Becky Buller band brings bluegrass bonanza

The Park Theater’s inaugural Bluegrass Series continued Saturday night, March 21, with the second concert of the three-show lineup as the Becky Buller Band took the stage.

Buller, a Minnesota native who now lives in Manchester in neighboring Coffee County, is a member of the Minnesota Music Hall of Fame and has won 10 International Bluegrass Music Association awards. She is the first person to ever win both the IBMA Fiddler and Female Vocalist of the Year awards and she is the first female to ever take the Fiddler of the Year title.

In addition to her accolades garnered as a performer, she has penned songs on Grammy-winning albums by Molly Tuttle, the Infamous Stringdusters and the Travelin’ McCourys.

Buller was backed at the Saturday show by an accomplished group of pickers and singers, including 2024 Banjo Hall of Fame inductee Ned Luberecki, who holds two IBMA awards of his own and hosts a bluegrass show on Sirius XM. Buller and the band delighted the crowd with a selection of original hits as well as covers from her latest album, “Songs That Sing Me.”

The night was an unusually short trip for Buller from her home in Manchester on a tour which includes stops in Alabama, Minnesota, Mississippi, Indiana and the United Kingdom.

“I love my adopted hometown of Manchester and the surrounding area,” Buller said. “I cherish any chance I get to share music with my people. And I get to sleep in my own bed."

Emceeing the evening’s festivities was Main Street Media’s Justin Reed who warmed up the crowd with jokes which drew a healthy mix of laughs and groans.

“I first worked a show with Becky in 2019, and to have such a wealth of talent in our neck of the woods, it only makes sense to bring her here to the Park Theater,” Reed said.

The Bluegrass Series concludes on Friday, May 22 at 7:30 p.m. with Backline, a five-piece band from Spartanburg, S.C. which was formed in 2016. Tickets are available at the Park Theater website, the box office at 115 W. Main St. and at the door before the show.