That’s because Knoxville vocalist Kelle Jolly has been singing and strumming from East Tennessee all the way to Japan (specifically, Knoxville’s sister city of Muroran).

The founder of Knoxville’s Women in Jazz Jam Festival, the South Carolina-born artist introduced herself to Lexington through a cameo performance at a January 2018 concert by local songstress Jessie Laine Powell for the Origins Jazz Series, as well as a panel discussion at the Lyric Theatre and Cultural Arts Center on the contributions of women to the jazz world.

On Jan. 26, Jolly is back to headline her own Origins concert at Tee Dee’s Bluegrass Progressive Club, 266 E. Second St. With a repertoire that covers songs penned or popularized by such far reaching stylists as Ida Cox (whose “Wild Women Don’t Have the Blues” Jolly tore into at Powell’s concert), Thelonious Monk, Stevie Wonder, B.B. King and many others, the Ukulele Lady will perform in a combo that includes her saxophonist/husband Will Boyd.

Jolly performs at 7 and 9:15 p.m. Tickets are $17.50 for each performance or $30 for both at originsjazz.org.

This story was originally published January 24, 2019 at 8:53 AM.