In the 1970s, Northeasterner Pete Wernick and West Virginia native Tim O’Brien migrated to Colorado, found each other and formed the group Hot Rize. Rounded out by fellow band members Nick Forster and Charles Sawtelle, the highly successful outfit brought a reverent yet open-minded approach to the genre for more than 20 years, winning the first-ever International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) Entertainer of the Year award in 1990.
Unfortunately, tragedy struck when Sawtelle died of leukemia in 1999. After that, the members of Hot Rize went their separate ways. Wernick and the Grammy-winning O’Brien carved out their own solo careers, as did Forster, who many will recognize as the host of the weekly live radio program eTown.
When Hot Rize decided to reunite for some shows in 2002, they filled the large shoes of Sawtelle by bringing in one of the best gunslingers in the business, eight-time IBMA Guitarist of the Year Bryan Sutton.
In 2014, Hot Rize released their first studio album in over two decades with When I’m Free.
HOT RIZE is playing Saturday, Nov. 22 at Miami University Middletown’s Dave Finkelman Auditorium. Find tickets/more info
here .
This article appears in Nov 19-25, 2014.
