Telluride Bluegrass Festival

When they first began

David Byrne

Program from the fifth festival

Emmylou Harris

Bluegrass 1980

A look back to 1980

  3:30 Thursday, Telluride: I first covered the festival for the Camera in 1980 apparently. Here’s an excerpt from the review published July 4, 1980: “Onstage (David) Grisman tells the crowd: “It’s all bluegrass to me” and then proceeds to play a lovely version of a John Coltrane piece.”

Jerry Douglas with the Zac Brown Band

Elvis is in the house

  1:45 p.m. Thursday, Town Park, Telluride: The festival commenced with a sterling set by Douglas and O’Brien on Dobro and mandolin/fiddle/guitar/bouzouki watched by numerous pickers including Chris Thile. Douglas noted: Nowhere else can you see something like this (scenery) and hear music like this.” They play a country weeper: “If I Can’t Live Without [...]