January 2020 By Mike Kirley

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Claire Lynch has been a mainstay in American Bluegrass since 1977. She is a three-time winner of the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Female Vocalist of the Year’s honours. She is considered one of the best female voices in Bluegrass. She has put out eleven high quality CD’s, the latest being North by South, where she highlights her favourite Canadian songwriters...READ MORE

Winter 2016 By J. Poet

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American bluegrass doyenne pays tribute to the formidable talents of Canadian songwriters...READ MORE

July 2, 2019 By Richard Thompson

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Singer/songwriter Claire Lynch, with whom John Starling shared a musical collaboration in the country-rock band Ready Section, speaks eloquently about the considerable impact that Starling had on her career...READ MORE

Read the PDF version here!  

April 2, 2019: Smokey Mountain News by Garret K. Woodward

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The voice of Claire Lynch is incredibly soothing — in conversation and in front of a microphone. With a songbird tone and cadence, the singer is like a free-flowing breeze, something that swirls around you and picks you up, as if you’re a fallen leaf at the peak of beauty, eager to once again sit high in the sky.

The three-time International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) “Female Vocalist of the Year” (1997, 2010, 2013), Lynch also penned “Dear Sister,” a take on a character in a Civil War book of letters she came across, which led to the IBMA award for “Song of the Year” (2014)...READ MORE

Read the PDF version here!  

January 2019: Volume 3 Issue 1 by Stephen Pitalo

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What Happens When the Reigning Queen of American Bluegrass Claire Lynch Finds Love in Canada? For an artist like Claire Lynch, the key is endurance. Having been the IBMA Female Vocalist of the Year in 1997, 201 O and 2013 and with Grammy nominations from 1995 to just last year, it's all about the long haul. Who knew that the twists and turns of a life in bluegrass would lead this undisputed queen of American bluegrass to find her bliss in Canada...READ MORE

Read the Online version here!  

December 2017: Ep. 79 - Claire Lynch Dear Sister: The Bluegrass Artist Turned Songwriter Turned Songwriting Bluegrass Artist

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Claire opens up about how she went from growing up on Joan Baez in New York to setting new bluegrass trends in Alabama; the song she calls "her penance" for not appreciating her roots; why her husband put a pad and pencil in her hand and forced her to finish a song; how she learned to co-write through embarrassment; what it is she loves about being "hot on the trail" of a songwriting idea; the toll her music took on her marriage; what she learned working with Dolly Parton; and the secret of making a good song great.   

Launching her career with the Front Porch String Band in the 1970s, Claire Lynch went on to release solo material before ultimately assembling her own Claire Lynch Band. Dolly Parton calls Claire “one of the sweetest, purest and best lead voices in the music business today.” She has received over twenty nominations from the International Bluegrass Music Association, winning a half dozen of their awards, including Female Vocalist of the Year in 1997, 2010, and 2013. Her song “Dear Sister” was named the IBMA's 2014 Song of the Year.

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Take a listen!  https://www.songcraftshow.com/claire_lynch

by ROBERT K. OERMANN, July 13, 2017

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It’s time for a smooch from country’s “kissin’ cousin,” bluegrass music. This is a genre that’s hard to find on radio, but which thrives at 500+ bluegrass festivals a year. And, as we see today, on records, too.

I have no newcomers in this stack of platters, so there’s no DisCovery Award this week. However, I do have two winners of the Disc of the Day prize. Much awarded bluegrass superstars Dailey & Vincent claim one of them.

The other goes to the enduringly great Claire Lynch. She’s no slouch in the awards department, either, having been the IBMA Female Vocalist of the Year in 1997, 2010 and 2013. Her Grammy nominations have been for her Moonlighter CD of 1995, as well as for her current North By South,which competed for Best Bluegrass Album last February.

