Something magical happens when a pick, bow or bar hits a string in this box canyon. It resonates far and wide in the lightness of the air, lifted ever higher by the adventurous spirit of the Festivarian community. From every state and many countries, we the people have gathered here to celebrate the 44th Annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival, surrounded by the San Juan mountains, immersed in friendships and the finest music, seeking better days for ourselves and our world. On this summer solstice weekend, we heartily congratulate Hot Rize on their 40th Anniversary as a band and 20th year on the Telluride stage. We fondly remember their founding member Charles Sawtelle, as well as Leon Russell, Ralph Stanley, Sharon Jones, and so many others who once joined us in Telluride, but have passed-on since our last summer solstice. Toast them all with the world premiere of Fat Tire Belgian White from our friends at New Belgium. Enjoy our new premium wines, pouring from revolutionary reusable, handmade gravity-fed YOONITs. And learn about our new APP in this festival program and in Greentown— and turn Sustainable Festivation into Active Present Participation. As Festivarians we’re all deeply connected, so let no one be a stranger. You can always find a spot on an empty tarp or chair in the festival grounds and make friends when the owners return. Drink lots of free
Festival Director: Craig Ferguson Assistant Festival Director: Steve Szymanski Festival & Box Office Manager: Shauna Nashak Festival Grounds Supervisor: Rich Estes Operations Crew: Ross Caswell, Sean Flynn, James Hinker, Tony King, Riley Miller, Kelten Tschanz, & Zach Tucker Sustainable Festivation Supervisors: Kris Holstrom, Walter Wright, & Marina McCoy Festival Waste Crew: Andy Berger & Andrew Kolberg Chief of Security: John Cohn Security Supervisors: Frank Hensen & Joe Piche Crowd Management: Damion Alexander, Sam Alexander, Josh Blakeman, Jake Cohn, Rick Flores, Jonathan Greenspan, Rachael Hensen, Cinimin Kofford, Abe Millar, Degrey Phillips, Consuelo Reyes, Arthur Sowinski, & Kevin White Customs Gate Supervisors: Franny Cohn, Debby Guarino, Ruth Hensen, Carol Lee, & Erin Thompson TP Camp Gate Supervisors: Marilyn Branch & Larry Stewart
Pedestrian Bridge Supervisors: Calvin Poon & Blake Balkman Backstage Security Supervisor: Tara Doran Pit Master: Hunt Worth Overnight Security: Shawn Williams, Gary Broughall, & Ben Rich Camping Supervisor: Denise Mongan Town Park Campground Hosts: Tim & Laura Thomas Warner Field Campground Hosts: Carol, Randy & Aaron Reece Lawson Hill Campground Hosts: Jack Bonker, Michelle Foote, Adriana Galue, Kathleen Morgan, & Fawnda Rogers Mary E Campground Hosts: James Addoms, Laina Baltic, Aaron Cooklin, Amy Hardy, & William Alex Wissing Valley E-Team Supervisor: Steve Green Parking Supervisor: Dennis Green Vehicle Gate Supervisors: Ed Janus, Matt Kroll, Kristin Milord, & Mary Alice Wagner Backstage Hospitality/Artist Supervisor: Julie Rakotz Aijala Backstage Hospitality: Hanna Ferguson, Kurt Guissler, Ella Knapp, & Rick Morris Backstage Catering Supervisor: Markus Chesla
Artist Transportation Supervisors: Ed Kean & Jeremy Matsen Box Office Supervisors: Laura Larson, Jasmine Lok, Geoff Wickersham, Nicole Bookman, Nichole Elmore, & Bill Carlson Media Relations: Brian Eyster Sponsor Relations & Social Media: Alannah Rudd Concessions Supervisors: Jill Brzezicki, Bethel Steele, & James Thomas Communications Supervisors: Luci Reeve, Sandy McLaughlin, & Jim Bedford Country Store Supervisors: Patrick O’Kelly & Dustin Boyd Artist Consignment Supervisor: Kara O’Kelly Family Tent Supervisor: Patricia Sunfield Sponsor Tent/Greentown Supervisors: Wendy McFarland & Suzanne Teele Contest Supervisor: Charlie Bailey Elks Park Workshop Supervisors: Edee Gail & BJ Suter Elks Park Workshop Sound: Dean Rolley, Sean Mahoney, & Wyatt Lindstrom
locally-filtered water from your favorite reusable container. Slather on the sunscreen. Sing and dance. Take action for the planet. Cheer on your favorite bands and Troubadours. And have the time of your life. On behalf of our hundreds of staff and volunteers, we’re so glad you’re here.
Love , The Folks on Planet Bluegrass
Elks Park Workshop Transportation: Tom & Nancy Richards Stage Design: Kahlie Pinello Park Beautification: Claudia Kean Libation Station Supervisors: Pam Bennett, Scott Kelley, Ashley Story, & Dan Zemke NightGrass Supervisor: Daniel Mullan 2017 Poster Artist: Bruce White Master of Ceremonies: Chris Daniels
Stage Crew
Stage Manager: Skip Kent FOH Engineer: Tom Holmes Monitor Engineer: Mike Bove Backstage Manager: John Setser FOH/Stage: Garth Michael Lighting Director: Dave Hall Lights: Jim Hurst Audio: Mark Miceli Patch/Stage: Mark Dennis Monitors/Stage: Brent Healy Stage Lead: Steve Anderson Stage: Nick Allard, Mark Altomare, Justin Milner, & Rhett Snyder Labor/Spots: Tim Territo Spots: Tom Wirth Sound: Firehouse Productions Lights: ILIOS Lighting Design Backline: Harry Backline, LLC
Program Staff
Editors: Brian Eyster & Steve Szymanski Design & Layout: Pat Creyts Contributing Writers: Charlotte Bell, Brian Eyster, Steve Leftridge, Alannah Rudd, Dan Sadowsky, & Steve Szymanski Advertising: Dustin Boyd Photography: Benko Photographics Printing: Matt Coburn at OneTouchPoint Cover Image: Bruce White
Thanks to our Festival Partners
New Belgium Brewing, Renewable Choice Energy, Eco-Products, Klean Kanteen, Keen Footwear, Kelty, Telluride Alpine Lodging, Shanti Guitars, Gibson Musical Instruments, Martin Guitars, D’Addario Strings, Craft 710, Meier Skis, Protect Our Winters, Leave No Trace Center For Outdoor Ethics, Sunsense Solar, EcoAction Partners, Red Bird, Allegro Coffee, Guayakí Yerba Mate, Eldorado Natural Spring Water, and Mountainfilm
Planet Bluegrass Year-Round Staff
President & Gentleman Farmer: Craig Ferguson Senior Vice-President: Steve Szymanski Vice-President of Operations: Shauna Nashak Vice-President of Communications: Brian Eyster Director of Awesome: Laura Larson Merchandise, Ticketing & Festivarian Relations: Dustin Boyd Ticketing & Festivarian Relations: Geoff Wickersham Volunteer Coordinator: Nicole Bookman Special Projects: Alannah Rudd Festivarian Relations: Jelena Caplan Ranch Crew: Sean Flynn, Aaron Kilian,Tony King, & Zach Tucker
Planet Bluegrass Would Like to Thank
The Town of Telluride with a special thanks to Stephanie Jaquet, the US Forest Service, the Town of Mountain Village, San Miguel County, Telluride Mountain Village Owners Association, Lawson Hill Property Owners and the Telluride School District
44th Annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival
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martinguitar.com
000-17 black smoke
00-17 whiskey sunset
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2017 Festival
This year’s poster artwork provided an inspiring challenge to incorporate the Festival’s new stage along with elements that typify the character of the weekend. Wilson Peak felt like the perfect backdrop to represent the majesty of the mountainous surroundings, while the mandolin, featured prominently in the foreground, added a bold, yet warm and personal contrast to the vastness of Telluride’s valley. The colors of the Indian Paintbrush, and the spurs and hat all tie in nicely as each one reflects Colorado’s western legacy. I hope you enjoy this watercolor celebration of bluegrass music and of the town that embraces it - Telluride!
—Bruce White
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44 th Annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival
For years, Festivarians have wondered when we would build a smartphone app for our single-stage festival. After years of intensive development in our mountain-top laboratory, we’re proud to introduce our version of the Festival APP...
A CTIVE: DO as well as BE...do be do be do! P RESE NT: Be here now! P ARTICIPATION: We’re all in this together!
Don’t get us wrong: we’re not anti-technology. Far from it! We love a Facebook “like” as much as the next Festival. But we’d like to invite you to trade your daily news feeds for impeccable music, conscious conversation, a campground pick, morning yoga, a daily hike, and many more inspiring activities to fully participate in THE FESTIVAL! So this year, we ask you to consider simple actions as part of your Festival experience. If you’re a seasoned Festivarian, you’re well-familiar with our Sustainable Festivation practices. This year, we’re shifting the focus from the things that we do, to the things that you can do: actions right here at the Festival. Just like a ripple in still waters, taking action begins with each of us and flows outward. While you’re here, consider creating ripples. Start small, but think big! What can you do each day: for yourself, for the local community, for the place we call home? Below are just a few examples of ways to actively participate at the Festival. All these actions come with good vibes and great karma, but some even include the opportunity to win prizes from our festival partners. Feel free to get creative, come up with your own, and share them on the back of the pocket schedule!
“The best app I found for Telluride Bluegrass is a sorta equilateral triangle of sunscreen, water bottle, and hat. Your eyes and ears will magically take care of everything from there.” —Tim O’Brien
Sustainable Festivation: A PP Edition Personal
National
Local
Global
• • • • •
• • • • •
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Drink plenty of water. Take a hike or do morning yoga. Visit KEEN for more info. Apply sunscreen throughout the day—you’re high up! Share an open tarp with a stranger and become friends. Take 5 minutes of quiet, alone time. Close your eyes and breathe deeply.
Sign The New Normal pledge to significantly reduce Telluride’s carbon footprint. Clean up microtrash in the park. Participate in the Campsite Challenge at the Leave No Trace booth. Drink local libations and tip generously to support Telluride non-profits. Support local green certified businesses—visit EcoAction Partners at the Sustainable Festivation Booth.
44 th Annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival
• • • • •
Call your representative by visiting the Protect Our Winters booth. Hug someone from another state. Conserve water: take short showers and avoid peak times. Catch the “We the People” Sunday morning set with Abigail Washburn & Friends. Use your Klean Kanteen reusables throughout the festival.
• Sample free Guayaki Yerba Mate to help preserve our rainforests. • Turn out lights and adjust thermostat in your hotel room to conserve energy. • Carpool home from the Festival. • Charge your phone with solar energy at Sunsense Solar in Greentown. • Take a bite out of your carbon footprint—eat vegetarian for one day of the Festival!
The pristine San Miguel River and jagged San Juan peaks are as important to Telluride Bluegrass as Jerry’s dobro and Sam’s mandolin. So 15 years ago we formed a GreenTeam to begin to understand the impacts of our festival on this stunning landscape. We began that first year by adding a compost program. Each year since we’ve expanded our efforts to embrace renewable energy, carbon offsets, free locallyfiltered water, leave no trace camping, and more. Together, we’ve learned about the art of Sustainable Festivation. As we gather in Telluride’s box canyon this season, we feel more inspired than ever to turn this knowledge into action. This year’s Eco-Puzzle highlights these action items – APP Style (Active Present Participation). The answers are available around the Festival: on our posters, from our partners in Greentown, and in articles inside this program. Complete the puzzle on the back of the pocket schedule then deposit it at the Sustainable Festivation Booth. We’ll choose someone who’ll win a deluxe camping package from Kelty—on the main stage at 5:00pm on Sunday. You need not be present to win.
Eco-Puzzle Questions ACROSS: 4. Planet Bluegrass is a Certified ___, meaning that we meet the highest standards of overall social and environmental performances, transparency, and accountability.
5. New Belgium Brewing diverts an astounding 99.9% of their ___.
DOWN: 1. Taking short showers and avoiding peak morning shower times will help ___ water while in Telluride. 2. Telluride’s New Normal Goal is to become a Carbon ___ town.
