Photo by Geoff Mintz
I wake up to commotion and the sound of rushing water. For a moment I don’t know where I am, until I see my friend Sarah laughing in the dawn. I panic: if I was asleep it means I missed my number. Sarah notices I’m awake, takes in my distraught face and laughs, “Don’t worry, it’s on top of your sleeping bag.” I glance down and sure enough there it is, number 67. I fall back asleep knowing that despite the ground, the people around me, the children selling coffee, the early morning joggers and the occasional car, it’ll be the most amount of sleep I’ll get all weekend.
When I awake again it’s eight-thirty and the first thing I do is dip my head in the creek, snow melt from the surrounding mountains. It’s been a year since I was last in Telluride, Colorado and I’m grateful to be back, though a strange jealousy always lingers. I return to Sarah, who’s learning the best way to fold up her tarp, a method called the ‘accordion.’ We’ve slept in line to take part in the tarp run, a Telluride Bluegrass Festival tradition, and ensure that our group of friends has a home base for the full day of music ahead.
It’s day two of the five-day festival, which officially begins at the tarp run on the second day. Friends send representatives with tarps to sleep in line, and come some ungodly early morning hour a Telluride official hands out numbers to those in line. The number determines when you get to run and thus how close to the stage you get to lay your tarp down. Come ten o’clock the mad dash will begin to the sound of bagpipes and raucous applause.
I spent the night before up in Mountain Village, listening to Lake Street Dive and the Steep Canyon Rangers play for free. Both were only names to me and impressive. Lake Street Dive is four peers out of the New England Conservatory of Music, and their lead singer is a bombshell with an incredible voice and the moves and style to match. Their lyrics are smart and their sound undoubtedly fashioned in a conservatory, yet jazz finds a way to meld nicely with doo-wop vibes and, of course, bluegrass.
The Steep Canyon Rangers, who took home the Grammy this year for Bluegrass Album of the Year ( Nobody Knows You), lived up to the hype. They were schedule to play the main stage the second day, once with the core members and then as the night’s main stage closer with Steve Martin and Edie Brickell. That last show was a recent addition due to Mumford & Sons cancelling their summer tour and it had everyone talking (often about how Brickell’s husband, Paul Simon, is around and ripe for a sit-in.)
I spent the night on Telluride’s main drag at the Fly Me to the Moon Saloon, listening to Gypsy Moon play with a handful of friends and Colorado favorites. At some point throughout the night Bridget Law, Bonnie Paine, and Daniel Rodriguez of Elephant Revival, Greensky Bluegrass’ Ander’s Beck, Taarka’s David Tiller, Fruition’s Mimi Naja and Leftover Salmon’s front man (and proud father of two Gypsy Moon members) Vince Herman, were all on stage. By the time Sarah and I stumbled into the tarp line our Telluride was well under way.
When I went to bed it was forty-five degrees and as I’m preparing to run the heat is on the rise and I’m sweating. We sprint when it’s out respective turns and lay down our tarp to the right of the sound booth, close enough to clearly see the musicians watching from the stage.
I comment to Sarah that Bridget Law is wearing the same thing she was in last night. “So are you,” she retorts. With that we head up to Mountain Village to change and eat before Chris Thile gets the show started.
***
A ticket to the Telluride Bluegrass Festival is, for a certain bluegrass fan, akin to a pilgrimage to Mecca. The music isn’t exclusively bluegrass, though there are often a lot of comparisons made to church. This is the festival’s 40th year and it’s come a long way, as has Telluride the town. Edward Abbey—intrepid explorer and writer of the America West—wrote of his discovery of Telluride in 1957 in his impassioned essay Telluride Blues: a Hatchet Job. He was mostly lamenting what he thought Telluride would become, but also celebrating 1970’s Telluride: a frontier town where “to hell you ride” passed for goodbye.
“I recognized [Telluride] at once as something much too good for the general public,” he wrote. “For thirteen years I kept the place a secret from all but my closest picknicking cronies. No use: I should have invested everything I had in Telluride real estate.” Had he invested he would today be sitting on a fortune, for over forty years the price of Telluride real estate has exploded. Edward Abbey was worried about his favorite scenic, small town, where the sheriff was an indiscriminate asshole and everyone liked to get drunk and listen to old-time, American string music. Where Butch Cassidy had robbed the bank in 1889 and stained the town with lawlessness. He liked the idea that there were avalanches or it could hail in June; what he didn’t like was the idea of a new ski resort, 20,000 more people, and a new, wealthier demographic taking root.