CLAIRE LYNCH/Black Flowers
Writers: Lynn Miles; Producer: Alison Brown; Publisher: Cold Girl, SOCAN
– The sublime bluegrass diva Claire Lynch went northward on a song quest, fell in love with a community of songwriters and now has an entire CD containing almost all Canadian tunes. Gordon Lightfoot, Bruce Cockburn and Ron Sexsmith are here, but so are a lot of other gifted tunesmiths you might not know. Her current single/video is a haunting, hushed, bluesy lament of death and mourning penned by Ottawa’s Lynn Miles. Instrumental support on her North By South album comes via such stellar names as Bela Fleck, Jerry Douglas, Kenny Malone, Alison Brown, David Grier and Stuart Duncan. You’d be a fool to overlook this perfect audio jewel.

by ERIC THOM, April 2017

The Upshot: America’s premiere bluegrass belle looks north to Canada for fresh material and the results are beyond stupefying. Her ability to reconstruct and own each composition, extending the reach of each original while adding to the impact of every song covered is pure magic. North By South signals an end to all borders, if not the beginning of something truly powerful...FULL ARTICLE

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Lauded songwriter/singer LYNN MILES has a good chat with CLAIRE LYNCH giving the back story to her own career and her stunning composition, "Black Flowers".

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by KERRY DOOLE February 9, 2017

Claire Lynch has set her personal and musical compass to the North, and the result is proving beneficial to many SOCAN members.

The acclaimed American bluegrass/roots singer-songwriter has earned a 2017 Grammy Award nomination in the Bluegrass Album of the Year category for her recent (and tenth) album North by South. Lynch was previously nominated for a Grammy in this category in 1996 and 1998, and she’s been named the Best Female Vocalist three times by the International Bluegrass Music Association. ...FULL ARTICLE

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by ATIGAY, Posted on January 17, 2017

Bluegrass on Ice

Listening Post 82. Among Claire Lynch’s many talents is an uncanny ability to embody a man’s song—her angelic voice not imitating the opposite sex but simply erasing the importance of gender. She memorably personified a Civil War soldier in Kennesaw Lineand on her latest album she’s a deckhand-turned-ship’s captain who spends 50 years with the love of his life, the Molly May (video 1). The song—written by J.P. and Gervais Cormier—is bittersweet, like any story of passion, and no one does bittersweet with a richer blend of radiance and nuance than Lynch...FULL ARTICLE

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Sunday, January 1st, 2017

Veteran Claire Lynch, her producer Alison Brown, and the illustrious team of collaborators they’ve gathered here have really hit the high watermark on this fantastic ten-song collection. As a singer, Lynch, a three-time IBMA Female Vocalist of the Year, has never sounded so compelling, so dazzling, and so finely nuanced, whether she’s exploring the bright hues of hopefulness, resolve and contentment or the darker shades of frailty, restlessness and despair...FULL ARTICLE

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by MARK HUGHES, Cobb Tusk Editor, November 2, 2016

Huntsville-raised Claire Lynch, former Front Porch String Band frontwoman and singer-songwriter in Nashville since the early '80s, will return with her crack bluegrass band Friday, for her first performance in the Bama Theatre in almost a decade.

She didn't mean to stay away so long, but life, and its constant touring, got in the way. Friday's show will be something of a homecoming...FULL ARTICLE

by REMO RICALDONE, 2016 - Translated from Italian

North By South is a work created and inspired through personal and emotional, but certainly made that fully reflects the great sensitivity of one of the most beautiful voices of the American acoustic scene. Claire Lynch fact became interested huge reservoir of Canadian songwriters after his marriage to a citizen of that country and has discovered and revisited through his vision tradition-bound country and bluegrass an excellent set of songs...FULL ARTICLE

October 25, 2016

Bluegrass singer/songwriter Claire Lynch, who will perform with her band tonight at Tellus360, was recently nominated for the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Female Vocalist of the Year Award — for the 15th time. If she wins, it will mark the fourth time she has taken home the trophy. “It’s a wonder every time it happens,’’ Lynch says of again being nominated. “There are a lot of young, beautiful, exciting bluegrass singers coming up in the world...FULL ARTICLE

SEPT. 25, 2016 Folk-rooted and folk-branched reviews, commentaries, radio playlists and suggestions from veteran music journalist and broadcaster Mike Regenstreif.

Writing about Claire Lynch’s album New Day in Sing Out! magazine in 2006, I referred to her as “one of the finest bluegrass vocalists of the modern era.” And, indeed, she was/is that. But, as early as that album, if not before, she was also finding inspiration in contemporary folk-rooted styles, singers and songwriters.