3. Maté producer Guayaki’s mission is to steward and restore 200,000 acres of South American Atlantic ___.
7. Incorporate Mountainfilm’s New Normal into your Festivation this year and take five easy steps to help move us towards carbon neutrality: Educate, Reduce, Offset, Advocate, ___!
6. To reduce carbon emissions and the impact on Mountain Village residents, we encourage Festivarians to ___.
10. Visit the Protect Our Winters and Kelty phone booth and ask your ___ to take action on climate change.
7. Enter the Campsite Challenge! Leave No Trace will be giving away prizes for campsites that excel in cleanliness, sustainability and ___.
11. Be the first couple Festivarians to collect a bag of ___ and win sandals at the KEEN booth.
8. Meier makes their skis from local sustainable materials: Colorado High Alpine Aspen and ___ Pine trees.
13. Sign up for a morning ___ with KEEN.
9. Always have your ___ handy to reduce Festival waste.
14. Our next Sustainable Festivation effort in Telluride will focus on introducing reusable ___ - we’re building a trailer this summer to wash them on-site!
12. TBF purchases offsets to ___ our collective carbon footprint.
15. For each day of the festival, Planet Bluegrass donates all gratuities from the ___ booth to a different charitable organization.
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44 th Annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival
Eco-Puzzle Grand Prize
Outback 4 tent, Mesh Low-Love chair, large folding cooler, and $500 in Kelty cash
Composting is
OUR JAM
Proud supporter of sustainable festivation in Telluride and everywhere else. ecoproducts.com
Thanks to your thirst for New Belgium Beer—along with our new selection of cocktails— we have donated more than $360,000 to local organizations over the past 4 years including: Telluride Volunteer Fire Department, Telluride EMT Association, Telluride Adaptive Sports Program, KOTO, Telluride Community Television, One to One Mentoring, Angel Baskets, San Miguel Resource Center, Telluride Mountain Club, San Miguel Bike Alliance, Leave No Trace, Telluride Academy, Telluride Rotary Club, and contributions of nearly $55,000 to the Town of Telluride to assist with construction of the new stage. Again this year, the tips you leave for our beer booth volunteers support a different non-profit each day:
Thursday KOTO
Friday Telluride Rotary Club
Saturday Telluride AIDS Foundation
Sunday San Miguel Resource Center
Raise your reusable cup high! Thanks for supporting the Telluride community.
In addition to our selection of Colorado-brewed New Belgium beers, we’re pleased to offer several unique and delicious Colorado-inspired cocktails and eco-friendly wines.
Bloody Mary’s Margaritas Gin & Tonics Moscow Mules Rum Mules Coyote Gold Natural Margaritas were invented by a pair of engineers from Fort Collins with a passion for perfectly balanced margaritas. What began as a “kitchen brew,” has been available since 2008 as an authentic, all natural product that is free of preservatives, artificial flavors & colors, and gluten. Our Bloody Mary’s, Gin & Tonics, and Moscow Mules feature hand-crafted vodka and gin from Spirit Hound Distillers. This craft distillery in Lyons uses custom-built distillation equipment to capture all of the purity and flavor of their locally-sourced Colorado ingredients, such as freshly picked juniper berries. Tonic water and ginger-lime shrub are provided by Lost Identity, a boutique crafter of old world beverages in Vail. (For those still pursuing a mixology degree: Shrubs are an intriguing blend of fruit, sugar, and vinegar invented during the Colonial Era to preserve fruit long after harvest.) This year’s premium wine selection of Sauvignon Blanc and Merlot is provided by YOONIT Wines, an eco-friendly way to serve high quality wines at the Festival. With recyclable packaging and gravity fed dispensers, this local Colorado company has removed the need for glass bottles, kegs and electricity for storage.
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Our friends at New Belgium Brewing have once again brought us lots of sampling opportunities for your bluegrass weekend in the sun, including the world-premiere of Fat Tire Belgian White. Enjoy!
Fat Tire Belgian Ale
Named in honor of our co-founder’s bike trip through Europe, Fat Tire Belgian Ale is now considered an iconic centerpiece of the craft beer movement, representing the American spirit of craft brewing ingenuity and an irresistible imagination. English floral hops, subtle malt sweetness and spicy, fruity notes from Belgian yeast make for a balanced yet magical combination. (5.2% ABV)
Fat Tire Belgian White
For the first time in 25 years, we’re adding a new beer to the Fat Tire family: Fat Tire Belgian White. Taking inspiration from our decades of experience brewing Belgian beers, Fat Tire Belgian White is made with Seville oranges and Indian coriander, both freshly ground less than a mile from our Fort Collins brewery. It’s a fresh, perfectly sweet, natural tasting Belgian White. (5.2% ABV)
Voodoo Ranger IPA
Bursting with tropical aromas and juicy fruit flavors from Mosaic and Amarillo hops, this golden IPA is perfectly bitter with a refreshing, sublime finish. Brewed with pale and dark caramel malts that harmonize the hop flavor from start to finish, Ranger is a sessionable splendor for all you hopinistas. (7% ABV)
Juicy Watermelon
Brewed with juicy watermelon and zesty lime peel, this crushable ale rips with a blast of melon notes. Ripened fruit aromas of melon, papaya and citrus set up an invigorating wash of fruity sweetness, grassy bitterness and the slightest touch of tartness. Super crisp and refreshing from start to finish, Juicy Watermelon Lime Ale shreds through the summer heat. (5% ABV)
Citradelic Tangerine
Citradelic’s namesake hop and fruit combine to jam with visions of citrusy Mandarina Bavaria, tropical Azzaca, and fruity Galaxy for a colorful explosion that’s grounded by just a touch of malty sweetness. Set adrift on a kaleidoscopic wave of hoppiness, each sip is elevated onto a plane of pure tropical, fruity pleasure. (6% ABV)
NEW BELGIUM BREWING
®
IS PROUD TO SPONSOR THE TELLURIDE BLUEGRASS FESTIVAL IN ITS 44TH YEAR!
FESTIVAL I JUNE 15TH -18TH I
VISIT THE FAT TIRE TENTS IN GREENTOWN FOR SPECIAL APPEARANCES BY PERFORMING ARTISTS AT THE FAT TIRE SET BREAK SESSIONS
NIGHTGRASS TICKET GIVEAWAYS DAILY FIND OUT HOW YOU CAN WIN A NEW BELGIUM BICYCLE ON THE MAIN STAGE!
NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Must be 21+. © 2017 NEW BELGIUM BREWING COMPANY, Fort Collins, CO 80524 New Belgium® and the bicycle logo are trademarks of New Belgium Brewing Co. ENJOY NEW BELGIUM RESPONSIBLY.
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A Message
12 44 th Annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival
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U n i t y
by Charlotte Bell
What do Mavis Staples, the Drepung Monks, Native American flutist Howard Bad Hand, gospel greats The Mighty Clouds of Joy, spoken-word artist Shane Koyczan, and Johann Sebastian Bach all have in common? Answer: Telluride Festivarians have enjoyed their artistry in the Sunday morning Gospel Set. (To be clear, while miracles do happen on the Telluride stage, Bach didn’t actually make a personal appearance. Instead, Edgar Meyer and friends performed a set of his music.) This, of course, is just a very small sampling of the wildly diverse musical sounds that have ushered in the festival’s final day each year in its 44-year history.
“The power of the deeper truth—the divine truth of music—doesn’ t need to be talked about. It needs to be sung, played and heard. It’s always been available, but it needs to happen now more than ever.” —Abigail Washburn
Sunday morning’s Gospel Set, like the larger festival it’s been a part of since 1981, has a tradition of being non-traditional. For its first eight years, the Gospel Set was a loose configuration of whatever artists were willing and able to make it to the stage on Sunday morning after three days of mainstage and late-night jamming. It was informal, spontaneous, and sometimes, magical. When the festival changed hands in 1989, festival director Craig Ferguson began experimenting with new ways of easing into the festival’s final day. Sensitive to the complexities of warming up Festivarians after three days of high-altitude weather, wall-to-wall music and late-night reverie, and to the mainstage artists’ desire to rest following the after-hours jams, Planet Bluegrass began a tradition of inviting an artist from a different spiritual tradition and/or culture each year. The aim of the Gospel Set has always been to invoke a spirit of unity among Festivarians and artists. “The Gospel Set is something we’ve always done with attention to not being traditional, but to being inclusive of all types of music, from the [Drepung] monks to Native American music,” says Craig. “The Gospel Set is something we care a lot about and we want it to be special. This year, all of us in the office thought it should focus on a message more than a different style of music.” This year’s Gospel Set, titled “We the People,” may be the ultimate expression of Planet Bluegrass’s intention to foster a feeling of unity and inclusiveness. Disheartened by the divisive rhetoric November’s presidential election has injected into our national dialog, Craig and the Planet Bluegrass team came up with the idea of a Gospel Set that in itself, would bring together artists from many different traditions and cultures. In the week after the Women’s March in DC, the Planet Bluegrass staff gathered for their weekly music discussion. “Occasionally these meetings digress into chats about current affairs,” says vice-president Steve Szymanski. “It started with one of those discussions: how bewildered we were all feeling post-election and the tremendous unity felt after the Women’s March. I feel like this helped inspire us to think about how to be more action-oriented at the festival. It’s a new direction for Planet Bluegrass: taking a stand for what we believe and encouraging others to do the same.” Craig feels it’s important for Planet Bluegrass to add something positive to the conversation. “We felt that the national dialog needed a message of love and inclusion,” he says. “The term ‘We the People’ was the initial spark. We wanted to do something that includes everybody, from around the country, around the world. We’re into a positive message and talking about it. This very quickly led to, ‘I wonder what Abigail Washburn would do with this idea.’ Once we thought of her, it took us about 30 seconds to agree that she would be perfect.” “Abby deeply appreciates the role of music in bringing together different cultures,” says Planet Bluegrass’s Brian Eyster. “And to a large degree, this is how and why she makes music.”
44th Annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival
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When Craig reached out to Abby, her response was immediate: “That would be awesome. Let’s do it!” “Craig said that the set should be representative of our hopes,” she says. “I started curating the idea from there. Right away I started thinking about my musical collaborators all around the world and how they could bring their unique musical visions together. “Voices from around the world can put things in perspective. We’re not an isolated America. We’re global citizens now. There’s no getting around it.” The set will combine some of Telluride’s regulars with Abby’s international friends. Abby envisions not so much a big band playing on stage all together for the entire set, but smaller combinations of different musicians at different times. Here are a few of the special guests Abby has confirmed so far: Raghu Dixit is an Indian singer-songwriter, producer, film score composer and singer-songwriter for the Raghu Dixit Project, a multilingual folk music band. Abby met him when both were invited to perform for the Queen of England. The two stayed in touch, and when he traveled to Nashville, they got together one evening for a jam that included, among others, Sam Bush and Edgar Meyer. “He’s tremendously uplifting,” says Abby. “I can’t wait to hear his voice echoing out into the canyon.” Wu Fei is one of Abby’s best friends from her years living in China. A longtime collaborator with Abby, Wu Fei performs on the guzheng, a 21-string Chinese zither that first came into prominence 2,000 years ago. “We love weaving together American and Chinese sounds,” says Abby. “We feel that bringing together East and West through music speaks to the brotherhood and sisterhood of man around the world.” Abby and Wu Fei are currently making a record with Abby’s spouse and musical collaborator, Béla Fleck.
“ We felt that the national dialog needed a message of love and inclusion. The term ‘ We the People’ was the initial spark. We wanted to do something that includes everybody, from around the country, around the world.”
