Banjo player Jesse Meador speaks at the 2025 Josie Music Awards on Nov. 2. Photo provided
By MICHAEL CRIMMINS
Glasgow News 1
Kentucky Just Us, a Glasgow Bluegrass band, traveled to Nashville to receive a fan’s choice award over the weekend.
Commemorating a decade together, the five-person musical troupe was awarded the Fan’s Choice Duo/Group of the Year Award at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville on Nov. 2.
“We were just so honored and excited just to be nominated,” said Kasey O’Neal, who plays fiddle in Kentucky Just Us. “I don’t think we were expecting to win anything [but] we couldn’t be more thankful because not only is it an award, but it’s the fans’ choice award, so it just makes you feel so good.”
“We’re so thankful to our fans because we’ve worked so hard and to know that the fans appreciate [the music] — because that’s who we’re playing for — so we’re very honored,” she added.
Kentucky Just Us received the award during the 2025 Josie Music Awards, which was established in 2015 and is an award ceremony for independent artists from every genre, according to the Josie Music Awards website.
Beginning from a realization that they could harmonize together, the band started making music in October 2014. From there the band, which features a banjo, mandolin, upright bass, fiddle and guitar, has played numerous notable venues including at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, Siler Dollar City in Missouri and the Country Music Highway Tribute Show where they played the same performance as Ricky Skaggs and Noah Thompson.
“We’ve been very blessed to play at different venues across the country,” O’Neal said.
Kentucky Just Us was also selected in 2018 as the first artist in residency at the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame in Mount Vernon, Kentucky.
The band is scheduled to perform during the upcoming Glasgow Veterans Day Parade, according to the band’s website. O’Neal said one of the songs, The Oaktree Shade, was written about veterans and is from their new album, 10.
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