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Performing Arts

Rattlin Bones 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.

19 June, 2009 /
[click "Play" button to hear Susan's conversation with Jerry Douglas]

Tn_NEADobro 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...


18 June, 2009 /

TimO,Bela1995 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.

17 June, 2009 /
[click "Play" for Mike Farris interview]
Farris Mike Banner 2 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.

In the 17th century, a poet stirred by the rich polyphony of church music declared that the music showed him the way to heaven's door. Ditto for Mike: the man who once found salvation in a bottle, now finds it through his music. For Mike, playing music is like praying. It shines a light on his soul. It keeps this rocker sober and soulful.

14 June, 2009 /
[click "Play" for Eamon McLoughlin interview]
Pressmini_vert02 According to Telluride Bluegrass Festival regular and Grammy winner Tim O' Brien it's all about recycling: he describes what he does musically as "making something new out of something old."

Tim is not alone. Linking the past, present and future is also what the relatively new band, The Greencards, is all about.

The aptly named Nashville-based trio – a green card identifies the bearer as an alien with permanent resident status in the United States – is comprised of two Australians, Kym Warner (mandolin. etc.) and Carol Young (vocals, bass) and an Englishman, Eamon McLoughlin (fiddle, violin, viola). The primary reason for moving to the States was to find opportunities to play their brand of high energy acoustic music not much in demand at home. Somewhat ironically, the group, which just opened shop in 2003, is already one of the hottest new bands in America, making distinctly American music.

13 June, 2009 /

by Jennie Franks

Tpf_logo_1 SPARKY PRODUCTIONS is pleased to announce the line up for the 3rd Annual TELLURIDE PLAYWRIGHTS FESTIVAL from 6th – 14th July at the historic Sheridan Opera House.

As resident dramaturg for this year’s festival HEATHER HELLINSKY will work with playwrights TODD KREIDLER and JAN BUTTRAM.   Heather has worked extensively with up and coming playwrights from all over the country.   She received her MFA in Dramaturgy from ART/MXAT Institute for the Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard and is a member of Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas.    This past year she was Resident Dramaturg for the Pittsburgh Public Theater where she has just finished working on Rob Zeller’s world premiere play Harry’s Friendly Service.

13 June, 2009 /

[click "Play" to hear Paul Hoffman's interview] Greensky Bluegrass is the world turned upside down. Winning the Telluride Bluegrass Festival band contest three years ago was a world-upside-down moment for...

12 June, 2009 /
[click "Play" to hear WPA interview]

Wpa Flashback: Telluride Bluegrass Festival 2000. Sugar Hill Records had several oldies but goodies in the lineup. John Cowan was appearing with his new group, Lonesome River Band. Also on the scene were Seldom Scene, Jesse Winchester and Sam Bush. With Nickel Creek, the label also featured strong Gen Zeta talent.

Nickel Creek proved that the youth brigade was not all about skin-flashing and razzmatazz.  Two of the musical whiz kids in the new group were a  brother and sister act, Sean Watkins (2/18/77), guitar, mandolin, and vocals, and Sara Watkins (6/8/81), fiddle and vocals. Sean and Sara are back in town 10 years later for their encore at the 36th annual Bluegrass Festival, June 18 – June 21.  (Star fiddler Luke Bulla was also in town that year with Ricky Skaggs, another-wet-behind- the-ears superstar in the making.)

12 June, 2009 /
[click "Play" for Todd Snider interview]

Telluride Bluegrass, June 18-21

Pressphoto2 Telluride favorite, singer-songwriter Todd Snider, is returning to town for an encore after his sold-out show at the historic Sheridan Opera House, where the troubadour charmed the crowd with his barefoot brand of social satire and the way he managed to blow raspberries at our foibles without giving offense.This round, Todd is appearing on the Fred Shellman Stage at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival.

Turns out folk hero Woody Guthrie came from an extremely prosperous upper middle-class family: dad speculated in real estate and mom owned about 30 rental properties. Robert Allen Zimmerman was born in the Midwest in Hibbing, Minneapolis, and also had solid middle class underpinnings. His father Abe, ran a sort of successful electric-appliance shop. All the stories about the young Robert being orphaned, running away from home annually starting at age 10, performing in a carnival were attempts by Bob Dylan to become Dylan.

10 June, 2009 /

[click "Play" button to hear Susan's interview with Bill Frisell]

2009 Telluride Jazz Celebration, June 5-7

Frisell08_hires1 No doubt about it. Telluride Jazz Celebration impresario Paul Machado is really good at his job. His choice of Bill Frisell as the 2009 Guest of Honor was inspired, perfect for a time when the chips are down, when substance trumps style every day.

Soft spoken – literally, I had to ask him to speak up more than once in our interview –  and self-effacing and shy, Frisell is a man you might miss at a party; that is until he straps on his ax. Ax in hand, this "Clark Kent" quickly morphs into a Superman, arguably, quietly, the most brilliant and distinct voice to come down the pike in jazz guitar since Wes Montgomery, not coincidently one of Bill's idols. Ax in hand, the man is on fire. Bill claims performance is his drug of choice. It transforms him, allowing him to do things he would not do in real life. Performance brings out his inner Woody Allen. 

05 June, 2009 /