Iyeoka Okoawo is a Nigerian-American singer-songwriter and spoken-word poet hailing from Boston, MA. A recording artist, TED fellow and winner of the National Poetry Slam, Iyeoka will bring the perspective of a new immigrant to America. “She is just a beautiful singer, one of the most uplifting people I’ve ever been around,” says Abby. She and Abby plan to write some songs together just for the set. For Planet Bluegrass—and for the rest of us—We the People will be something entirely new. Steve says that part of the magic, for him, is that none of them really know what’s going to happen. “We don’t really know what she has planned, but we completely trust her sensibility and her enthusiasm for this set.” “This promises to be one of those unforgettable only-in-Telluride sets,” says Brian. “It won’t be touring around the country. We’ll be witnessing an inspiring new creation happening right on the Shellman stage.” Abby is excited to share these unique musical voices with the Telluride community. “I feel so connected with these musicians, but I haven’t had an occasion to work together with all of them until now,” she says. “Craig has given me the first opportunity to forge a musical bond with them. True connections will be made. “I feel that in each of these musicians’ playing they’re channeling the divine. I feel like we’re in a time when people are looking for truth. It’s so confusing—what’s true, what’s not. The power of the deeper truth—the divine truth of music—doesn’t need to be talked about. It needs to be sung, played and heard. It’s always been available, but it needs to happen now more than ever.”
Charlotte Bell is a yoga and meditation teacher, oboist and Festivarian of 35 years living in Salt Lake City. She has published two books: Mindful Yoga, Mindful Life and Yoga for Meditators, with Shambhala Publications. Her third book, Yoga for Healthy Hips, is scheduled to be published in 2018.
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Here on Planet Bluegrass, we’re always asking ourselves: how do we improve the Festival while lessening the impacts on this beautiful box canyon? This ambition goes back to 2002 when New Belgium Brewing lent their expertise (and their Sustainability Goddess Hillary Mizia) to help us understand the myriad ways the Festival affects the environment. Over the past 15+ years, compost, recycling, reusables, and free filtered water have become common practices at our festivals. As we continue to make strides in decreasing our footprint, we’re also working to understand what is succeeding by quantifying these improvements. Unfortunately, our waste metrics in Telluride are still fairly primitive and labor-intensive. Our sustainable festivation supervisors work with our hauler to audit waste as it leaves the festival grounds, recording visual estimates of the waste (in cubic yards). These handwritten forms are then entered into spreadsheets and tallied by day and container. While this process involves a margin of human error, we remain consistent and vigilant about our data collection. (By contrast, at our Lyons festivals we receive certified weight tickets for each trip to the Front Range disposal companies.) We’re pleased (if not absolutely confident) to report that we excelled in diverting and reducing the festival waste stream in 2016. With your help, we reduced the overall waste, which included all 5 campgrounds (nearly 4,000 campers) and the festival grounds, by an impressive 15%. And your composting and recycling efforts allowed us to divert a recordsetting 66% of that waste from the landfill! Nice work, Festivarians!
“Planet Bluegrass has long been ahead of the zero-waste curve.” — Boulder Daily Camera In recent years, campers have played a huge role in improving these diversion numbers. In the Town Park campground, where diversion numbers were once a dismal 20%, you Town Park-ers now compost and recycle nearly 50% of your waste! Still, there’s room for improvement. Campers tend to make or break waste diversion numbers through camping practices, while food vendors create significant waste with their compostable dishware. So last summer, we launched Colorado’s first reusable plate program at our Lyons festivals. Reusable dishware seems like a simple idea, but it took a variance from the state (Colorado law prohibits reusable dinnerware at special events), and help from like-minded festivals in Oregon and Canada as well as both Telluride and Boulder County’s Health Departments. To implement this plan, we purchased 4,000 sturdy bamboo plates and bowls, which we provided to vendors for their food service. Then we collected this dishware from Festivarians at waste stations, transported them (by electric golf cart!) to a nearby coffee shop’s commercial kitchen where we washed them after-hours; and returned them to the festival grounds
16 44 th Annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival
where they could be reused the next day. Though we invested $15,000 in the plates, Festivarians and vendors incurred no additional costs. For a first try, the results were encouraging. Gina Bare, Boulder County Public Health food safety team lead wrote: “The reusable dishware model adopted by Planet Bluegrass for their Lyons events is progressive and revolutionary in the realm of temporary events.” Last winter we received a grant from Boulder County’s Zero Waste funding program to improve the program by building a dishwashing trailer. By parking this new trailer right behind our vendors, we’ll have a faster turnaround of washed dishes and vastly simpler processes. And it opens the door to the possibility of reusable plates in Telluride. Now that the state health department has approved our plate program, we are excited to see other events of all sizes do the same. As New Belgium began as a mentor for us, we look forward to sharing our Sustainable Festivation experience with others.
With nearly 4,000 Festivarian campers sharing this gorgeous mountain environment, it is vitally important for each of us to be mindful of our camping footprint. In collaboration with the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics and Eco-Products (supplier of free compostable bags for your campground compost), we will again be rewarding campsites that excel in creative, sustainable camping.
How Do I Participate?
We encourage camps in any of the Planet Bluegrass-managed campgrounds to enter. To nominate your campsite or one of your neighbors:
1 Submit a 1-page entry form at the Leave No Trace booth in Greentown, explaining how the campsite exhibits cleanliness, sustainability, and creativity. 2 Stop by the Leave No Trace booth each day to view all the campsite
entries and vote for your favorites.
How Do I Win?
We will be judging campsites using three criteria:
Cleanliness Are you repackaging the food you bring? Are you keeping a tidy campsite? Are items secure and protected from the wind? Sustainability Are you separating recycling and compost? Are you reusing products? Are you using alternative energy sources? Did you bike or carpool to the festival? Did you reduce your home’s energy while attending the festival?
Creativity Does your campsite have a theme? Did you decorate your campsite? Are you utilizing unique and innovative camping techniques? Are you upcycling any items from home?
What Do I Win?
Each day we select 2 winners— one random, one staff choice— for prize packages that include: New Belgium beer, Kelty gear, Klean Kanteen reusables, Keen sandals, and Forty Years of Festivation books. After the pack-out on Monday we will select grand prize winners to receive a pair of 4-day passes and camping for the 2018 Festival.
Congratulations to 2016 winners Solar Solstice, who celebrated their honeymoon in their low-impact solarpowered Mary E campsite!
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Milestones like this can’t go undocumented. So we sent ace reporter, me, Pastor Mustard, into the field to bring back the real story—the story behind the story. What he (I) uncovered might shock you, causing some weird Bluegrass-related PTSD/aneurism/paroxysm thing that The Telluride Bluegrass Company cannot be liable for, according to legal representation. The prehotrizian era, as it’s known to anthropologists, saw the credentials of Hot Rize’s future old boys burnished in diverse worlds that sometimes overlapped. Tim O’Brien was a contest-winning fiddle hot-shot and had written a couple good songs. I know because me and my big guitar accompanied Tim in some a them fiddle fights. Charles Sawtelle carried a business card with just his name and the word, “expert.” In both the sound-reinforcement world and around vintage instruments, that explains a lot. Mike Scap played any instrument he picked up, not just well, but spooky good. He once told me he learned Flamenco guitar in a dream. Pete Wernick literally wrote the book on Bluegrass banjo, and Nick Forster was a super-nice man with ungodly beautiful daughters.
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Bands know when it’s going to be good and not just a jam. Dr. Banjo (AKA Pete Wernick), said such was the case way back yonder in 1978. “[The project that became Hot Rize] was intended to be experimental, with the phase-shifter banjo and all. But to get jobs, we needed to call it a Bluegrass band,” said Wernick. “We kept busy with lots of low-paying gigs that Charles always taped. Those cassettes and the creative impulse we felt in rehearsals showed us we were onto something pretty special.” I asked Pete if there was a moment when they knew Hot Rize was not just a good band, but also an important band—important to The Bluegrass, to American acoustical folky music. “J. D. Crowe walked up to me at some festival and addressed me by name,” said Wernick,
“and though we’d met very briefly before, I was floored that he actually would single me out of a background of thousands of banjo players.” And not much later, in a magazine interview, Earl Scruggs himself slapped an official blessing on Hot Rize. “They’re good,” said Earl. Chet Atkins said the same thing loud enough for someone to hear. Ladies and gentlemen, if Chet said you were good, you were. But, back to the beginning. Mike Scap left after a few months and an exhaustive search turned up Nick Forster, who got onto the Fender electric bass and Charles took over guitar duties. Hot Rize personnel was thenceforth set until 1990, when they (mostly) congenially disbanded. They reunited with some regularity until leukemia took our beloved Charles Sawtelle to heaven in 1999. Damn. What was the beginning like? It was a slog. Do you watch detective dramas? Police procedurals? I do. You get your perp with old-fashioned legwork, right? That’s how four Boulder guys became Hot Rize before the interwebs, before YouTube, before Instagram, before cell phones. “We’d have to pull off the interstate and find a phone booth to book gigs and motels,” said Pete. Hot Rize didn’t have an agent for years. Not until Keith Case, whose roster included John Hartford, the Dirt Band, and the Seldom Scene, took them on. “That’s when we started playing more festivals with those big names,” said Dr. Banjo, PhD. Think about that, all y’all young pickers putting your band together in this here new-fangled twenty-first century. No “fanbase,” no, “followers,” no viral videos with a bankable threshold of “hits”—just a lot of unreturned phone calls and begging. But when even the great Bill Monroe said, “They’re good,” that solid endorsement from Hot Rize’s heroes, and the powerful, quirky, driven, talents aboard the Hot Rize bus kept the band driving onward. So, how did Bryan Sutton get Charles’ D-28 seat? I forgot to ask, but when you see him up there on stage, it makes perfect sense. Bryan has the same coloration, is roughly the same height, and can fit into several of Charles’ old ties. “I don’t try to sound like Charles,” Bryan explains between sets at Dollywood, “but I know his parts by heart—my parents were big Hot Rize fans. Of course, I play Charles’ licks when they define the song, like Nelly Kane, but mostly I try to support the guys musically the way Charles did, with a similar feel. It’s a very great honor to be part of the Hot Rize sound.” Similar, my butt. Sutton’s mindblowing flattop chops allow him A-list, go-to, first-call studio status with whoever needs him in Nashville. And Bryan flows up to the mic like Charles did, leans over
“ Those
cassettes and the creative impulse we felt in rehearsals showed us we were onto something pretty special” to harmonize at the same angle Charles did, and surrounds Hot Rize with the big Martin D-28 thrum that made Sawtelle a legend. “Just the D-28 and a mic,” he says when I ask if he plugs in. “It’s still okay to unplug sometimes.” A bumper-sticker-worthy phrase. When I watch Nick and Tim sing, they sound like a brother act, in the time-honored tradition of country brother acts—the Louvins, the Blue Sky Boys, The Delmores. I find it uncanny. All the Hot Rize boys are acutely aware of The Tradition—Country Music, Bluegrass, Western, Cowboy, Hillbilly, Celtic, Old-Timey, Honky-Tonk. They make it look easy, don’t they? But that’s because: A) they pick a lot, and; B) they know exactly what Hot Rize stands for in the long, deep flow of American music. They stand for authenticity and creative clarity that will be remembered dearly and forever. Tim’s timeless compositions are songs of a collective consciousness—the folk music of a far-flung future. And Hot Rize doesn’t do humor, unless you count Nick Forster’s dry, acerbic, emcee quips. Hot Rize is all business, son. The funny they leave for their break band, Red Knuckles and the Trailblazers. No one’s happier than Hot Rize to see those yokels tuck themselves back into the luggage compartment on the bus where they sleep standing up. After a restful green room break involving espresso, vitamin B-12, and massage while the Trailblazers make fools of themselves, Hot Rize is relieved of the extra burden of pretending they enjoy goofy, slapstick country humor—nonetheless, also a grand country music tradition. Hot Rize played the Telluride Bluegrass Festival when they were only a few months old. They lost count of the exact number—something around twenty? We leave that to professional fact-checkers—but it’s been a lot. Enough so that the boundaries they pushed in the Bluegrass realm impressed a host of young pickers who grew up watching Hot Rize. Drew Emmitt of Leftover Salmon admits it was encountering O’Brien at Telluride and around Boulder that put him on his path to JamGrass overlordship. I had the good fortune to land in Nashville on a day Hot Rize was mixing a new CD. I made myself small as I let them listen over countless takes and mixes—many hours on one tune, or just the instrumental portion. Squinting, I could see them as they were in the ’80s, huddled around Charles’ cassettes as they barreled down the highway in the old diesel Greyhound with Frank Edmonson grinning at the wheel. They weren’t seeking perfection, but a feel—a little loose, the right amount of drive, the song itself ascendant. It’s a big part of what’s endeared us to Hot Rize, lo, these many years, the concentration and care they pour into each moment of the show. And the hits, of course—Colleen Malone, Nelly Kane, Ninetynine Years, Franks’ Blues, Just Like You—too many to name. And the feeling that they’re just a bit complicated, but family, like a daft uncle. They play inside baseball, considering Pete’s pioneering leadership of the IBMA and their encyclopedic Bluegrass know-how, but they play it a little loose and cool and fun. I can’t get enough of Hot Rize. I’ve never missed a show. Here’s to the next forty years, boys—drink up. Mighty fine and a great big howdy.