It’s hard to imagine Telluride at a point in history when there was no airport and it was even more isolated than it is today. A little over six hours from Denver, Colorado by car, in the southwest portion of the state, the San Miguel River runs though a box canyon far below the San Juan Mountains. The canyon is surrounded by steep crags and dense forests, which despite their beauty run the risk of burning in the summer’s heat. Bridal Veil Falls lies at the head of the canyon, and even on summer nights has been known to freeze.
Telluride, Colorado is located amidst all this, and is extraordinarily beautiful, with a free gondola that connects it to Mountain Village, Colorado, and affords an aerial view for miles.
The Telluride Bluegrass Festival is capped at 10,000 tickets, and recently sold-out in four hours in December. For the most part, Telluride’s permanent population is only about 1500 more than when Abbey was writing—far from the permanent 20,000-person influx he was expecting—though it does swell considerably come the festival or ski season. Roughly two-thirds of the festivalgoers are veterans, mostly Colorado natives, and some, like mandolin virtuoso Sam Bush, have been coming for near all 40 years. Telluride the town boasts of the exclusivity that famous Colorado ski towns, like Vale and Aspen, are known for: a relatively white demographic, the outdoors, fresh powder, incredible views, small town quaintness and five star amenities. Telluride Bluegrass the festival is known for its music.
The first Telluride Bluegrass Festival was held on July 4, 1973 and the only band was Fall Creek. They never quite made it into the annals of great Americana music, but they had started the festival hoping to attract New Grass Revival, the band that made Sam Bush famous. In time they have absolutely become part of the string music canon, and a handful of artists performing this year (Leftover Salmon, and The String Cheese Incident to name two) have been known to cover their songs. In 1974 New Grass Revival was Sam Bush (mandolin), Curtis Burch (guitar), John Cowan (bass), and Courtney Johnson (banjo)—Béla Fleck would join in 1981. New Grass Revival’s manager happened to meet a member of Fall Creek, who was working at a pizza shop in Telluride, and the result was a forty-year tradition.
The New Grass Revival sound is a bluegrass that swings with jazz, rock covers, and even reggae grooves. Traditional bluegrass audiences in the 70’s didn’t get what these hippies were doing, but Telluride, CO did, and Telluride Bluegrass became a second home for the band and the broadening of roots music form the start. New Grass Revival would tell their famous friends and likeminded musicians on the road about the festival, and so it grew, eventually finding a permanent home on the weekend of the summer solstice each year. 2013’s lineup features Feist and Dispatch, whose radio-friendly tunes suit the ‘Telluride bluegrass’ genre, despite where you think they fall on the authenticity scale.
According to Brian Esyter—marketing director for Planet Bluegrass, the small operation that puts on the festival and several others in Colorado—there’s a general misconstruction about the festival steadily getting more and more popular. Attendance has always come in waves throughout its tenure, as the status of bluegrass has traditionally fluctuated in popular culture. Esyter reflected, “We definitely get something like that every ten years or so. It goes in those phases in terms of real, wide stream appeal of these bands on the radio, and mainstream media talking about it.”
Brian and the team at Planet Bluegrass take great care curating the thirty-artist lineup—pacing the order each day, trying to go with the ebbs and flows, figuring out who plays at sunset, “when the light is at a certain place because that really colors the stage.” People will watch every band on the one main stage simply because they trust that they’re all worth seeing, leaving their tarp only to eat, use the bathroom, or maybe cool off in the river.
Bluegrass is a front porch kind of music, and references to a family environment or a small-town community are easily made. The Telluride Bluegrass family, attendees new and old, are known as Festivarians. Even the food vendors return year after year, with some a generation or two deep. For my friend Rhiannon Kauffmann, twenty-one, this was her twenty-first year attending the festival alongside her parents and, for the past seventeen years, her younger siblings.
Béla Fleck—who has fourteen Grammys under his belt and is the world’s most prolific banjo player—has said “I feel like I grew up with the festival. It’s like a big family that welcomed me in.” And he’s not alone among musicians: it was Sam Bush’s 39th Telluride, Tim O’Brien’s 37th and Peter Rowan’s 33rd, to name a few.
Photo by Geoff Mintz
Sam Bush sits in with just about everyone at Telluride. He made his first appearance on Thursday during Greensky Bluegrass’ set, joining them on fiddle for “All Four” after they had just covered New Grass Revival’s “Can’t Stop Now.”
