He’s a Bluegrass star with 14 Grammys. See him (and more) for free if you’re vaccinated.

Two years ago, Jerry Douglas was at the center of a performance world that had been spinning with active invention for well over four decades. With the resonator guitar known as the dobro as his primary musical weapon of choice, the one-time Lexingtonian (during his storied mid-70s tenure with J.D. Crowe’s inaugural lineup of the New South) remained one of the most revered ambassadors of the bluegrass world.

But Douglas was also a stylistic journeyman. A longtime member of Alison Krauss and Union Station as well as an immensely prolific session musician who has contributed to records by such luminaries as Paul Simon, Eric Clapton and James Taylor, Douglas is equally devoted to bluegrass tradition and projects that revel in considerable progressive daring. His playing has rewarded him with, among other accolades, 14 Grammy Awards.

One year ago, that world stopped, just as it did for almost every other working musician on the planet. With the COVID 19 pandemic silencing live music as everyone knew it, Douglas kept working. In his home studio, he added overdubs of his wiry and wily playing to a host of recordings by other artists, even though his own music – which included a new collaborative album with veteran songwriter John Hiatt – was placed on hold.

Today, with civilization emerging from COVID purgatory, Douglas is cautiously returning to more visible action. The album with Hiatt, “Leftover Feelings,” has been completed and released, work with the genre-hopping band that bears his name has resumed and the musical world that has served him so well (and vice versa) is spinning again.

“It was like a big science fiction movie,” Douglas said of how the pandemic brought live music to a halt in 2020. “It really made me miss the camaraderie of what goes into making music, what goes into playing in a band or just playing in a group of musicians where you can actually see them, hear them and exchange ideas as you’re playing and not speaking a word. There’s just this musical language we speak. It’s like the strange language a set of twins will have where no one else gets it but they know exactly what each other is talking about.

“For the first three months, I did enjoy things because I was so burned out. I had been going for a year. Even right after Christmas, I went back on the road. I went over to Scotland and came back. Went to California and toured and came back. I started making a record in the studio. Then it all came to a close. It was like a snow day that lasted 14 months where you couldn’t go visit anybody. You could talk to them on the phone and check in to see how everybody was doing, but really our lives were totally set on end. We couldn’t play for people, which gives us inspiration to write and create. That was gone. The creative process just kind of stopped. If I hadn’t had my own studio and had other people sending me these tracks to play on, I don’t know what I would have done.”

The first major step back to new normalcy was the record with Hiatt, for which Douglas would serve as producer with the entire Jerry Douglas Band (completed by guitarist Mike Seal, violinist Christian Sedelmeyer and bassist Daniel Kimbro) supplying the instrumental support.

“The project with John was delayed by almost a year. We were supposed to record in April of 2020, but we couldn’t. So we waited until everybody was past the unnerved point.

“Musicians meet each other on the road a lot. You start to have a conversation and it’s only five minutes long. Then you’re on the bus to the next city. You might not see other again for five or six years. That’s just the way it goes. But after a conversation with John, I had the feeling of, ‘I really want to know this guy. I really want him to be a friend, not just a passing acquaintance.’ I was hoping to get to work with him someday.’ And here we are. Things work out for those who wait.”

While the bulk of the resulting “Leftover Feelings” album is a selection of sly, wry and human stories by Hiatt with varying shades of rootsy warmth provided by Douglas and his band, a saga of real-life darkness sits at its center in the form of “Light of the Burning Sun.” The song is a childhood remembrance from when Hiatt and his family learned of the suicide death of his older brother.

Douglas, as producer, chose to follow such a harrowing saga with the vastly more whimsical “Little Goodnight,” a giddy lullaby about a baby’s refusal (or inability) to sleep through the evening.

“Putting ‘Little Goodnight’ after ‘Light of the Burning Sun’ was just necessary,” Douglas said. “‘Light of the Burning Sun’ is so heavy that we needed something totally ridiculous after that to bring people back from where they were.

“When he played me ‘Light of the Burning Sun,’ I said, ‘John, that’s real isn’t it?’ He said, ‘Yeah.’ He was 11 years old when his oldest brother took his life. And it tore up his family. He said his family was never the same. It took him years to write that song. It took years to get through all the emotion that goes along with that. It’s just a real important piece of music.”

Hiatt and Douglas will hit the road for a joint tour to support the album in August with a performance slated for Nov. 9 at Memorial Hall in Cincinnati.

This weekend, though, Douglas and his band will play Central Kentucky on their own as part of an extensive concert series at the Cardome Renaissance Centre in Georgetown designed to encourage further vaccinations against COVID-19.

“This will be a chance for us to stretch out a little bit,” Douglas said. “We’ve had a little rehearsal, so we’re ready. Oh boy, we’re ready. Everybody was jumping out of their skin just to get to play together again, so this is going to be fun.”

If you go: Jerry Douglas Band

Who: The Jerry Douglas Band, as part of the Concerts at Cardome series

When: 5 p.m. June 6

Where: Cardome Renaissance Center, 800 Cincinnati Ave. in Georgetown

Tickets: Admission for all performances in the series is free with proof of COVID-19 vaccination or receiving a vaccination on-site and a copy of required email registration. For more concert and registration information, go to http://www.troubashow.com/cardome.

Concerts at Cardome series

June 6: The Jerry Douglas Band (5 p.m.)

June 8: Arlo McKinley (7:30 p.m.)

June 12: Michael Cleveland and Flamekeeper (7 p.m.)

June 16: Bobby Rush/Tee Dee Young (7:30 p.m.)

June 17: Victor Wooten (7:30 p.m.)

June 18: Suzy Bogguss (7:30 p.m.)

June 19: George Winston (7 p.m.)

June 25: Tommy Emmanuel with Rob Ickes and Trey Hensley (7:30 p.m.)

June 26: Sam Bush Band (7 p.m.)

June 27: Exile (5 p.m.)

June 28: The Travelin’ McCourys (7:30 p.m.)

June 29: Andy McKee/Ben Sollee (7:30 p.m.)