Sister Sadie is a festival favorite in Raleigh. Their rich harmonies and flawless musicianship have lit up the Red Hat Amphitheater and StreetFest Stages alike.
The band is anchored by banjo player Gena Britt who lives in the Sandhills of North Carolina and Deanie Richardson on fiddle. The pair are joined by Jalee Roberts on guitar, Mary Meyer on mandolin and Hasee Ciaccio on bass.
Gena says that the band didn’t plan on being an ongoing thing. “We thought it would be a little fun…” But she says when they first started playing out, they knew they had something. “I’ll never forget it. …when we hit the first note, we all looked at each other like, ‘Oh yeah, this is pretty special.’”
In 2019 Sister Sadie was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album and won the IBMA’s Vocal Group of the Year. The following year they took home the coveted Entertainer of the Year Award in 2020. Also in 2020, Deanie Richardson won IBMA Fiddle Player of the Year. At the time, she was just the second woman to win the award in the IBMA’s 30-year history of recognizing the industry’s best.
The 2022 IBMA Bluegrass Live! powered by PNC will be the band’s first time in Raleigh with the current line-up. “I think the direction for Sadie is changing,” said Deanie to the Nashville Scene after the band’s new members were announced. “We’ve always been a more traditional bluegrass kind of band. … I think we have some opportunities to mix up some things a little bit.”
