[click "Play" to hear Ted talk about puppy training] Telluride Inside and Out is pleased to continue its weekly column about dog training with expert Ted Hoff of Cottonwood Ranch and Kennel in Crawford, Colorado, where we and so many other Telluride families board their...
Roots music goes global when Kasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson perform at the 36th annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival on Saturday, June 20.
Country music by any name – bluegrass, roots, Americana – is as southern as Martha White's self-rising flour, the Confederate Flag and hospitality, the genre derived from the Scots-Irish who settled in the Appalachian Mountains to the Africans who worked plantations in Georgia. But like so many industries, that sound has been outsourced, in this case with great success.
[click to hear Dr. Ptak speak about skin rejuvenation] Obama's stimulus package is meant to address our sagging economy. Telluride's Dr. Jeff Ptak, a board certified plastic surgeon with a private practice in town, has a stimulus package of his own to address your sagging...
Dobro player Jerry Douglas is definitely Telluride's B.M.O.C. this weekend. He is in town celebrating his silver anniversary at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival: 25 years at the 36th annual gathering of the tribe of legendary artists on a first name basis with the crowd: Sam, Bela, Edgar, Bryan, Peter, Emmylou, Tim – and Jerry.
You might say Jerry is the alpha and omega of this year's Telluride Bluegrass: he and Tim (O'Brien for the uninitiated) kick off the fun and games with a special duet set Thursday morning. Jerry joins the group who have come to define the Festival (as above) to close the curtain on Sunday night. In between, he should be everywhere you want to be...
One of the early signs of summer in the Telluride region is the truckloads of fresh fruits, vegetables, flowers, meats, fish, and crafts and more to market every Friday. 
They are an odd couple, the flame haired Irishman and the soft spoken guy from Ohio, but they are also two of the top musicians in the world. When the curtain goes up on the 36th annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival Thursday afternoon, the opening act is dobro titan Jerry Douglas and Grammy-winning multi-instrumentalist/singer/songwriter Tim O'Brien. Who could ask for anything more...
Jerry is celebrating #25. Tim sends a salute:
Tim on Jerry:
"Jerry Douglas is a well traveled, universal bridge between traditional bluegrass and every other kind of music. He seems like my brother who just happened to reinvent the Dobro. The two of us have worked together closely at various times over the years, but our intersections have been infrequent in the past decade, so Thursday's Bluegrass show will be a wonderful reunion. We've each grown some while apart, so it'll be fresh and instructive. I'm hoping the tempos will be a little slower. He's like Sam Bush in that the only way to keep up with him is to start out earlier than him.
Once upon a time, Telluride Bluegrass meant dumpsters belching the remains of the day that had been marinated in one too many beers drunk from one too many plastic cups. Do you recall the debris littering Town Park, including plastic everything, from water bottles to utensils? Do you remember when the Festival changed its tune?
About 10 years ago, Kris Holstrom saw the festival waste as a resource for compost for her organic farm. The now director of The New Community Coalition began gathering food scraps behind the scenes from the vendors.
"Initially, I was taking home maybe two pickup truckloads of food scraps from the event."
The fraternity meeting known as Telluride Bluegrass opens this weekend, June 18 – June 21, and a favorite son returns to town to join his friends.
In 1970, Tellurider Kooster McAllister hooked up with John "Picker" Herndon, Fred Shellman and J. B. Matteotti to form a band. Fall Creek jammed regularly down valley from Telluride. After returning from the second annual Walnut Valley Festival and National Flatpicker Convention in Winfield, Kansas, Fall Creek decided to start its own festival.
If your church on Sunday morning, June 21, 2009, is the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, expect a rousing, spiritual Baptist or roots tent revival in a most unusual package: a tall white guy in dark glasses accompanied by an 11-piece band, Roseland Rhythm Revue (horns, back-up singers, etc). The guy will be singing as if his life depended on it – and it does. Meet Mike Farris.
