Dillon Hodges:
2007 Flat Picking Guitar National Champion
Dillon Hodges is a nationally-renownded artist who has won three national guitar contests, released two records, toured nationally with a Nashville-based band and is now the national spokesman for Cincinnati based DHR Music. All the while he has continued to develop his talent as a musician, singer and songwriter and performs regularly across the Southeast.
His latest work, an EP entitled “Seeds I’ve Sown,” was released on June 12, featuring five original works.
Less than two years after he first picked up a guitar, Dillon won a national championship as the best flat picking guitar player in the country for ages 12-and-under. In just four years of competing, Hodges managed to win 14 guitar championships and has competed in events in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, Indiana and Kansas. In September of 2007, just one month past his 17th birthday, Hodges won the Flat Picking National Championship at the 36th Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, Kansas, besting a field of 40 of the nation’s top pickers. With the win Hodges became the first guitar player ever to win the title of National Champion Country Music Beginner in Flat Top Guitar and the Flat Picking National Championship. In winning the Walnut Valley Festival, Hodges became the first left-handed player in the 36 years of the event to win. He is also the first winner from the state of Alabama and is the second youngest winner ever - second only to Mark O’Connor.
The summer and fall of 2007 were also memorable times for Dillon. He released his debut CD, “Stormy Weather,” in July of 2007. He was a featured artist in the September/October issue of Flat Picking Guitar Magazine. He won first place in the Indiana State Championships in Guitar and collaborated with friends Solly Burton and Olivia Smiley in the band Ol Dill to win both the Kentucky State and Indiana State Bluegrass Band championships.
In 2008 he joined the Nashville-based group Missy Raines and The New Hip and went with them on a 10-state national tour. The band performs a sophisticated brew of jazz moods, pop shimmer and bluegrass mastery and released its debut CD in the Spring of 2008. That release, titled “Inside Out,” included two of Hodges original songs - “The Duke of Paducah” and “In Over My Head.”
He also played with the Florence-based jazz, pop and funk band The Ray Brothers in 2008 and 2009 and recorded on the group’s debut CD in 2008.
As a representatve for DHR, Hodges makes appearances at DHR events and performs at the company’s booth at numerous national guitar shows and trade show events. He is featured in DHR promotions and endorses Breedlove and Collings acoustic guitars and Benedetto arch-top guitars.