The Steep Canyon Ranger’s fiddle player, Nicki Sanders, is an elegant musician with certain energy and zest that at times sets him apart rest of his band. At some point the banjo player, Graham Sharp, remarked that he never would have gotten into bluegrass were it not for Telluride’s annual festival.
A festival highlight was Emmylou Harris, who took to the stage to showcase her most recent collaboration with Rodney Crowell. Their band’s instrumentation is unique, consisting of three guitars, a pedal steel, a keyboardist who primarily played the accordion, a bass and drums. As the sun set and the hills turned silver with the site of hundreds of aspens in the wind, Harris hypnotized the crowd with Townes Van Zandt’s “Poncho and Lefty,” and her originals “If I Needed You” and “Luxury Liner.”
Steve Martin—who began his comedic career picking songs on the banjo—and Edie Brickell were part of another amazing Steep Canyon Rangers set. It was part comedic relief but truly felt like a whole other band showcasing equally incredible musicianship. Still, hours later as I was falling asleep, it was Harris who haunted my dreams.
***
Telluride Bluegrass takes over the town of Telluride for this one weekend every year, with a workshop stage along Colorado St., the main drag, and with late night shows in all the town’s possible venues, including the public high school. The town is a bourgeois haven for wealth and privilege, but once a year the Bluegrass festival serves as an equalizing force, with some people saving all year to make the trek into Telluride via the one paved road.
Brian, for the most part, acknowledges Telluride’s exclusivity: “It does self-select, especially because of the remoteness.” When it comes to the festival, he was especially adamant that money and egalitarianism was something that got discussed a lot. “We don’t sell any kind of VIP tickets, there’s nothing inside the festival to really make anyone different from anybody else. Money gets you nothing,” he continued, “Craig Ferguson, [the festival’s director], really cares a lot about that.”
When Edward Abbey was writing his rant on a changing Telluride, he reserved particular venom for the new hippie demographic just come to town. Telluride at the time was defined by “its rundown, raunchy, redneck, backwoods backwardness,” filled with cowboys and fueled by alcohol. Then came the hippies, “the trust funders, the freaks, the rootless ones, the middle-class proletariat with their bears and unisex ponytails, all of them, male and female, wearing the same bib overalls, Goodwill workshirts and waffle-stomper boots, all trying to look different in the same way.” These hippies, with their cannabis and “hard-core imitation-Negro music” had some money and new ideas, and they wanted to invest. Some of them went as far as to start a festival.
***
Day two featured Peter Rowan’s Twang and Groove, which as the name suggests, is a chilled out take on his fast-paced classics. Songs that long ago made the bluegrass canon like “In the Pines,” “Land of the Navajo” and “Midnight Moonlight,” took on an eerier, new lease on life. The chemistry between Rowan and Sam Bush, who of course sat in, was amazing to see on these fresh takes.
Crowd favorites the Punch Brothers played a set that momentarily made everyone forget that the String Cheese Incident was slated to play after. They rework classics, play originals, and let front man Chris Thile go crazy with his nerdy stage presence. They are undoubtedly one of the best bands around; if only they managed to get their tours to reach a little father.
On paper the Cheese set looks slightly mediocre, a mix of newer songs (including the set opener “Can’t Wait Another Day,” which Kyle Hollingsworth’s wrote leading up to his daughter’s birth) and less obvious old ones. Still, they played like early String Cheese, a jovial harkening back to before they were the psychedelic late night go to and were known to pick around the ski resorts of Colorado and make even a day time crowd go nuts. It was the best Cheese set I’ve seen in years, with a style that echoed Peter Rowan’s earlier set. “Mouna Bowa” was the climax and the entire show was a highlight. The newer “Struggling Angel” was an abrupt transition, though I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t completely won over in the end. They closed appropriately with a song Billy Nershi penned with his wife Jillian, “Colorado Bluebird Sky.”
The Masters of Bluegrass followed, and having seen them twice the weeks before, I can safely say this was the set to see. Sam Bush said it best as he took the stage with them, “If it wasn’t for these guys, there wouldn’t be any bluegrass music.” The Masters formed picking on Del McCoury’s porch, and they carried that intimacy along with their technical prowess onto the stage. The set included Bobby Osborne telling the story of how he came to stay in the hotel room “Rocky Top” was written in, before launching into the most incredible version of the Tennessee state song he’s famous for. That, along with “Drivin’ Nails in My Coffin,” “Send Me Your Address from Heaven,” and Bobby Hicks’ heart-melting “Take Me As I Am (Or Let Me Go),” will stay with me as musical reference points forever.
