Last month, local musician Ed King received an international Golden Heart award for International Male Entertainer of the Year. The award is through the Country Gospel Music Association.
In June, King won Male Entertainer of the Year and Male Vocalist of the Year at the Canadian Silver Heart Awards put on by the association's local branch. Winning the Canadian awards got him into the running for the international Golden Heart Awards.
Last Friday, King performed with others at the Heritage Inn for an autism fundraiser.
King said the awards put him up against some of the best artists in the country.
"You can't believe the amount of talent that's involved in this organization," he said.
King used to record in Nashville and said the musicians he sees now wouldn't take a backseat to anybody.
"There's just a fantastic bunch of talent involved in it," he said. "They're not all old like me. They have young people there. In Martinsville, Saskatchewan there was a kid, I think he was eight or nine, and you couldn't believe how that kid played five-string banjo. He was part of a country gospel family and the whole family played everything."
There are about 8,000 members in the international association. The Golden Heart Awards were held Oct. 14 to 19 in Missouri.
King has lived in Cranbrook for over 20 years, but most of that time was spent on tour.
King is finishing up a new album and expects to record the final two tracks in the next week or two.
"I used to record in Nashville, but recording techniques in Canada now are pretty well on par with what's happening all over the world," he said, adding that he records out of Langley, B.C.
At the moment he is working with musician Penny Buhr Johnson.