Becky Buller is a bluegrass fiddler, singer, and songwriter from St. James, Minnesota. She has won 10 IBMA awards. In 2016 she became the first woman named IBMA Fiddle Player of the Year, and she won Female Vocalist of the Year the same night, the first person to win in both a vocal and an instrumental category. Her songs appear on three Grammy-winning bluegrass albums.
Why Buller matters
No woman had won IBMA Fiddle Player of the Year before Buller took it in 2016. Three women have won it since. She did it as a bandleader who sings lead, writes the songs, and plays the breaks. For a jammer, she is a model for how a fiddler can lead a band instead of standing at the edge of it.
Life and career
Buller was born on January 31, 1979, in St. James, Minnesota. She grew up playing bluegrass with her parents in a southern Minnesota band called Prairie Grass and started writing songs in middle school. She studied classical violin with Patti Tryhus at the Mankato Suzuki School of Music and with Charles Gray at St. Olaf College. In 1996 she won the junior division of the Minnesota State Old Time Fiddle Championships. In 1997 she served as concertmaster of the Mankato Area Youth Symphony.
She studied bluegrass and public relations at East Tennessee State University and graduated in 2001. That year she won the bluegrass category of the Chris Austin Songwriting Contest at MerleFest. Her first album, Rest My Weary Feet, came out in 2000, and Little Bird followed in 2004. She also worked with singer Valerie Smith, and the two released a duo album, Here’s a Little Song, in 2008.
Buller’s songwriting career took off in the 2010s. She won IBMA Songwriter of the Year and Emerging Artist of the Year in 2015, the same year Southern Flavor won Recorded Event of the Year. In 2016 she won Fiddle Player of the Year and Female Vocalist of the Year. Crêpe Paper Heart came out on Dark Shadow Recording in 2018 and won the IBMA Gospel Recorded Performance award for Speakin’ to That Mountain. In 2020 her co-write Chicago Barn Dance, recorded by Special Consensus with Michael Cleveland, won Song of the Year, and The Barber’s Fiddle, which gathered 16 guest fiddlers, won Collaborative Recording of the Year.
She released Distance and Time in 2020, The Perfect Gift in 2022, Jubilee in 2024, and Songs That Sing Me in 2025. She joined the Minnesota Music Hall of Fame in April 2023 and received ETSU’s Distinguished Alumna in the Arts Award in November 2025. She lives in Manchester, Tennessee, and tours with the Becky Buller Band.
Playing style
Buller came to bluegrass through the Suzuki method and a youth symphony, and it shows in her intonation and bow control. Her breaks are melodic and clean. She favors the tune over flash and builds solos a listener can hum back.
Her fiddle also serves the song. On her records it answers vocal lines, fills gaps, and sets up choruses more than it fights for attention. Listen to The Barber’s Fiddle, where she trades with 16 other fiddlers and still sounds like herself.
Influences and legacy
Buller learned bluegrass from her parents’ band and classical violin from Patti Tryhus and Charles Gray. ETSU’s bluegrass program shaped her next, and she has served as an ambassador for it ever since.
Her songs have been recorded by Ricky Skaggs, Rhonda Vincent, Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver, Russell Moore and IIIrd Tyme Out, and Special Consensus. Three Grammy-winning albums carry her songs: Laws of Gravity by the Infamous Stringdusters (2018), The Travelin’ McCourys (2019), and Crooked Tree by Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway (2023). She plays fiddle in the First Ladies of Bluegrass with Alison Brown, Missy Raines, Sierra Hull, and Molly Tuttle, the first women to win IBMA’s award on each of their instruments. She has taught fiddle, singing, and songwriting at camps such as NashCamp and Sore Fingers for two decades. Fiddlers who won the IBMA award after her include Deanie Richardson, Bronwyn Keith-Hynes, and Maddie Denton.
Signature tunes and songs
The Barber’s Fiddle Chicago Barn Dance Speakin’ to That Mountain Freedom The Shaker Goodbye Girl.
Essential recordings
Here’s a Little Song, with Valerie Smith (Bell Buckle, 2008) Tween Earth and Sky (2014) Crêpe Paper Heart (Dark Shadow Recording, 2018) Distance and Time (Dark Shadow Recording, 2020) Jubilee (Dark Shadow Recording, 2024)
Awards and honors
Minnesota State Old Time Fiddle Championships, junior division (1996) MerleFest Chris Austin Songwriting Contest, bluegrass category (2001) IBMA Recorded Event of the Year, Back to the Well, the Daughters of Bluegrass (2006) IBMA Recorded Event of the Year, Southern Flavor (2015) IBMA Songwriter of the Year (2015) IBMA Emerging Artist of the Year (2015) IBMA Fiddle Player of the Year (2016) IBMA Female Vocalist of the Year (2016) IBMA Recorded Event of the Year, Swept Away (2018) IBMA Gospel Recorded Performance of the Year, Speakin’ to That Mountain (2018) IBMA Song of the Year, Chicago Barn Dance (2020) IBMA Collaborative Recording of the Year, The Barber’s Fiddle (2020) Minnesota Music Hall of Fame (2023) ETSU Distinguished Alumna in the Arts Award (2025)
Watch and listen
The video for The Barber’s Fiddle, her 2020 IBMA Collaborative Recording of the Year. Count the fiddlers.
Buller gives a fiddle lesson for Bluegrass Unlimited. Watch her bow arm and listen to how she explains each phrase.
What to learn from Buller
Learn Chicago Barn Dance from the Special Consensus record. It is a modern song written by a fiddler, so the fiddle part fits the hand. The technique to steal is her fill playing. Record yourself singing a verse of any bluegrass song, then play along and add a short fiddle answer at the end of each vocal line, never during it. Keep each fill to four notes or fewer. That is how Buller backs her own singing, and it is the skill that gets a fiddler invited back to a jam.
Sources
Becky Buller, IBMA award recipients Becky Buller, Wikipedia Becky Buller earns 2025 ETSU alumni award, Bluegrass Today Becky Buller Lessons, Becky Buller Becky Buller, Discogs
Related players
See the fiddle players hub and the fiddle guide for more. Michael Cleveland played on her Song of the Year. Deanie Richardson, Bronwyn Keith-Hynes, and Maddie Denton followed her as women named IBMA Fiddle Player of the Year. Aynsley Porchak came through the same ETSU program.