Hot Rize was inducted into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame on September 18, 2025 as part of the 36th Annual IBMA Bluegrass Music Awards program at the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Auditorium in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Pete, Tim, Nick, and Bryan all made grateful acceptance speeches and the band played together for the first time since 2022, performing “Hard Pressed” and “Just Like You”.
The Awards Show can be viewed online.
IBMA also hosted a panel at the Chattanooga Convention Center on September 19, featuring the Hall of Fame inductees discussing their times in bluegrass and answering questions from fans and the press.
About Hot Rize
Hot Rize, whose classic lineup consisted of Tim O’Brien, Pete Wernick, Nick Forster, and Charles Sawtelle, first appeared onstage together throughout Colorado’s Front Range in 1978. By the time they retired from full-time performing in 1990, they had reached the top of the bluegrass world as the first recipients of IBMA’s Entertainer of the Year Award, their stature widely recognized with a four-star review in Rolling Stone, television appearances including Austin City Limits, tours on four continents, and a legion of up-and-coming bands following in their footsteps.
The four members’ 20-year run as a band ended when Sawtelle passed away in 1999, but the band reformed in 2002 with famed Nashville studio musician Bryan Sutton on guitar.
The band continued long after their 12-year full-time years, well into the 21st century, with a string of reunion concerts and occasional full tours, including a 30-festival year in 2015, international appearances, and the release of two live albums and a studio recording. Their most recent performance was at the 2022 Rocky Grass Festival in Lyons, CO, as the hometown band whose members performed at the festival as early as 1975, the festival’s third year.
Wernick, a Niwot, Colorado resident since 1976, and Forster, the co-host of Boulder’s long-running national radio program eTown, still reside in and perform in the Boulder area. The other two band members now live in Nashville.
Other 2025 Hall of Fame inductees are the Bluegrass Cardinals and the late Arnold Shultz, early mentor of the “Father of Bluegrass”, Bill Monroe, and the first African-American in the Bluegrass Hall of Fame. Read more about this year’s class of inductees.
See Pete’s response to the induction announcement.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.