JOHN COFFELT Contributor

If an artist is judged by the company she keeps, then being nominated in the same category as Dolly Parton is high praise indeed.

Local bluegrass singer/ songwriter Becky Buller’s song “Camel Train” has been nominated for a Gospel Music Association Dove Award in the organization’s first-ever best bluegrass song category. Also nominated is “Broken Angels” by The Grascals with the late Dolly Parton.

The song from Buller’s latest album “Songs that Sing Me,” features Ricky Skaggs, Sharon White and Cheryl White.

“Bluegrass has always been there, but it’s been in a catchall category with country, Americana, folk,” Buller said. “If Dolly Parton is in the category, there is no way you’re going to beat out Dolly Parton.”

“I’m just thrilled to be in there amongst this group of folks, and especially with it being the first year,” she said.

Buller learned the song from her parents as a child growing up in Minnesota.

“When I called my parents to tell them about the nomination, my dad in his usual dry style, said, ‘Well, I always thought it was a good song.’” “They always said it was an old-timey camp meeting song, and I did a little research, and I found out it was written in the late 1950s to early-60s by a travelling preacher from Indiana named Hansel Vibbert.”

Buller said that Skaggs sings bass and plays the mandolin.

“It’s a girls’ trio, but he kinda wanders in and out like A.P. Carter from the Carter family. He’s one of the best tenor singers in the world and he’s singing bass,” she said.

Buller plays a clawhammer banjo built by DP Hopkins Banjo Company in Shelbyville.

The Dove Awards ceremony will take place Oct. In addition to being up for a Dove Award, Buller was nominated for the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Album of the Year for “Songs that Sing Me.”

The album is a collection of the songs that shaped Buller’s music from an early age.

“They are songs that I have grown up singing or collected along the way. They are songs that continue to inform my creativity and teach me how to write,” Buller said.

Buller is also nominated for the IBMA Mentor of the Year for teaching fiddle, singing and songwriting. Buller teaches here in Manchester, as well as at camps all over the world and gives lessons online.

“I was in England in April for the Sore Fingers summer schools camp and came home to turn around to go to the Alabama Folk School Bluegrass Camp. I’ve been teaching at camps since 2012 and that’s taken me literally from coast to coast and all the way to Germany and the UK,” she said.

Bluegrass, in a way that mirrors the nation itself, is a truly American musical art form. It’s one that has a universal appeal, due in part to its amalgamation of elements brought from the immigrants who settled here.

“These elements, the syncopated rhythms with the African banjo music, the Baptist and Methodist hymns, the Scotch-Irish fiddle tunes all coalesced in the mountains of Appalachia. Bill Monroe brought this band together and the final element was when Earl Scruggs joined the Blue Grass Boys in late 1945. They played the Grand Ole Opry. It went out into the world and people went nuts,” Buller said.

“It has all of these elements from all over the world and that speaks to all these cultures and they enjoy it,” she said.

From festivals in Europe, camps in England and touring across the US, one of Buller’s most special shows is the annual Noah Community’s Christmas with Becky Buller show, Dec. 13 in Noah. Tickets are $30 in advance at https:// beckybuller.com/ or $40 at the door.

Buller’s album, Jubilee, debuted at number one on the Billboard Bluegrass Chart in June of 2024. Her new allcovers album, Songs That Sing Me, was released last September and reached number one on the Roots Music Report in March of 2026 and has more than 330,000 streams on Spotify. Buller has written songs for Grammy award-winning albums by Molly Tuttle, the Infamous Stringdusters, and the Travelin’ McCourys.