Jerry Douglas has been a touring musician for 50 years, joining The Country Gentlemen in 1973, the summer before he graduated from LaBrae HIgh School.

But the Leavittsburg dobro master has been getting paid to play music even longer than that.

“My first paying gig probably was with dad and his band (the West Virginia Travelers) when I was 13, 14, 15,” Douglas said. “The most I ever got was $19 a night at the Grizzly Bear Saloon (in Warren).”

He’s not slowing down. Douglas called 2023 the “craziest year, the busiest year” of his career. His more than 100 gigs include shows with the Earls of Leicester and the Jerry Douglas Band, a trip to the UK for the Transatlantic Sessions, concerts with Australian guitarist Tommy Emmanuel, festival appearances and a short tour with bassist Daniel Kimbro that will play The Kent Stage on Saturday.

“I can’t say no,” he joked.

Douglas also picked up his 15th Grammy for producing Molly Tuttle’s “Crooked Tree,” which was named best bluegrass album.

On Friday, Douglas learned he could win his 16th Grammy. “City of Gold,” Tuttle’s follow-up album, also produced by Douglas, was nominated for best bluegrass album. Douglas’s dobro playing can be heard on the Billy Strings and Michael Cleveland albums nominated in the category as well.

Douglas won his first Grammy in 1983. He said he didn’t know he’d won until the award arrived in the mail. He missed Tuttle’s win this year because he was in Scotland with the Transatlantic Sessions — a tour that brings together US and UK folk artists — and he won’t be there in February for the 66th Grammy Awards, but he said it’s a very different experience being at the ceremony.

The win that made him appreciate it is when the Earls of Leicester won best bluegrass album at the 57th Grammys.

“I’d been in that position a whole bunch of times with Alison (Krauss & Union Station), Earl Scruggs and Marty Stuart and all these different Grammy situations that I had won,” Douglas said. “I have to admit I was pretty jaded with the whole situation. I remember standing backstage after I’d given the speech. I was just going through the steps — you win a Grammy, you accept the award, you give a speech, you go backstage and talk to the press.”

“I started to go up the stairs to where the press was, and I looked behind me and (bandmates) Charlie Cushman and Johnny Warren were just hugging each other. They were so happy. It hit me — ‘What are you doing? You just won a Grammy with these guys. You put this record together, it was successful, people liked the record. Why are you walking away like this is nothing? It’s really something.’ That’s when it really got me. That was the most emotional Grammy … You have to sit still for a second and have some gratitude, and I wasn’t doing that until I saw those guys react the way they should react.”

Playing on more than 1,600 albums, Douglas has expanded the expectations of what a dobro can do beyond bluegrass, country and blues. He’s worked with musicians ranging from classical to jazz to rock and brings that inquisitive and experimental attitude to his own music, which blends and bends genres.

Kimbro has become one of Douglas’ most frequent collaborators. He joined the Jerry Douglas Band in 2013 and now works with him in the Earls of Leicester and as part of the house band for the Transatlantic Sessions.

“He’s such a great musician, such a sensitive musician,” Douglas said. “He knows when to rise, when to raise his profile, and when to sink back into the band. He knows when to really exaggerate something or play it down. He’s a really good thinker as well as a musician.”

That shared experience in different configurations gives them plenty of material to draw from for this short tour.

“Daniel is making a record, so we’ll probably do a couple things of his,” Douglas said. “And we’ve got a whole catalog of old music we used to play and have played in different bands. It’s different when it’s just a dobro and bass. I’ve done enough solo shows that I know what I can get away with. The bass underpinning everything is just freeing. It lets me go much deeper and experiment more than I normally get to.”

“We’ll be pulling from all over the place and come up with some things nobody sees coming … It’s going to be a musical dialogue between he and I. It’s a conversation. Sometimes it’s really funny. Sometimes it’s really sad and beautiful and plays with people’s emotions. It runs the gamut,” Douglas said.

If you go …

WHO: Jerry Douglas and Daniel Kimbro

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Saturday

WHERE: The Kent Stage, 175 E. Main St., Kent

HOW MUCH: Tickets range from $30 to $40 and are available online at kentstage.org