In 1987 I previewed the 14th annual Telluride for the Daily Camera. Performers that year included newcomers Lyle Lovett and Nanci Griffith, Rodney Crowell and Roseanne Cash, Riders in the Sky and the Telluride All-Stars: Marc O’Connor, Jerry Douglas, Edgar Meyer, Sam Bush and Bela Fleck. In the article I asked guitarist Leo Kottke what he was doing playing at a bluegrass festival:

“It has more to do with Telluride than with the musical category. I don’t have any name for what I play. I just glom onto whatever I like and it all seeps into my music,” said Kottke from his Minnesota home, taking time out from  installling tie rods on his car.”

1:45 p.m. Sunday, partly sunny, semi-conscious Town Park, Telluride: The Telluride Bluegrass Festival  is 36 years old, so it’s not surprising that a few annual traditions have developed. Sunday’s first music has almost always been a “gospel,” given a sommewhat wide interpretation. Two years ago the legendary Mavis Staples woke up everyone in the tents. Soul giant Solomon Burke literally ruled the funky stage in 2008 from a wooden throne built especially for him. This morning it was a fresh band from Nashville, Mike Farris and the Roseland Rhythm Revue, who roused the tarp-draped audience with pounding bass, electric guitar, horns and great gospel singing.  As one member said from the stage: “This is the prettiest church I’ve ever seen.”

Although it sounds like a ponderous agency, WPA (Works Progress Administration) may be the hottest band that nobody has ever heard of… yet. The musical pedigree of the band members is impeccable, hailing from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Nickel Creek, Toad the Wet Sprocket and more. You’ve got four strong, harmonizing singers in Glenn Philips, Sean and Sarah Watkins, and Luke Bulla, two exceptional fiddlers in Sarah and Luke, Heartbreaker Benmont Tench on rock piano plus a veteran pedal steel man and a locked-in rhythm section. For a band that has only played two gigs they delivered a remarkably tight set of original roots-pop music. Their first recording will be out in the fall.

Coming up today: The Steeldrivers, and the festival closing Telluride House Band with Sam Bush, Bela Fleck, Jerry Douglas, Edgar Meyer, Bryan Sutton an all-purpose utility player, Luke Bulla. .

5:36 p.m. Saturday, Telluride: A few random notes as the sun came back out during a much-anticipated set by Australian singer Kasey Chambers and her husband, Shane Nicholson. The duo’s folk-country sensibility and harmonies echo another legendary pairing: Emmylou Harris (who plays a solo set Sunday) and the late Gram Parsons …

-          “This is an F. F is the same in Senegal, in Sydney and Tokyo. Music has no borders.” – Gold-robed West African cora master Toumani Diabate to the audience on Friday, as he explained how the 21-string harp-like instrument is tuned.

-          You don’t expect to run into John Oates at a bluegrass festival … or a rock festival for that matter, but he’s been hangin’ all weekend at Telluride as he did last year. “Nothing could have kept me away,” he told me as we both got coffee backstage. We’re anticipating a guest appearance by him during Sam Bush’s set later this evening, maybe “Rich Girl” with full bluegrass rock instrumentation. (John Oates is the dark-haired member of the mega-hitmaking, ‘70s blue-eyed soul duo, Hall and Oates.)

-          Today’s lineup ends with Gaelic Storm, most famous as the dance band playing below deck in the film “Titanic.”