On her new album, North By South, Claire specifically finds inspiration in Canadian songwriters...FULL ARTICLE

by JOHN LAWLESS, SEPT. 2, 2016

OK… first thing. Claire Lynch is not retiring! Let me repeat that. She is not retiring.  When we had a chance to chat with her last week about her new album, North By South, I asked if she was planning on slowing down after this record. She was a bit adamant, saying that everywhere she goes she gets that same question...FULL ARTICLE

Country Style Nr. 70: APRIL 2016

Mitte Mai bietet sich den hiesigen Freunden akustischer Musik aus den Südstaaten der USA die wahrscheinlich letzte Gelegenheit, eine der schönsten Stimmen der Roots-Musik noch einmal live zu hören. Claire Lynch steuert auf den Ruhestand hin und will sich 2016 langsam von der Bühne verabschieden...FULL ARTICLE

by BRIAN MANSFIELD on NOV 30, 2014

These albums may not top the charts this season, but they offer such a distinctive perspective on the holidays that we can't help but love them. If you're looking for something different from the same old songs, give these a try....FULL ARTICLE

By MARKOS PAPADATOS on OCT 5, 2014

Bluegrass sensation Claire Lynch took home the award for "Song of the Year" at this year's International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) awards....FULL ARTICLE

By MATT WAKE on AUGUST 19, 2014

Sometimes bluegrass star Claire Lynch will be singing her lovely, mandolin-dappled ballad "Dear Sister" onstage and looking out into the audience she'll see people wiping tears from their eyes. "That's the most beautiful singing experience I can have," Lynch says. She's walking down a street in Toronto when reached for this phone interview....FULL ARTICLE

By MARKOS PAPADATOS on JULY 26, 2014

The following ten female vocalists are some of the best in the music business, and they all have one thing in common: they possess the voice of an angel...FULL ARTICLE

By JIM CATALANO on JANUARY 26, 2014

Claire Lynch, who headlines this weekend’s Winter Village Bluegrass Festival, has been on a roll lately. Last year, she was named IBMA’s Female Vocalist of the Year for the second time, following a similar honor in 2010...FULL ARTICLE

by MARKOS PAPADATOS on OCTOBER 14, 2013

Veteran bluegrass singer-songwriter Claire Lynch accepted her third career win for the coveted International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) "Female Vocalist of the Year" award on September 26, 2013.

On her most recent win, Lynch remarked, "It was a lot of fun and really exciting. I actually had a funny feeling it was going to happen this time. It was extremely gratifying and for some reason, it wasn't like a big, huge surprise. To have this kind of this honor and to be recognized for this long is a really beautiful thing and sort of an affirmation of my work."

Presently, she is a part of the Compass Records label...FULL ARTICLE

by ERIC THOM on SEPTEMBER 30, 2013

If you’ve never heard Claire Lynch sing, your life’s not quite complete. For never was there a sweeter sound – never more fair from any songbird’s trill – than her voice. What she can do to a musical story has helped transform the art of bluegrass music. A true original, she’s a joy to behold and as deep, down soulful as can be....FULL ARTICLE

NEW YORK MUSIC DAILY on JUNE 25, 2013

If you’re a bluegrass fan, you probably know that Claire Lynch has been a bigtime IBMA winner as a singer. And if you’re a bluegrass fan in New York... FULL ARTICLE

June 3, 2013

Thank you Michael Devlin for your amazing "Dear Sister" album review.  

Review

JUNE 1, 2013

To my friends and family... WELCOME!  Thanks for coming to the new "clairelynch.com" which brings all the elements of my on-line  presence together in one place.  Please browse around and don't forget to check out my new CD!

- Claire

by David Morris, May 29, 2013

Claire Lynch Goes (A Little Bit) Country

May 28, 2013

I'm pleased to announce the long-awaited release of my new album, "Dear Sister",  produced by Garry West. Check it out - there are links to it all over the site!  Thanks to my fabulous band for all their hard work.

Feb. 19, 2013

Here's the link:

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Claire Lynch takes a licking and keeps on picking!

December 2012

At the end of 2012, Claire’s long history at the creative forefront of bluegrass and acoustic music earned her a very rare honor, The United States Artists Fellowship. Presented by the philanthropic organization of the same name, the $50,000 grant is given to only 50 of 300 candidates exclusively invited to apply.  Awards are presented annually in eight categories - dance, theater, visual arts, media, literature, crafts, architecture and music. Claire was among seven musicians given the Fellowship this year. Since its founding in 2005, only two other bluegrass or country musicians have been so honored - previous winner, resonator guitarist Rob Ickes (who guests on Dear Sister) and fellow 2012 honoree, banjoist Tony Trischka.

For more information, visit ​http://www.unitedstatesartists.org



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