Pastor Mustard (aka Dan Sadowsky) was the Telluride Bluegrass Festival MC for 31 years. He wrote the year-by-year essays for the hardcover collector’s edition book Telluride Bluegrass Festival: 40 Years of Festivation, available at the Country Store.
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Allegro2017.pdf
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Family Tent The Family Tent provides whimsical, musical, and educational activities for children and their parents from noon-5pm on Thursday and 10am-5pm Friday thru Sunday. Most activities are free, but we ask that parents please accompany their kids at all times.
Living Folklore
Since 1998, Living Folklore has made stories come to life for children of all ages at Telluride Bluegrass through interactive performances with live characters, puppet shows, and giant processions. Every part of this fantasy realm is filled with creative and educational themes that allow children to inhabit the imaginary dimension of their dreams. This year’s Wizard of Oz-inspired theme, “We’re Not in Kansas Anymore,” features new characters such as a pink elephant, tornado, cowardly lion, and tin man. Come play with us and experience the magic of The Family Tent! Learn more at www.gigglebubble.com
Kids Talent Show
The ever-popular talent show returns Saturday afternoon for the 21st year.
21st Annual Kids Parade
Carry a flag, umbrella, or one of the giant puppets as Gumbo Wobbly leads this beloved Telluride tradition through the festival grounds on Sunday afternoon at 3:15pm.
Jugglers’ Grove
Lauri Watson welcomes new and experienced jugglers for lessons and free juggling balls each day.
Betty Hoops
Decorate and create your own kid- and adult-sized hula hoops. Then join the Hoop Dance coach and 5-time world record holder, Betty Hoops, for free lessons on Friday and Saturday. Learn more at www.bettyhoops.com
20 44 th Annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival
Collings MF5 Deluxe Varnish #1191 In Telluride, visit Telluride Music Company. Located in the historic business district at 333 W. Colorado Ave, (970) 728-9592
Serious Mandolins | www.collingsguitars.com
Every June, songwriters and bands from around the world trek to Telluride for the prestigious Troubadour and Band contests. Offering beautiful instruments, cash prizes, and international recognition, these contests showcase the next generation of Telluride Bluegrass artists. Join us in welcoming these talented performers on Thursday and Friday at Elks Park, then celebrate with the finalists Saturday on the Main Stage.
Troubadour Contest
2017 Troubadour Finalists
For the 27th year, the Troubadour Contest introduces ten inspiring young songwriters to Festivarian Nation in Telluride. One of these artists will join past winners like Catie Curtis, Deb Talan, Gregory Alan Isakov, Caitlin Canty, and Anna Tivel as the 2017 Telluride Troubadour.
Troubadours will perform in a randomly selected order.
Clint Alphin
Heather Mae
Hassan El-Tayyab
Cari Minor
Chase Gassaway
Lauren Pratt
Leah Grams Johnson
Liz Ryder
Heather Aubrey Lloyd
Shannon Wurst
Nashville, Tennessee
Chicago, Illinois
Austin, Texas
Nashville, Tennessee
Baltimore, Maryland
Washington, DC
Singer-songwriters not currently signed to a major recording or publishing deal submitted songs beginning last December. In April, our panel of industry professionals selected these 10 finalists from hundreds of submissions. During two rounds of Elks Park performances, Troubadours will be judged on the quality of their songs’ composition, vocal delivery, and overall performance.
Rollinsville, Colorado
Boston, Massachusetts
On Saturday evening the winning Troubadour will receive a handmade Shanti dreadnought guitar featuring Cocobolo Rosewood back and sides, European Silver Spruce top, and abalone rosette and top trim. Cheer on your favorite Troubadours throughout the festival as they perform songwriter-in-the-round sets at Elks Park, ‘tweener songs on the Main Stage, and live in-studio on KOTO.
2017 Troubadour Schedule
Sacramento, California
Preliminary Round Thursday, June 15 12:15pm Elks Park Stage
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Final Round Friday, June 16 2:45pm Elks Park Stage
Winning Troubadour Performance Saturday, June 17 5:45pm Main Stage
Contest winner announced Friday, June 16 at 4:45pm on the Elks Park Stage.
Band Contest
One of the foremost contests for acoustic stringbands, the Telluride Band Contest has helped launch the careers of Dixie Chicks, Greensky Bluegrass, The Lil’ Smokies, and dozens of other past winners. This year’s bands will be competing around a single microphone for a spot on the 2018 main stage lineup, sets of D’Addario strings, and an EP recording package from eTown Hall Studio and Airshow Boulder.
2017 Contest Bands
Bands will perform in a randomly selected order
Arkansauce
Grass Fed Mule Oakhurst St. Louis, MO
Denver, CO
Caitlin Jemma & the Goodness
The Lonesome Days
Serene Green
Daniel Patrick & The Sky Blue Sky
Meadow Mountain
Sugar & the Mint
Gold Top County Ramblers
The Mighty Pines
The Wooks
Fayetteville, AR
Eugene, OR
Mt. Pleasant, SC
Sperryville, VA
Denver, CO
Denver, CO
St. Louis, MO
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Bethlehem, PA
Prescott, AZ Lexington, KY
Bands Score in These Categories • 30% Material Selection
taste, difficulty, authenticity, & originality
• 30% Instrumental Performance
ability of soloists & overall blend
• 30% Vocal Performance
lead & harmony
• 10% Stage Presence
Band Competition Schedule Preliminary Round Friday, June 16 10:00am Elks Park Stage Final Round Saturday, June 17 10:00am Main Stage
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Thursday
June 15th 10:00am Gates Open
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Friday
June 16th 9:00am Gates Open
Saturday
June 17th 9:00am Gates Open
11:00 - Noon Chris Thile
10:00 - 11:00am Jeremy Kittel Band
10:00 - 11:00am Band Contest Finals
12:15 - 1:15pm Freddy & Francine
11:15 - 12:30pm The Cleverlys
11:15 - 12:15pm Fireball Mail
1:30 - 2:45pm Tim O’Brien Band
1:00 - 2:15pm Lindsay Lou & The Flatbellys
12:30 - 1:45pm Rayland Baxter
3:15 - 4:30pm Fruition 5:00 - 6:30pm Dierks Bentley with The Travelin’ McCourys 7:00 - 8:30pm Brandi Carlile 9:00 - 11:00pm Telluride House Band featuring Sam, Béla, Jerry, Edgar, Bryan & Stuart
2:45 - 4:00pm Peter Rowan Dharma Blues featuring Jack Casady
4:30 - 6:00pm The Jerry Douglas Band 6:30 - 8:00pm Punch Brothers 8:30 - 10:00pm Norah Jones 10:30 - Midnight Greensky Bluegrass
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2:15 - 3:30pm Sarah Jarosz 4:00 - 5:30pm Yonder Mountain String Band 5:45 - 6:00pm Telluride Troubadour 6:15 - 7:30pm Margo Price 8:00 - 10:00pm Sam Bush Band 10:30 - Midnight Dispatch
Sunday
June 18th 10:00am Gates Open
10:45 - 12:15pm We the People featuring Abigail Washburn & Friends 12:30 - 1:45pm The East Pointers 2:00 - 3:15pm Parker Millsap 3:45 - 5:00pm Béla Fleck & Chris Thile 5:30 - 6:45pm Hot Rize 7:15 - 8:30pm Elephant Revival 9:00 - 10:30pm Jason Mraz & His Superband
*Workshop schedule subject to change. Please check for daily updates on sign boards.
Thursday June 15 th
Friday June 16th
12:15 Troubadour Contest: Preliminary Round
Noon Pete & Joan Wernick: Basic Bluegrass Jamming
11:00 Jeremy Kittel Band: Bows, Picks & Hammers
2:00 Peter Rowan, Michael Witcher & Tsuki Chan: My Aloha! 3:15 Anna Tivel: 2016 Troubadour Encore 4:30 Punch Brothers: Happy Hour
10:00 Band Contest: Preliminary Round
Bring your instrument
Saturday June 17th
10:30
Michael Hornick, Bobby Wintringham & Friends: Instrument Building
1:30 Sam Bush, Pastor Mustard, Kooster McAllister: TBF’s Neverland Beginnings
Noon Troubadours: Clint Alphin, Heather Aubrey Lloyd, Lauren Pratt, Shannon Wurst
2:45 Troubadour Contest: Final Round
1:30 Fruition: Singers in the Round
3:45 Yonder Mountain String Band: Love. Ain’t Love
3:00 Troubadours: Hassan El-Tayyab, Cari Minor, Liz Ryder
4:45 Troubadour Contest: Winners Announced
4:30 The East Pointers: PEI Kitchen Party
Sunday June 18th
11:30 Troubadours: Chase Gassaway, Leah Grams Johnson, Heather Mae 1:00
Raghu Dixit, Abigail Washburn, Wu Fei & Iyeoka Okoawo: Let Your Soul Shine Through:
Music from India, Appalachia, China & Nigeria
3:30 Allie Kral, Lindsay Lou, Mimi Naja: Siren Songs
5:00 Fireball Mail: Bending the Rails
Most activities at the family tent are free.
We ask that parents please accompany their kids at all times.
Thursday June 15 th Friday June 16th Noon- Jugglers’ Grove, 5:00 Arts & Crafts
10:00 Jugglers’ Grove, Hoop Making, Arts & Crafts
Saturday June 17th Sunday June 18th 10:00 Jugglers’ Grove, Hoop Making, Arts & Crafts
10:00 Jugglers’ Grove, Arts & Crafts
Noon Funny Bone Logic & Clown Yoga
Noon Puppet Show with Dennis the Red
Noon Clown Yoga with Gumbo Wobbly & Friends
1:00 Storytelling with Gala the Flower Faerie
1:00 Story & Play: The Elk in the Attic
2:00 Kids Yoga with Patty Sunfield
2:00 Drama Class & Talent Show Sign-ups
1:00 Puppets, Clowns & Music to Introduce 2017 Parade Theme
3:00 A Teddy Bear’s Picnic: Songs for the Whole Family Bring your teddy bear and
2:30 21st Annual Telluride Kids Talent Show
cuddle-up for some great music!
2:30 Parade Preparations
Until parade begins
3:15 21st Annual Kids Parade Through festival grounds
during set-break
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Thursday, June 15th
Chris Thile
Freddy & Francine
Tim O’Brien Band Fruition 1:30 - 2:45pm
3:15 - 4:30pm
“Merry Christmas, Festivarians!” That’s how Chris Thile greeted the crowd last year as he opened the Festival. It’s long been claimed that Telluride Bluegrass is its own genre, but it took Chris to assign official holiday status to the Fest. Makes sense: TBF comes but once a year, brings tidings of wonder and joy, and is steeped in heartwarming, festive traditions. Chris is the jolly, magical being who comes around each year, bearing musical gifts and surprises for Festivarians from ages one to 92. He has brought joy to the TBF world since he was 12 years old—in Nickel Creek and Punch Brothers, in duets with Béla Fleck and Edgar Meyer, and alone on stage in the prestigious Festopening slot, which he’s occupied for four of the last five years. Last year, Chris delivered his typical spellbinding virtuosity: a Bach partita, a Radiohead cover, an original song about his baby boy, a Paul Simon nugget, a bluegrass ripper, a mandolin ditty about playing the mandolin, and on. Throughout, he made spirits bright, laughing all the way. In October, Chris took over as the new host of A Prairie Home Companion, lending his wondrous intelligence, humor, and musicality to that franchise. But Chris will be home in Telluride for what he calls Christmas. It’s the most wonderful Thile of the year. Chris time’s a-comin’. Be there with bells on.