The Infamous Stringdusters were played the late night at the Palms and as incredible as that band is, I found myself forgetting my ticket and staying through Dispatch’s set. Who would have thought that the radio friendly “biggest band nobody’s ever heard of” would pull through with a guest banjo maestro (the musical treasure that is Boo Reiners) and memorable sit-ins featuring Bridget Law and Bonnie Pain. They covered parts of “Friend of the Devil” and “Mrs. Robinson” (the closest we got to Paul Simon all weekend) in between their originals for a setlist that really embodied the Telluride sound. It was a surprising check off the bucket list.
Photo by Geoff Mintz
The fact that there’s only one main stage puts a lot of pressure on the musicians—imagine, 10,000 eyes on you. The view behind the audience, all mountains and sky, probably helps. The canyon is a natural bowl, and it feels sacred because of the grandeur of the mountains, the way light and the waterfall enters the valley, and the open field that appears to be at the center of it all. For centuries that particular spot has been revered, starting with the Ute Indians, who used to gather there to party, feast, dance, and mingle. The Deprung Monks made the trek from India this year to instill their own sacred touch: a sand mandala that is built over four days and washed away on the last. When Abbey was criticizing the incoming industry, he was scared that it would change the sanctified nature of the place and that an influx of people could literally destroy it.
Planet Bluegrass is very aware of the strain the festival and 10,000 attendees puts on the environment and—excluding the economic benefits—on the town. The festival’s vision for sustainability has become a model for others and among the most progressive in the country. The real environmental damage at festivals comes from the carbon footprint of thousands of people travelling, and Telluride Bluegrass is truly innovative in that it’s the only festival that purchases carbon offsets to compensate for everyone’s travel to and from. It’s not just an option you can pay extra for—it’s included in the ticket price and based on a statistical analysis of where the tickets are sold.
Vendors are forbidden from utilizing non-reusable bags and are required to use compostable materials, so there’s essentially no trash created by the vendors inside the festival. Abbey wasn’t alone in thinking Telluride was a place that needed to be preserved and it’s not really surprising that the town has inspired one of the most eco-conscious festivals around. Adam Aijala, guitarist for the Yonder Mountain String Band, who have played every year since 2000, told me that Telluride is “really one of the best festivals of all time.” He continued, “It’s just so well run. We know the people at Planet Bluegrass…we love those guys.”
***
Jerry Douglas Band began their set with Edgar Meyer’s “Unfolding.” The Dobro master led his band through “The Rumpus,” “Hide and Seek,” and The Weather Report’s “A Remark You Made,” before having the Punch Brother’s fiddle player Gabe Witcher sing “Amos Moses.” His playing, more so than any other talented musician at the festival, has an organic sound that somehow echoes the environment while simultaneously taking the listener to a new place entirely.
I missed a fair amount of the Yonder Mountain String Band to catch Tim O’Brien play with rising legend Sarah Jarosz on the workshop stage. To hear them play “Walk Beside Me” in and of itself was worth it. After was Canadian luminary Feist, who has such an unusual style of playing guitar. Listening to her was incredibly sensuous, like hearing folk music in a cave.
Sam Bush is the undisputed King of Telluride, and his band is always something to look forward to. He may not be the best singer or technically the best musician, but his heart is in everything he does and his playing has made him both a crowd and musician favorite. He dedicated William Allen Ramsey’s Spider John to Fall Creek, played The Band’s “Rag Mama Rag,” and was joined by the entire audience for “Howlin’ at the Moon.” When he left the stage you could see the glow of the years largest moon, slowly rising behind the mountains.
Jackson Browne joined Telluride stalwarts Leftover Salmon after “High Country,” but I made the executive decision to see Elephant Revival play the late night and catch them the next day at a free show in town. Bonnie Pain singing a capella and playing the saw in an intimate high school auditorium, Bridget Law’s Bonfire Dub band mate Scott Stoughton improvising a Telluride rap, and sit-ins courtesy of Mimi Naja and David Tiller made Elephant Revival’s set one of a kind.
***
Telluride may no longer be rundown and backwards, but if you’re caught drinking in the street you’ll be told to chug your beer rather than throw it out, an unlikely occurrence on any other main street in this country. There are no true cowboys, but there are a lot of cowboy hats and a few boots. The music is part “imitation Negro,” but it’s also a bridge between the most prominent of American music styles, from bluegrass, to folk, to indie, to rock, to jazz, to jam, and back to country.
