'Old Violin' sung by Colin Gordon-Farleigh & Sandy Smolen

A multi-award winning singer-songwriter, Colin was awarded the accolade of “Best Bluegrass Artist, 2018” by the prestigious Akademia Music Awards company, based in Los Angeles, and the following year he won the award for 2019 from the organisation. In 2020 he was also presented with the Artist  Vision Award for “Exceptional talent, originality and vision in the field of music”.

A successful songwriter with many chart successes to his name, it was in May 2017 when he was in Nashville to be present when several of his songs were being recorded at Funhouse Studios on Music Row, that his friend Ernie Rowell invited him to sing with his Bluegrass band at Long Hollow Jamboree during an open-mike session that Saturday evening. Colin says: "Reluctantly, (very!) I sang one of my favourite Country Classic songs, ‘Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain’, and the rest, as they say, is now history.  People enjoyed my singing and Ernie, together with my friend Gary McCray, decided that I should go into the studio a few days later to record the song. The result was a 3-track EP which I released later that year. This was followed up by a full album called ‘Second Chances’ in 2018, ‘Friends & Heroes’ in 2019 and ‘Dreams of a Dreamer’ in 2022,  which have had a lot of success. A Christmas EP titled “Country Christmas” was released in 2021."

In April 2019, the Akademia Music Awards organisation, based in Lose Angeles, awarded me “Best Bluegrass Singer, 2018” and this was repeated in 2020 when I was awarded the same accolade for 2019. This year I was presented with the prestigious “Artist Vision Award” for my contribution to both Bluegrass music and the music industry.

Colin has been nominated for the Akademia ‘Bluegrass Singer of the Year’ for 2022 and also for the Akademia Hall of Fame, both in 2023.

He continues to write, often co-writing with friends in Nashville, and to record. Currently he is working on a new album for release in Fall, 2023.