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Festivals

BelaJD 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.

Bela Fleck is named after the Hungarian composer Bela Bartok, also a passionate ethnomusicologist known for mixing sounds – in Bartok’s case, Hungarian and other folk sounds with the music of his contemporaries – to create distinctive music.

16 June, 2009 /
[click "Play" to hear interview with Steve Szymanski]
CraigSteveJDTBF08-2047 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.

In 1973, Telluride Bluegrass  was born with the idea of turning locals on to the music and musicians on to Telluride. In 1989, Craig Ferguson and Steve Szymanski took over the show, but kept true to the roots.

Thirty-six years and counting, some of the greatest performers in the world continue to thrill growing crowds of Festivarian fans, picking Telluride over hundreds of wannabe events as the place to bring their families for a mini vacation. To them, to us, Telluride is not just another gig.

15 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 /

[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 to hear Beth Roberts interview] by Eileen BurnsCelebrate Telluride's colorful and storied past this Saturday and Sunday as the Telluride Historical Museum, Telluride Visitors Services and the Sheridan Arts Foundation sponsor the first ever, Telluride Heritage Festival.  This...

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 /

The weather in Telluride has not exactly favored this weekend's festivals. Telluride Jazz Celebration has had rain, lightning, wind. Those elements have caused program changes for the Telluride Balloon Festival as well. But people seemed to be enjoying the Jazz over the weekend, and some...

07 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 /