The hippies are still in Telluride, and though they may have cleaned up slightly since Edward Abbey’s day, they’re drawn to the town not because they’re LSD fiends with money, but rather because of the outdoor recreational activities, the fresh air, and classy events like Telluride Bluegrass.
The hippie of Telluride Bluegrass is the sort that can afford the ticket or a condo for the weekend and, in general, tends to get a shower in every day. There is cannabis and also a large amount of alcohol consumed, just like any other festival, but for the most part drug use isn’t extravagant, and the general mentality is pretty tame—a lot of people would rather get a little sleep at night than risk napping and missing music during the day. Abbey, however, would have been happy camping at the Ilium campground, far removed in the woods and notorious for late night music, partying, and a more carefree attitude.
***
The last day always comes too soon at Telluride Bluegrass. The Deprung Monks began the day with Sacred Music Sacred Dance, letting the audience in on some of their traditional rituals, showcasing their guttural throat singing, and unleashing a symbolic snow lion on the crowd.
Béla Fleck took the stage solo, which is unusual considering he tends to bring guests from many different genres into the Telluride fold. He’s a proud new father however and capable of wowing on his own, especially when he plays his now classics like “Big Country.”
The Infamous Stringdusters followed and upped the energy ante, with Andy Falco leading some of the fastest playing of the weekend. Bassist Travis Book pointed out his mom in the audience and talked about his personal connections to the festival. The surprise Leftover Salmon show that took place at the Floradora Saloon in town after was an intimate treat, filled with heavy drinking and a “it’s the last day, let’s go all out” attitude.
Hot Rize took us back to the classic notion of bluegrass, with their fabulously eccentric garb and engaging stage presence. Hot Rize played a huge roll in giving birth to Colorado bluegrass and their set, which included their alter-egos Red Knuckles & Trailblazers, showed a younger generation just why.
Jackson Browne songs are classics and he was joined for a few by Sara and Sean Watkins, Jerry Douglas and Sam Bush. Among his classics played were “These Days,” “Running on Empty,” and “Take it Easy.” Baking guitarist Val McCallum joined Browne for a surprising set highlight, McCallum’s “Tokyo Girl” off his solo album At the End of the Day.
The Telluride House Band is the band you don’t miss at the festival. They play nowhere else and are composed of Sam Bush, Béla Fleck, Jerry Douglas, Stuart Duncan (fiddle) and Edgar Meyer (bass). They always close the festival out and they never disappoint. Chris Thile joined them, as did Jackson Brown (for Bob Dylan’s “You Ain’t Going Nowhere”), but the show was about their own playing and on-stage chemistry. Each is a musical genius and if you’re lucky enough to ever hear them play together, it just may alter your musical horizons forever.
***
“It’s a celebration of the present, the here and now. That’s the gift of music. When the world gets really weird with things like terrorism lock your dors, etc., music brings us together and makes us realize we’re all in this mess together right here and how. That’s why people keep coming back to Telluride, to get that recharge to carry them through the rest of the year.”
—Vince Herman, Jamgrass:Telluride’s Wild Child
The festival’s theme this year was ‘Thanks’, and in addition to a forest sanctuary honoring dead bluegrass legends, the stage literally spelled it out in big letters. For everyone, from the artists to the attendees, to the organizers to the people who couldn’t make it this year, Telluride Bluegrass is a weekend to be thankful for.
Forty years down the road and Telluride Bluegrass is greener, has established traditions, and continues to choose some of the best contemporary musicians around. Musicians who manage to bridge the gap between old Americana and new-age innovation, between jambands and old-time American roots music, between the radio and the indie underground.
Telluride the town has altered, as real estate prices have risen astronomically and the ski resort has long brought more people to town, but the festival gives those who can’t afford a house or a vacation there a way in. Once a year the place is transformed and a sort of playground, where you can interact with your favorite musicians, enjoy some of the contemporary talent in roots music and take in the awesome local.
Edward Abbey liked to bitch about the free spirits, who enjoyed listening to a group “called the Almond Brothers. Followed by the Ungrateful Dead.” He was scared of the change, the devastation to the environment, the influx of money, the loss of the old border mentality; he “missed Hank Williams.” In the grand scheme of things, I think Telluride Bluegrass would have made him proud.
