Telluride Bluegrass Festival Echoes, "Gentle On My Mind"

23 Jun Telluride Bluegrass Festival Echoes, "Gentle On My Mind"

By Jon Lovekin

A Tom Boy Ride

Preparing for a festival as grand as the Telluride Bluegrass Festival takes time. For many Festivarians, the week to 10 day experience is their one vacation of the year. The excitement in the weeks before the Summer Solstice reaches a fever pitch the weekend before the music starts. In the early years, an entire festival was spent flopped in a tent in Town Park listening to the music from there, too sick from altitude, sun, and fun to be able to move.

As the festival caught on, pitching a tent in an empty lot or sleeping in a car late in the week ceased being possible. Prior planning became necessary and arrival in the campground early in the week morphed to getting there the weekend before. Town passes on the Landcruiser faded to no longer trying to leave town at all. We started working at the ticket booths, renting bikes, and moving in for the week.

Vasser Clements & Friends

There are many of us now, who only meet in Telluride for the summer solstice. Friends from New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Colorado and places even further coming together for the hootenanny of them all. And some never coming again as the years have tumbled down like water over the rocks and cliffs taking friends along the way. It is the same for the musicians who played for us here and have, in no small number, passed on.

One year, Hartford's floating music caught hold. Laughing children blew bubbles, sunburned lovers clung and shuffled in a dusty dance while the breeze began to stir. Aspens waved, leaves flickering in the wind, while great billowing clouds moved above the towering peaks soon to bring cold rain out of the impossibly blue sky. Wisps of flowers and cotton from trees floated in the air and the eternal nature of what this day held struck home.

Many years went by from that great moment in the sun dappled afternoon, in the happy crowd, in that beautiful place. Sunday afternoons have come and gone in other festivals listening to "In the Land of the Navajo", or Doc Watson calling out Bella, or the Telluride All-stars jaming when bittersweet realization twangs our hearts that the festival is coming to an end. Finally, the inevitable Monday late morning stop at Baked in Telluride and the drive out of a comparatively empty town.

Bridal Veil Falls

It was the middle of summer several years ago while working in Rico that rolling into a relatively quiet Telluride I wandered down to Town Park. Strolling into the area in front of the stage and gazing up at the mountain side, Hartford's banjo picking lofted into the air from that faraway afternoon with the bits of flowers and cotton from the trees that floated by.  Suddenly laughing at the thought of sound that wasn't there, yet sensing the deeply embedded experience both in this place and in our hearts, just as rich as the summer colors. Happily, and with a tear in the eye, I headed for home.

Jon Lovekin's interests: Geological Engineer, Photographer, Telemark Skier, 29er Mountain Biker, Writer, Oh, and FJ40 Landcruiser driver!