Harmony. We could use a little more of it these days. And the box canyon is the ideal place for voices and hearts to come together. In fact, men and women braiding their voices in musical duets have long made for some of Telluride’s most powerful aural sacraments, including recent TBF performances by Dave Rawlings and Gillian Welch, Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell, Robert Plant and Patty Griffin, and young songbirds in love like Johnnyswim and Mandolin Orange. To that tender tradition, we add the soaring soul-roots duo of Lee Ferris and Bianca Caruso, who, in 2008, first collaborated under the moniker Freddy and Francine. By fusing their voices above Ferris’s percussive guitar, the pair became sensations on the L.A. scene and released a pair of acclaimed albums before separating in 2010. After several years apart—Ferris starred as Carl Perkins on stage in Million Dollar Quartet; Caruso recorded a solo album—the pair have recently experienced a romantic and musical resumption. Our ears are rejoicing. Last year’s Gung Ho is the best showcase yet for the couple’s mellifluously blended vocal lines, often sounding like a single resonant voice gliding over the group’s pristine Americana folk-soul. Two born-to-belt-it vocalists. A pile of gorgeous tunes. Opening day of the Festival. That’s a recipe for harmony in the valley.
Born and raised in Wheeling, West Virginia, in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, Tim O’Brien soaked up the bluegrass, folk, and country music at the foundation of the American musical heritage. And for nearly 50 years, Tim has kept these art forms alive as our most distinguished steward of the music. Tim has spelunked deep into American music’s ancestral Celtic and folk traditions and has emerged a legend: from the seminal Hot Rize to his Grammy-winning solo and collaborative albums to his instrumental mastery of all things stringed to his oft-covered songwriting to his edifying, entertaining performances. In addition, Tim has traced the music’s evolution forward through rustic reimaginings of everyone from Woody Guthrie to James Brown, including full-album tributes to Bob Dylan and Roger Miller, all with Tim’s trademark authority and flair. Throughout, Tim has embodied the spirit and musical integrity of Telluride Bluegrass as one of our most beloved figures, and 2017 marks Tim’s 41st TBF appearance. And in the spirit of historical reflection, Tim has gone full-circle with the new Where the River Meets the Road, songs of his native West Virginia. From the Appalachians to the San Juans: Thursday will bring a special openingday celebration with Tim O’Brien, an artist as timeless and authentic as the mountains themselves.
The US highway system spans over 200,000 miles, and Fruition, the magnetic quintet currently lighting up the jamgrass scene, have traveled nearly every one of them on the journey that has led them to their Telluride Bluegrass mainstage debut. Fruition’s trip started in Portland, where the group first connected in 2008 over acoustic picking sessions. As the road took them coast to coast, the band absorbed the nation’s bluegrass, soul, country, blues, and folk strains. Fruition fused it all into their own post-grass composite, a dynamic, heart-baring roots rock that triangulates Jay Cobb Anderson’s blazed-out guitar, Mimi Naja’s speed-buggy mandolin, and Kellen Asebroek’s swamp-fox keys. Along with bassist Jeff Leonard and drummer Tyler Thompson, Fruition feature three lead singers whose voices meld beautifully together. And while the band can turn up the guitars with supercharged instrumental range and spark-a-fatty jambition, Fruition remain distinctly tune-driven: 2016’s Labor of Love is filled with sugar-shot melodies and mile-high multipart harmonies that suggest an even split between Red Rocks and Big Pink. The long road to Telluride for artists and Festivarians alike can be years in the making, full of many twists and challenges along the way. On Thursday afternoon, all of those roads and dreams come to Fruition.
11:00 - Noon
12:15 - 1:15pm
28 44 th Annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival
Thursday, June 15th
Dierks Bentley with The Travelin’ McCourys 5:00 - 6:30pm
Come a little closer, Festivarians, as TBF ‘17 makes way for one of music’s biggest names: platinum-selling, arena-filling country superstar Dierks Bentley. How big? Since his 2001 debut, Bentley has landed 15 #1 singles, 13 Grammy nominations, and last year’s ACM award for Vocal Event of the Year. Dierks’s last seven studio albums (including last year’s Black, his highest-charting album to date) have all reached Billboard’s Top Ten across all genres. However, while Dierks is the smash-hit country soundtrack of choice for today’s tailgates, bonfires, and pontoon boats, Bentley’s original passion was the sound of mandolins, banjos, and fiddles. Less bro, more dobro. Indeed, Dierks is the rare contemporary Nashville megastar to cut a full bluegrass record, 2010’s Up on the Ridge, backed by all-stars like Punch Brothers and the Travelin’ McCourys. Ronnie McCoury (mandolin), Rob McCoury (banjo), Jason Carter (fiddle), Alan Bartram (bass), and Cody Kilby (guitar) are the Travelin’ McCourys, a band that combines traditional and progressive mastery like none other. This is Del’s band in relaxed-fit mode, untucked and untamed, supplying peerless trad-style fleet precision but with the jam-ready chops to unleash wild textural electricity, whether they’re playing with Keller Williams, the Allman Brothers, or Phish. On Thursday, Bentley takes a break from his current headlining world tour to get back to bluegrass with the McCourys. It’s a bucket-list gig for Dierks and an exclusive picking party for the rest of us, a one-time-only meeting in the mountains.
Brandi Carlile 7:00 - 8:30pm
The last time Brandi Carlile played TBF, she performed with such intensity that she cut her hand from over-vigorous guitar strumming. After her set, the crew mopped up Brandi’s blood, sweat, and tears from the stage. She later described it as one of the most passionate shows of her life. That’s quite a claim for an artist who has been leaving it all on the stage for years. Since her ‘05 debut, she has been folk-rock’s most consistently powerful voice, and her fist-pumpable songs and heart-engorged performances have won over a legion of Bran-atics. Alongside twin-titan wingmen Phil and Tim Hanseroth, Brandi has induced a steady supply of chills on stage and in the studio, most recently with 2015’s Grammynominated The Firewatcher’s Daughter. 2017 brings a reminder of Brandi’s eminence as a songwriter: Cover Stories, a 10th anniversary tribute to Brandi’s The Story, featuring covers by Adele, Pearl Jam, Dolly Parton, the Avett Brothers, and more. The album’s proceeds will benefit War Child, an organization that assists children in war-torn areas of the world. In his foreword for Cover Stories, Barack Obama wrote, “As an artist, Brandi Carlile is using her talent on behalf of the most vulnerable among us, children living in areas of conflict. She reminds us that, together, we can build for our children a more just, peaceful world.” Brandi’s story is filled with passion, beauty, activism, joy, and love: “So many stories of where I’ve been/And how I got to where I am.” On Thursday evening, Brandi Carlile adds another chapter to her story...and to yours.
Telluride House Band
featuring Sam, Béla, Jerry, Edgar, Bryan & Stuart
9:00 - 11:00pm The earth formed 4.6 billion years ago. The geologic core of what would become North America developed 1.5 billion years ago. The Pangea supercontinent broke apart 200 million years ago, isolating our continent. Massive tectonic plates shifted 80 million years ago, creating the San Juan Mountains. The village of Telluride was founded 140 years ago after a gold mining camp was set up in the mountains above town. Around 250 years ago, British and Irish settlers arrived in Appalachia, bringing their musical traditions with them. By the 1930s, the music had spread, led by Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys, which gave the genre its name. The core bluegrass instruments became the mandolin, banjo, dobro, upright bass, guitar, and fiddle. Then, in the mid-20th century, six geniuses were born: Sam Bush in Kentucky; Béla Fleck in New York; Jerry Douglas in Ohio; Edgar Meyer in Tennessee; Bryan Sutton in North Carolina; Stuart Duncan in Virginia. Each would become the greatest bluegrass virtuoso in the history of his instrument. Incredibly, they would all eventually play together on the same stage. 43 years ago, the Telluride Bluegrass Festival was born. And sometime over the last few decades, Festivarian, you were born, too. In 2017, you made your way to Telluride. And on Thursday night of the Festival, the Telluride House Band will hit the stage, an event that takes place only one time a year in only one place. It’s opening night in Telluride. The House Band is ready. You are here. History is about to be made.
“If heaven is on earth, there is proof at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival .” —Daniel Rodriguez, Elephant Revival 30 44 th Annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival
Friday, June 16th
Jeremy Kittel Band The Cleverlys 10:00 - 11:00am
11:15 - 12:30pm
By Friday morning, you’ve already had an intracardiac injection of action—a FirstGrass frolic and a delirious opening day of mainstage delights. And yet the party’s just getting started. But for now, after a quad-straining, tarp-toting morning scamper, you can just take ‘er easy, Restivarian, and bask in the euphonious sounds of the remarkable Jeremy Kittel Band. Blisteringly talented violinist Jeremy Kittel accumulates awards like Telluride Tom downs rumballs. Kittel has won the U.S. Scottish Fiddle Championship, the Mark O’Connor Award of Merit, and oodles more. He’s a veteran of the Grammy-winning Turtle Island String Quartet, the fiddlin’ phenom behind four celebrated solo albums, and a collaborator whom the likes of Yo-Yo Ma, My Morning Jacket, and Béla Fleck keep on speed-dial. Kittel now leads a sensational band that specializes in a Telluridian amalgam of styles: jazz improvisations, Celtic fiddle firestorms, rootsy rambles, and chambergrass trigonometry. The band features interlocking pizzicato specialists Nathaniel Smith (cello) and Quinn Bachand (guitar), plus Simon Chrisman (supplying you with 110% of your daily recommended hammered dulcimer), and mandolin hotshot Joshua Pinkham, sure to be the talk of the gondola. Don’t miss a Friday morning of enchanting beauty as a quintet of rising stars shines on the Shellman.
Raised deep in the Ozark Mountains, the Cleverly family acquired their country learnin’ from picking cotton, raising hell, and bailing hay. And, apparently, by listening to Lady Gaga. Yes, the Cleverlys are equally versed in Bill Monroe and Beyoncé, making them the only bluegrass group on the planet to cover the Seldom Scene, AC/DC, and the Black Eyes Peas in the same set. The Cleverlys are singer/guitarist Digger, who, after a stint as Jethro Tull’s flute tech, founded Stabbin’ Cabin records and signed himself to a multi-album deal. Vernon Dean “VD” Cleverly is a pioneer of the banjo talk box. Munk Cleverly (his name was Mark until he accidentally bit off his tongue) is the Midwest’s premiere rapgrass mandolinist. Ricky Lloyd (the first “L” is silent) Cleverly plays the doghouse bass and is huge in the Amish rave scene. These four make up the Cleverly Trio, whose rise to bluegrass eminence has taken them from Arkansas to Branson to Nashville to universal superfame by way of their boundary-abolishing covers of pop, rock, and hip-hop hits, along with their original fan favorites like “Cash Crop” (the title cut of their new EP) and the foot-lovers anthem “Podophiliac.” It’s all Cleverly delivered, as they’ll have you both saluting their quite-serious musical chops and making you laugh until you spray pale ale out of your nose.
32 44 th Annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival
Lindsay Lou & The Flatbellys 1:00 - 2:15pm
Peter Rowan Dharma Blues featuring Jack Casady
2:45 - 4:00pm With the fair, spirited vocalist Lindsay When Peter Rowan was one of Bill Lou standing in front of the hairy Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys in the dudes in the Flatbellys, it’s like looking at Goldilocks and the Three Beards. ‘60s, Monroe told Peter, “If you can And with this quartet of Michiganders, play bluegrass music, you can play you can in fact expect a porridge- any type of music.” Later, Pete said, hot set on Friday, full of musical “I took him at his word.” Indeed, Rowan went on to form adventure, whimsical creativity, and the psychedelic Earth Opera; record plenty of surprise twists. the best-selling bluegrass LP of all Few bands on today’s acoustic time, Old and in the Way; and release scene can match Lindsay Lou & over two-dozen solo records that the Flatbellys’ range of stringband incorporated rock, reggae, folk, Texambition as a group that dances among newgrass balladry, turn- Mex, and, now, on the delightful new My Aloha!, Hawaiian music. As a result, of-the-century Dixieland jazz, dizzy it’s been 60 years of amazing twang jump-blues gusts, skittery funk jams, time-shifting Spanish- and 37 TBF midnight moonlights during which Peter has formed a language clambakes, and old-timey sacred circle uniting and inspiring frail-and-foot-it jamborees. Joshua Rilko, Mark Lavengood, generations of fans and musicians. This year, Peter is joined by another and PJ George swap instruments like legend. Jack Casady, co-founder of good utopians, and with Lindsay’s Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna, is the rippled torch-and-twang vocals, the groundbreaking bassist known for the ‘Bellys have been exciting audiences signature tone and prominent bass lines at festivals like Stagecoach and that helped define ‘60s psychedelic rock, Merlefest across the country. 2012’s as heard on classics like “Somebody Release Your Shrouds showcased to Love” and “White Rabbit.” their unique homebrewed polyglot The high lonesome sound meets blend of sounds, and last year’s the San Francisco Sound. The only stellar Ionia captures the band’s artist to be bandmates with both Bill weekend-at-yoga-camp serenity Monroe and Jerry Garcia joins forces alongside progressive explorations with the only bassist to play all three powdered with antique sparkle. of history’s most culture-shaking What’s that? Someone’s been sitting festivals: Woodstock, Monterey Pop, on your tarp? Well, why not make a and Altamont. And now Telluride. You new Friendivarian? With Lindsay and better find somebody to love, and the boys on stage, it will feel just join two all-timers for a first-class right. (And somebody get these poor flight on the Free Mexican Airplane. Flatbellys some killer flank steaks.)
adventure music New Release!
Maeve Gilchrist & Viktor Krauss “Vignette” MAEVE GILCHRIST Harp, Keyboard VIKTOR KRAUSS Bass, Guitar, Keyboard, Cello
Re-issued Windham Hill Classics:
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Darol Anger & Mike Marshall “Chiaroscuro”
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Friday, June 16th
Jerry Douglas Band Punch Brothers 4:30 - 6:00pm
6:30 - 8:00pm
In 1928, the Dobro Manufacturing Company started building resonator guitars and, soon after, “dobro” became a generic term for any such instrument. 50 years later, the word dobro is now synonymous with its greatest virtuoso: the incomparable Jerry Douglas. Let’s look at the numbers: 14 solo albums, seven albums as a member of Alison Krauss’s Union Station, 14 Grammys, and over 2000 recorded guest appearances. Jerry has also received the IBMA’s Dobro Player of the Year Award ten times, been awarded the NEA’s National Heritage Fellowship, and was named Artist in Residence for the Country Music Hall of Fame. As the leader of the Grammywinning Earls of Leicester, Jerry recently paid flawless homage to tradgrass glory, but he is also a constantly in-Flux trailblazer, unleashing hydra-headed dobro attacks, bareknuckle R&B, sacred-steel rock, and lashing-treble jazz. In fact, he’s the first dobroist to command his own horn section, part of the expanded Jerry Douglas Band, as heard on the thrilling new album, What Is. Jerry’s dobro is the sound of liberation—musical, aural, physical liberation. Jerry liberated the dobro the way Jimi Hendrix liberated the electric guitar and the way John Coltrane liberated the saxophone. And look around you, dear friend: Liberation is what Friday afternoon in Telluride is all about.
Do you hear those cowbells? That’s coming from the folks back there pouring pints for thirsty Festibeerians. However, since the weather in Telluride can be changeable and harsh, you might need something a bit stronger— an antifogmatic!—to brace yourself for tougher weather conditions. Antifogmatic is the title of the Punch Bros’ 2010 album, one of four brilliant LPs of extremesports musicianship that have revolutionized acoustic music. By repurposing string-band instruments into gorgeous sophisti-grass and astonishing picking tsunamis, the PBs form an intoxicating concoction beyond compare. Chris Thile is the fine wine— complex, bright, with endlessly flavorful notes. Banjo hero Noam Pikelny plays like whiskey—biting, grassy, fast. Gabe Witcher is the champagne of fiddlers—brilliant and fragrant, crisp and sparkling. Guitarist Chris Eldridge? Brandy, with his warm, sweet, sharp playing. Paul Kowert’s bass is the rum: rich, supple, with plenty of depth. Together, they form the premium instrumental blend in music today. And Telluride is their most-expansive showcase of the year, from their rousing Elks Park happy hours to their legendary Sunday all-nighters to their electrifying mainstage appearances. So a toast to one of the strongest mixes in history. And what do we call this musical cocktail? We call it punch, brother. Cheers.
34 44 th Annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival
Norah Jones
Greensky Bluegrass
Come away with us...in the night. It’s magical in Telluride as the sun descends over town and the stars take over—both overhead and on stage. And Friday night, a star will appear who has been atop our wishlist for years: the extraordinary Norah Jones. Audiences everywhere fell in love with Norah with Come Away with Me, the 2012 album that established Norah’s mix of smoky piano jazz, alluring pop-standard chanteuserie, country-tinged balladry, and timelessly gorgeous original material. One of history’s best-selling debuts, the album won eight Grammys (the most ever awarded to an album by a female artist) and would go on to sell a colossal 27 million copies. Over the next 15 years, Norah continued to cross genre lines, appealing to pop lovers (2012’s electroniclaced Little Broken Hearts), twang enthusiasts (a pair of Top Ten classic-country records with her side project the Little Willies), and jazz disciples (the stunning new Day Breaks, a return to the elegant brushstrokes of her debut). All along, Norah has earned the affection of tweens, your grandparents, and everyone in between as one of modern music’s most celebrated figures. “Come away with me...and we’ll kiss...on a mountaintop”: Expect swelling hearts and soaring spirits as the great Norah Jones takes over Telluride for one night of mystical, mesmerizing beauty.
Greensky Bluegrass, five kooks from Kalamazoo, where the weed grows tall and the beards grow long, have been lighting up stages for years with their soulful, snapping brand of rock-and-roll bluegrass. Since 2000, Greensky have been tour-van lifers, playing upwards of 200 gigs a year and throwing boogie-‘til-you-barf parties everywhere they go. With their trademark rhythmic propulsion and gravity-defying improvisation, Greensky can jam until your tarp is in tatters. At the same time, the quintet has earned a reputation for the tightly-arranged songcraft of their excellent studio albums, such as last year’s Shouted, Written Down & Quoted, which contains everything from traditional sizzlers to soul-searching folk to ecstatic grassadelica. While Greensky’s jam-circuit ascendency has made them festival favorites across the country, they’ve built an especially tight relationship with Telluride, going from campground warriors to winning the 2006 Band Contest, which earned them their first of now eight TBF appearances. Last year, though, marked their first late-night set, all triptastic lights, surprise covers (Bowie, Prince), and reverb-dunked dobro. Scientists as far away as Silverton reported increased levels of good vibes. So once again, Greensky Bluegrass owns the night. Your role: carpe the hell out of the diem.
8:30 - 10:00pm
10:30 - Midnight
Saturday, June 17th
Fireball Mail
Rayland Baxter
Deep question: If a cairn falls along Bear Creek Trail and no one is there to Instagram it, did it actually happen? In Telluride, that answer is yes, as Festivarians tend to be mindfully in the moment, preferring the natural world over any digital one. Yes, Telluride Bluegrass is a refreshing break from Snapping, texting, taking calls, and checking mail. But if you do check out any Mail this weekend, let it be these four fellers from Nashville. Fireball Mail are a quartet of seasoned, sorghum-sweet pickers and the winners of last year’s Telluride Band Contest, adding their names to the list of illustrious past champs that includes the Dixie Chicks, Greensky Bluegrass, Ryan Shupe & the Rubberband, and many others who have earned mainstage credentials by winning the competition. As their name suggests, this band puts out plenty of heat, by way of Brad Bulla, winner of the Western Open Flatpicking Guitar Championship; multi-instrumentalist Phil Easterbrook, former banjoist in the Claire Lynch Band; mandolinist Caleb Edwards, who studied under Bobby Osborne; and generouslybearded bassist Joe Brown, who has played with Trey Hensley. On Saturday morning, the Mail will deliver songs from their stellar debut album, last year’s Bending the Rails. So rise and shine, Festivarians. It’s going to be a hot one.
Sarah Jarosz is in many ways the Raised outside of Nashville, Rayland ideal TBF artist. First, there’s her Baxter grew up to the sound of his stylistic reach: Her latest album, father, noted session musician the mega-gorgeous Undercurrent, Bucky Baxter, playing the pedal steel guitar. Young Rayland, however, won a Grammy for Best Folk Album, bagged another for Best American didn’t feel a musician’s calling as Roots Performance (for the song much as, well, a jock’s itch: He played lacrosse for Loyola University. “House of Mercy”), climbed to #1 on But after a career-ending injury, the Bluegrass Albums chart, and reached #17 on the Rock chart. Rayland quit school, picked up the guitar, moved to Creede, Colorado, Such classification diversity might suggest variable genre jumping, but and lived the life of Mineral County’s Sarah melds them all—bluegrass, resident busker. rock, jazz, folk, baroque-pop—into a The nomadic life gave Rayland sublime one-of-a-kind musical hybrid. the chance to study the songwriting Then there’s her stunning talent. masters (Dylan, Cohen, Townes) and suffer from some romantic heart- Sarah signed her first record contract while a high schooler and graduated break—both of which informed his 2012 debut, Feathers & Fishhooks. from the prestigious New England The album showcased a fully- Conservatory of Music. Her mastery formed skill set: deft fingerpicking, on octave mandolin, guitar, and evocative storytelling, nifty whistl- clawhammer banjo provides an old-time vernacular, while the ing, sun-dazed singing, and warm poise of her vocals and her handsome tunesmithing. The album was a critical hit, leading to a high- spellbinding songs weave a lush contemporary tapestry. The beauty of profile slot at the 2013 Newport her four lauded albums is matched by Folk Festival. live performances so lovely that you’ll 2015’s Imaginary Man went even further with its vivid novelistic detail, want your waterproof mascara. telling the stories of coal miners, Plus, she’s all over the Festival, even when she isn’t on the lineup: desert ladies, rugged lovers, and making mainstage cameos, controubadours, backed by brushed ducting Elks Park workshops, snares and ‘60s-Dylan organ. It’s a Saturday afternoon to fine- sitting in with Punch Brothers at the Sheridan, or forming a sirens tune your aural and emotional supergroup with Sara Watkins and frequencies. To that end, Rayland Aoife O’Donovan called I’m With Baxter makes his way to the land Her. We’re with her all right. And of the candy-blue river and the on Saturday, the delightful Sarah tangerine sun to play for us the Jarosz is with us. music that runs in his veins.
11:15 - 12:15pm
12:30 - 1:45pm
36 44 th Annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival
Sarah Jarosz 2:15 - 3:30pm
Yonder Mountain String Band 4:00 - 5:30pm
In 1998, two dudes from Illinois met a couple of guys in Nederland, CO, and decided to start playing bluegrass together. Soon after, Yonder Mountain String Band would cause a seismic shift in the bluegrass world. Or maybe that was just all the people dancing. But by touring constantly and unleashing a dizzying blitz of high-definition bluegrass, the young renegade quartet with the hillbilly name took string-band music to arena-sized popularity and lit a hot fire under the Festlonghairians at Telluride. Yonder Mountain is a place where the chords chunk, the solos blaze, and the choruses soar. With their trademark eternal-circle riffing, YMSB tousled the beards of the patchouli-huffing set with torrid improvisations and a Dead-style commitment to unique nightly setlists, surprise reprises, and cunning covers. But they also transcended the jam scene, bringing in new believers to bluegrass through Yonder’s peakof-the-party energy and tribal-dance communal spirit. Ever evolving, Yonder brought in the magic mando of Jacob Jollif and the flaming fiddle of Allie Kral in 2014, resulting in an all-pistons-firing sonic and stylistic expansion. You can hear it all on the new Love. Ain’t Love, their most adventurous set to date, and during one of TBF’s most popular and spirited traditions: the Yonder Mountain String Band Saturday Slam. Shall we dance?
44th Annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival
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Saturday, June 17th
Margo Price
Sam Bush Band
Dispatch
Hey, are you going back to get your warm stuff? Well, hurry up, Freezivarians, because country firebrand Margo Price is next. Born in small-town Illinois, Margo moved to Nashville in 2003 to find thirteen-hundred-andfifty-two guitar pickers and twice that many young singers looking to break big. So after years of Music City gigging, Margo ditched the sheeny arena-rock brand of contemporary country to make music that she herself wanted to hear. Thankfully for us, she wanted to hear classic country music in the mold of Loretta, Dolly, and Tammy. Sure enough, Margo is a sharp-tongued songstress, a hook fetishist, and a lyrical storyteller, the kind of gal who likes to have one foot on the dance floor and one elbow on the bar. Her voice is full of sweet-dumplin’ tenderness but with a fifth gear for turbo-charged power on both the bawlin’-on-the-bar ballads and the hotboots Ryman-rockers. Last year’s Midwest Farmer’s Daughter, recorded at the fabled Sun Studios in Memphis, was one of 2016’s most critically-acclaimed albums, making best-of-the-year lists everywhere (Rolling Stone, NPR, Entertainment Weekly, etc.). By mixing countrypolitan strings, Telecaster snap, rippled B3 organ, and moanin’ dobro, the album contains timeless songs shot through with both tradition-steeped spirit and kicky modern edge. Soon everyone called (SNL, Colbert, Charlie Rose) as Margo became the most buzzed-about new figure in Americana. Now it’s our turn: Margo Price hits Telluride for a honky-tonkin’ Saturday night.
Veteran Festivarians spend a lot of time Samsplaining the magical experience of Telluride Bluegrass to folks who’ve never attended and therefore can’t fully conceive of the musical wonders, the magnificent setting, the special vibe out in the crowd, etc. Of course, those Never-Festers can’t possibly understand TBF until they’ve experienced the Festival’s marquee annual event: Sam Bush’s Saturday Night Special. Sam first rode into Telluride in 1975, and, in all 42 years since, he has shaped the spiritual character and the musical ecosystem of the Festival. Throughout the years, Sam didn’t just inspire thousands of musicians, paving the way for every Salmon, Yonder, and Punch to follow; he invented entire genres. Sam invented newgrass, named after Sam’s original hippie-tickling, progressive band that plugged in and scrambled chord progressions. Sam invented jamgrass, since Sam rolled up and smoked the original bluegrass rulebook and introduced jazz-like improvisational thrill-seeking. Sam even invented a genre with only one member: Samgrass, which combines a deep mastery of country and bluegrass history, polyrhythmic mandolin chops, lightspeed solos, electrified rock brawn, brilliant and beloved songs, and entertainment flash. Sam invented the Telluride guest appearance. Sam invented the angry-snake staccato mandolin solo. Sam invented the grin-’n’-spin Telluride dance party. Sam invented the newgrass mullet. And he’s still inventing. In fact, the King of Telluride is about to go to work. And once again, we shall all be changed.
Back in the ‘90s, three college classmates in Vermont passed guitars and bongos around, called themselves Dispatch, and played highenergy shows that dealt out acoustic folk-boogie, hip-hop-shaped funk, and dubby reggae-rock. Dispatch took their do-it-yourself ethos to the indie-rock big leagues, transcending the New England college-rock scene and becoming a major draw nationwide. In 2002, Dispatch—Brad Corrigan, Pete Heimbold, Chad Urmston—decided to disband and perform one final show in Boston. Fans gathered from all over the world, and by the time Dispatch took the stage, it was a party one could see from space: 110,000 people were there to say goodbye. Five years later, a philanthropic drive brought Dispatch temporarily back to life. When the band sold out three benefit concerts at Madison Square Garden in minutes, it was a reminder that Dispatch are, as the band jokes, “the biggest band that nobody’s ever heard of.” In 2011, Dispatch came back for good, launching a full reunion tour and releasing their first album in over a decade, Circles Around the Sun, bringing back the trio’s infectious electroacoustic, harmony-heavy jam-rock hoodoo updated with an autumnal, philosophic beauty. But, as we discovered during their cathartic 2013 TBF set, Dispatch are a band you must experience live, as they transform their music into spiritual waves that cause audiences to rise and fall collectively. On a cool, starry night in the mountains, it will be a hot ball of faith for the lovers, the dancers, and the seekers of elevation and grace.
6:15 - 7:30pm
8:00 - 10:00pm
10:30 - Midnight
“It’s the intensity of that valley. If there’ s feng shui, it all ends up right there in that valley in the Telluride mountains.” —Peter Rowan 38 44 th Annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival
Sunday, June 18th
We the People
featuring Abigail Washburn & Friends
10:45 - 12:15pm We the People at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival believe that our community is stronger when we love our neighbors and when we celebrate diversity throughout our extended family of Festivarians. In a larger sense, we support the values to which our country has long aspired regarding the protection of immigrants and refugees, of welcoming and integrating newcomers, and of offering asylum to those who need it. For our traditional Sunday morning set, we are proud to present a musical expression of these ideals: We the People, a special gathering of musicians, curated by Abigail Washburn. Abigail is a long-time friend of the Festival: Her clawhammer banjo and sumptuous vocals have graced our stage as a member of Uncle Earl, as a solo artist, and in her banjomance duo with hubby Béla Fleck. Wu Fei is a brilliant Beijing-born composer and master of the guzheng, a traditional Chinese zither. Raghu Dixit is an Indian singer-songwriter popular for his multi-ethnic folk rock. Iyeoka Okoawa is a Nigerian-American slam poetry champion and a sublime neosoul singer. Together, these artists will assemble in solidarity with the immigrant and refugee rights movements and with the values of our nation’s founding democratic institutions, which are facing critical challenges today. We welcome you to lift your voices and hearts with us this morning.
The East Pointers
Parker Millsap
Look. It’s Sunday. And, frankly, your tent reeks. You should probably head on into the Festival, especially since the amazing East Pointers are set to make their debut on the Shellman Stage. Besides, you have an affinity with this trio because you too were pointing east when you pulled into Telluride a few days ago. So we’re all East Pointers. (Although, technically, this band is from the Great White North.) Tim Chaisson is a terrific fiddler and winner of multiple awards as a popular singer-songwriter. Koady Chaisson is a tenor banjo flatpicker who combines traditionalism and rousing invention. Multitasking guitar whiz Jake Charron is a Canadian Folk Music Award nominee. Together, the Pointers go from delirious, free-wheeling, foot-percussionassisted instrumental reels and jigs (hula-hoopers: please use caution) to lovely original songs that take advantage of the band’s tight harmonies and inventive on-stage arrangements. Leading lights of the neo-traditional movement in Canada—importing Irish, Scottish, and Maritime influences—their latest release, Secret Victory, won this year’s Juno Award (the Canadian Grammy) for Traditional Roots Album of the Year. You’re not supposed to work on Sundays anyway. That frees up time for dancing. And the virtuosic East Pointers will leave you little choice in the matter.
Raised in the heart of rural Oklahoma, Parker Millsap spent much of his childhood inside a Pentecostal church and the rest taking in the hardscrabble lives and dashed dreams around him. Once he got his first guitar, those stories took shape as original folk and country songs, and Parker cut his first album, 2012’s Palisade, when he was still a teenager. Channeling Delta bluesmen, honky-tonk troubadours, and Sun-era Elvis, this kid with the already-weathered voice arrived sounding like an assured veteran. When Parker’s 2014 self-titled LP hit #1 on the Americana albums chart, it was clear that a new young gun ruled the y’all-ternative scene. Based around Parker’s guitar and prairie-chapel vocals, the album filters the sonic and thematic elements of his religious upbringing into known-in-the-bones storytelling about lost souls looking for answers. Last year’s The Very Last Day was another stunning collection of character sketches, floating falsettos, adroit fingerpicking and slide work, rodeo hollers, and melodies that hit you on a molecular level. The album, again #1 on the Americana charts, was nominated for Album of the Year by the Americana Music Awards. No time to stray from that tarp. Parker Millsap has some stories to tell you that will resonate in your mind and body alike during a riveting, rollicking Sunday session.
12:30 - 1:45pm
40 44 th Annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival
2:00 - 3:15pm
Béla Fleck & Chris Thile 3:45 - 5:00pm
We’d like to salute all the Fathervarians out there on Sunday, including Béla Fleck and Chris Thile, who both have toddlers at home. These two geniuses are also the fathers of their own unique genre, one that we like to call WTF… which, of course, stands for “Watch Their Fingers.” After all, their hands do things no other hands can do, as the neurons in their brains transmit more electrochemical signals per minute than the average brain transmits all day. Béla is not only history’s best banjoist and a Grammy legend (30 nods, 15 wins) but also TBF’s boldest genre explorer, uniting with the world’s greatest jazz, world, and classical virtuosos. Chris is his generation’s most talented musician and a mandolinist that knows no bounds—this year alone he has released two splendid collaborative albums: one with jazz pianist Brad Mehldau and another of Bach works with Yo-Yo Ma and Edgar Meyer. In 2012, the duo played TBF billed as Thelma and Louise, agreeing not to discuss the set beforehand, resulting in an hour of brain-melting improvisational post-grass. Naturally, we wondered, if they could play so brilliantly together amid total spontaneity, what could they do if they actually rehearsed a set of songs? We’re about to find out in what will be among the most monumental, musically-astonishing, unmissable sets ever.
JUL 24 MARY CHAPIN CARPENTER
AUG 25 THE STEELDRIVERS SEP 21 STEEP CANYON RANGERS TICKETS: chautauqua.com 900 BASELINE ROAD • BOULDER CO | 303.440.7666
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44th Annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival
41
Sunday, June 18th
Hot Rize
Elephant Revival
Our annual gathering in Telluride gives us plenty to celebrate in the moment. It’s also a time to remember the ones who have gone on before us. At last year’s Fest, Pokey LaFarge covered Chuck Berry, whom we lost in March, calling him “the true King of Rock and Roll.” In November, we lost the great Leon Russell, who joined us at TBF twice, playing with New Grass Revival in the early years. In that spirit, we think of original Hot Rize guitarist Charles Sawtelle, who left us in 1999. Charles helped Hot Rize ascend into the bluegrass pantheon and become an indelible part of Telluride history. This year we are in an especially commemorate mood: Hot Rize (Tim O’Brien, Pete Wernick, Nick Forster, and newest member Bryan Sutton) are making their 20th TBF appearance. Hot Rize played every TBF from 1978 to 1989, helping define the Festival with their polished mastery of traditional bluegrass and their curlycoiffed expansion of bluegrass boundaries. Plus, with midshow appearances by country-swing yayhoos Red Knuckles and the Trailblazers, fans got two bands for the price of one. It made for the Greatest Show in Bluegrass, as Hot Rize, the IBMA’s first-ever Entertainers of the Year, inspired scores of pickers and jammers to come. In 2017, the Rizers are still on top: When I’m Free, their first album in 24 years, crosses eras, continents, and genres and has led to extensive touring, bringing Hot Rize to a new generation of fans. On Sunday, both old friends and new initiates will delight as home-state heroes Hot Rize play and sing again under western skies.
As Sam Bush once sang, “Yeah, we’re gonna have a revival.” On Sunday, this particular Revival is of the Elephant kind. And those who have participated in one of these meetings, presided over by the sextet from Nederland, CO, know to expect a night of hypnotic beauty, featuring an adventurous musical palette of shadowed textures and homespun instrumental interplay caroming mystically from peak to peak. This Revival might find singer Daniel Rodriguez’s acoustic guitar driving a folk ballad over Charlie Rose’s chiming banjo while the dreamy lines of Bridget Law’s octave fiddle parachute in. Or it might be Bonnie Paine’s washboard capering with Darren Garvey’s tumbling timpani as Charlie switches to pedal steel on a gypsy hoedown. Or perhaps it’s Dango Rose’s bowed electric double bass anchoring a Celtic reel as Charlie plays mandolin tremolos atop Bonnie’s djembe cadence. Or maybe Bonnie sits alone, her wood-fairy vocals entwined with her sonorous cello. This musical potpourri is at once refined and instinctive, fantastical and organic, measured and spontaneous. Capturing the Revival’s deep connection as musicians, last year’s Petals is a set of ethereal and intimate songs that will be in perfect harmony with the canyon as the sun begins to set. Go and sing to the mountains/Go and sing to the moon/Go and sing to just about everything/ Because everything is you. Elephant Revival will help us sing to the final night of the Festival in gorgeous, stirring style. And as their name suggests, it’s something you’ll never forget.
5:30 - 6:45pm
7:15 - 8:30pm
Jason Mraz & His Superband 9:00 - 10:30pm
The statistics are dazzling. Jason Mraz has reached Platinum (or multi-Platinum) sales in over 20 countries. His first-ever single, 2002’s “The Remedy (I Won’t Worry),” was an international smash. Mraz’s last four albums have reached the Top Five on the charts. He’s won two Grammys, a People’s Choice Award, and the Hal David Songwriters Hall of Fame Award. His 2008 single “I’m Yours,” a Top Ten hit in a dozen countries, shattered a record by spending an incredible 76 weeks on the Hot 100. But that’s just the résumé. Those numbers don’t capture the jubilant communion that Mraz builds with his audience. Nor do they illuminate Jason’s laidback, live-the-good-life aesthetic in his enthusiasm for sensuous pleasures (surfing, avocados, hats), a healthy lifestyle (veganism, organic farming), and charity (his avid involvement in environmental, human rights, and LGBT equality causes). It all comes through in the music: an exuberant blend of playful jazz-pop, blue-eyed funk, romantic yacht-ternative rock, acoustic caffè-latte balladry, clever wordplay, positivity, scatting, and Mraz’s limber, dexterous singing. In concert, the music is famous for encouraging blissful dancing, heart-massaging singalongs, and increased serotonin production. Are you feeling bummed that the Festival is ending? We’ve got the remedy: We’re hitting the finish line at full speed with the great tunes, smart activism, killer band, and awesome vibes of Jason Mraz. It’s going to be Mraculous. (And the campgrounds open for the 45th Annual Telluride Bluegrass in just 357 days.)
All artist bios written by Steve Leftridge, a St. Louis-based writer, teacher, and musician who has written for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, PopMatters, and No Depression and has attended TBF since 1997.
42 44 th Annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival
Making the most of the shortest nights of the year, the NightGrass series continues the 37-year tradition—began as Chris Daniels’ After-Hours Jam—in intimate venues around Telluride and Mountain Village. On Wednesday afternoon, ride the free gondola to Mountain Village for the free outdoor FirstGrass Concert in Sunset Plaza featuring Freddy & Francine followed by The Cleverlys. Then head over to the Telluride Conference Center for Yonder Mountain String Band’s sold-out 16th Annual Kick-Off Party. For the next few nights, Telluride’s most storied venues host sold-out indoor shows—including the historic Sheridan Opera House, the legendary Fly Me to the Moon Saloon, and the state-of-the-art Palm Theatre (inside Telluride High School on the west end of Colorado Avenue). Tickets to NightGrass shows are completely separate from Festival tickets. Again this year we sold all NightGrass tickets through a single online lottery in April. As always, we welcome your comments about this online lottery system for NightGrass ticketing.
Still looking for Nightgrass tickets?
Visit the New Belgium booth in Greentown to learn about their NightGrass ticket giveaways.
Wednesday Thursday th th
June 14
Free FirstGrass Concert: FREDDY & FRANCINE AND THE CLEVERLYS Outdoors at Sunset Plaza, Mountain Village 5-8pm • All-Ages
16TH ANNUAL BLUEGRASS KICK-OFF PARTY WITH...
YONDER MOUNTAIN STRING BAND Telluride Conference Center 9pm show All-Ages
Fridayth
Saturday th
Sunday th
June 15
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June 18
THE TRAVELIN’ MCCOURYS Sheridan Opera House 11pm show Ages 21+*
YONDER MOUNTAIN STRING BAND Sheridan Opera House 11pm show Ages 21+*
RED KNUCKLES & THE TRAILBLAZERS Sheridan Opera House 11pm show Ages 21+*
PUNCH BROTHERS Sheridan Opera House 10:30pm show Ages 21+* * unless accompanied by parent
GREENSKY BLUEGRASS Palm Theatre 11pm show Ages 21+
FRUITION Palm Theatre 11pm show Ages 21+
ELEPHANT REVIVAL Palm Theatre 11pm show Ages 21+
LINDSAY LOU & THE FLATBELLYS Fly Me to the Moon Saloon 11pm show Ages 21+
PARKER MILLSAP Fly Me to the Moon Saloon 11pm show Ages 21+
RAYLAND BAXTER Fly Me to the Moon Saloon 11pm show Ages 21+
44 44 th Annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival
ALISON BROWN • ANDREA ZONN • THE BANKESTERS • BOBBY OSBORNE • CLAIRE FOLLOW LYNCH •COMPASS DARDEN SMITH • DAROL ANGER • RECORDS THE DRIFTERS • FRANKMUSIC SOLIVAN onFAREWELL SPOTIFY and APPLE , & DIRTY KITCHEN • THE HILLBENDERS • for custom playlists from our new THEreleases INFAMOUS STRINGDUSTERS • JOHN and the Compass catalog. COWAN • MATT FLINNER • MICHAEL check out the new BARNETTAlso, • MICHAEL CLEVELAND • MIKE compassrecords.com for merch FARRIS • MISSY RAINES • MOUNTAIN HEART like these new items: • MR. SUN • NOAM PIKELNY • QUILES & CLOUD • ROB ICKES & TREY HENSLEY • SPECIAL CONSENSUS • ALISON BROWN • ANDREA ZONN • THE BANKESTERS • BOBBY OSBORNE • CLAIRE LYNCH • DARDEN SMITH • DAROL ANGER • THE FAREWELL DRIFTERS • FRANK SOLIVAN & DIRTY KITCHEN • BANJO CAT WHERE WORDS FAIL MUSIC SPEAKS THE AlisonHILLBENDERS • THET-ShirtsINFAMOUS Brown Baseball Caps STRINGDUSTERS • JOHN COWAN • MATT FLINNER • MICHAEL BARNETT And new music by: • MICHAEL CLEVELAND • MIKE FARRIS • MISSY RAINES • MOUNTAIN HEART • MR. SUN • NOAM PIKELNY • QUILES & CLOUD • ROB ICKES & TREY HENSLEY • SPECIAL CONSENSUS • ALISON BROWN • ANDREA ZONN • THE BANKESTERS • BOBBY OSBORNE • CLAIRE LYNCH • DARDEN SMITH •BOBBY DAROL ANGER • THE INFAMOUS STRINGDUSTERS OSBORNE Laws of Gravity Original THE FAREWELL DRIFTERS • FRANK SOLIVAN & DIRTY KITCHEN • THE HILLBENDERS • THE INFAMOUS STRINGDUSTERS • JOHN COWAN • MATT FLINNER • MICHAEL BARNETT • MICHAEL CLEVELAND • MIKE FARRIS • MISSY RAINES • MOUNTAIN HEART • MR. SUN • NOAM PIKELNY • QUILES & SHANNON MCNALLY THE WAIFS CLOUD •Black ROB ICKES & TREY HENSLEY • Irish Ironbark SPECIAL CONSENSUS • ALISON BROWN • ANDREA ZONN • THE BANKESTERS • BOBBY OSBORNE • CLAIRE LYNCH • DARDEN SMITH • DAROL ANGER • THE FAREWELL DRIFTERS • FRANK SOLIVAN & DIRTY KITCHEN • THE HILLBENDERS • THE INFAMOUS STRINGDUSTERS • JOHN QUILES COWAN • MATT CLAIRE LYNCH & CLOUD North By South Shake Me Now FLINNER • MICHAEL BARNETT • MICHAEL CLEVELAND • MIKE FARRIS • MISSY RAINES • MOUNTAIN HEART • MR. SUN • NOAM PIKELNYwww.compassrecords.com • QUILES & CLOUD • ROB ICKES &
November 3–5, 2017
Tom Paxton Cheryl Wheeler Donna The Buffalo Mark Erelli • Penny and Sparrow Laura Cortese and the Dance Cards Front Country • Cosy Sheridan Chastity Brown • Brock Zeman Quicksand Soup Festival Pass: $130 Single Venue: $40 MoabFolkFestival.com
44th Annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival
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This year’s program and pocket schedule are printed on FSCcertified Neenah Conservation paper at OneTouchPoint Mountain States, an FSC-certified printer in Denver. By using this 100% post-consumer recycled fiber made with 100% renewable energy, we saved: 15,648 pounds of wood (that’s 50 trees!); 23,510 gallons of water (more than 1,350 eight-minute showers!); 4,335 pounds of carbon emissions (equivalent to 50 tree seedlings grown for 10 years!); and 1,573 pounds of solid waste. Help extend the life of this program by sharing it with your tarpmates, protecting it as a lasting souvenir, or recycling it in the specially marked bins by the Festival exit.
46 44 th Annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival
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12th Annual
September 15-17, 2017 • Flagstaff, Arizona
Rhonda Vincent & The Rage ∙ Tim O’Brien The Drew Emmitt Band ∙ Mountain Heart Della Mae ∙ Balsam Range ∙ Town Mountain ∙ Foghorn Stringband The Colton House Trio featuring Chris Brashear, Peter McLaughlin & Todd Phillips Rapidgrass ∙ The Lil’ Smokies ∙ Burnett Family Bluegrass The Ping Brothers ∙ Mr Mudd & Mr. Gold ∙ Sugar & The Mint ∙ and more! camping • jamming • kid’s activities • workshops • community dance • band contest
Tickets on sale now ∙ pickininthepines.org
Est. 1992
Telluride Music Co.
NEW, USED & VINTAGE STRINGED INSTRUMENTS HARD-TO-FIND VINYL LPS AND AUDIO CDS UNDER NEW OWNERSHIP FOR 2017 LOCATED JUST WEST OF THE COURTHOUSE
3 3 3 W E S T C O L O R A D O AV E . U N I T 2
(9 7 0 ) 7 2 8 • 9 5 9 2
T E L LU R I D E M U S I C . C O M
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Dates to Remember Telluride Bluegrass June 21-24, 2018 June 20-23, 2019 June 18-21, 2020
Planet Bluegrass would like to thank our Lodging Partners
And Our Events In Lyons, Colorado: RockyGrass Academy
July 23-27, 2017
RockyGrass
July 28-30, 2017
The Song School August 13-17, 2017
Rocky Mtn Folks Festival
August 18-20, 2017
2018 Tickets
Visit Bluegrass.com beginning in October for details about purchasing tickets through our online lotteries, including Telluride Bluegrass camping in Warner Field and Town Park. All other 2018 tickets go on sale in early December.
Reserve your 2018 lodging now at
TE LLURIDE BLUEGRASS. CO M / LO DGI NG
Virtual Tarp Throw down your virtual tarp, commune with your fellow Festivarians, and be the first to hear about lineups, tickets, and giveaways... web : festivarian.com : @ planetbluegrass : @ planetbluegrass : @ planet.bluegrass
48 44 th Annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival
Online Survey
For 44 years we’ve been continually refining every aspect of the Festival experience. Your voice is a vital part of this ongoing process. Complete our online Festivarian survey and you’ll be entered to win a pair of 4-day passes to the 45th Annual next June. bluegrass.com / tbfsurvey
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PROUD TO CALL COLORADO HOME.