Telluride Bluegrass Festival

I covered the 13^th Annual Telluride for the Daily Camera. The lineup that year included Berline, Crary and Hickman, Chris Daniels playing Steely Dan’s “Bodhisattva,” Doc Watson and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Here’s an excerpt from my review that was published June 22, 1986 ,which reminds us that the more things seem to change, the more they seem eerily familiar. By the way, guitarist Chris Ethridge of the Punch Brothers is the son of banjoist Ben Eldridge of the Seldom Scene:

“TELLURIDE – “We’re gonna play you all a little acid grass,” deadpanned mandolinist John Duffey as the sun set over Telluride Friday evening.

Duffey and his Seldom Scene bandmates, including the silver-maned dobroist Mike Auldridge then pounded out a 15-minute powerhouse rendition of “I Know You Rider.” This came complete with an extended instrumental improvisation that included swatches of rock and jazz, transplanted onto a rock beat, played on bluegrass instruments. The crowd rose to its feet at the last chord.”

Chris Thile, left, Noam Pikelny and Chris Eldridge join Jerry Douglas for a song Saturday at Telluride. Photo by Hans Lehndorff

4 p.m. Saturday, rain-soaked Town Park, Telluride, as Boulder’s Yonder Mountain String Band takes the stage for the 10th consecutive year: Dobro master Jerry Douglas celebrated his 25th year at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival with an extremely rare performance under his own name with his own band. He normally plays in Alison Krauss’ band. On Friday night be played as part of Elvis Costello’s Sugarcanes and Sunday he’s with the celebrated Tellluride House Band. And he sits in with anyone who asks.

When he plays his own music, the consummate bluegrass/country session man who’s on Nashville’s speed dial performs original instrumental compositions steeped in jazz, swing, folk and rock that allow room for the stellar pickers to improvise and jam. It’s the signature sound that’s become identified with Telluride and powered Strength in Numbers, the all-star ensemble birthed at Telluride that included Bela Fleck, Sam Bush, Edgar Meyer and Marc O’Connor.

To crank out the old Strength chestnut, “Hide and Seek,” he called the Punch Brothers up on stage. With mandolin wunderkind Chris Thile center stage, the assembled talent demonstrated an astonishing level of instrumental mastery and creativity. It wasn’t just a blurr of notes, speed for speed’s sake.

It was the old master with the young turks, an acknowledgement that a new generation of musicians is taking over.  And it’s the kind of only-in-Telluride moment that brings us festival veterans to our feet and sends a very specific chill up our collective spines. The thrill’s still there.

12:35 p.m. Saturday, Telluride, looks like it’s snowing on nearby peaks with Greensky (that’s pronounced Green Sky, not Green-ski) just finished and it’s pouring here.

The Top 10 Moments So Far at the 36^th Telluride:

10. Mandolinist Chris Thile and his Punch Brothers band onstage right now delivering a set of classic bluegrass, a way of making up for last year’s depressing, minor key suite.

9. Shawn Colvin surprising the crowd with plaintative take on Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy.”

8. After a sterling set of rootsy twangy tunes Elvis Costello and the Sugarcanes encored with George Jones’ “The Race is On” and Mr. Costello’s “What’s So Funny (About Peace, Love and Understanding).”

7. Fireworks during the Railroad Earth set, a welcome relief from the drought and forest fire years.

6. John Cowan’s tribute to ole English balladry: the Moody Blues’ “Tuesday Afternoon” into Led Zeppelin’s  “Goin’ to California.”

5. Emmylou Harris applying her patented aching soprano to the classic “Love Hurts.”                  

4. Peter Rowan reinventing his Old and In The Way hit “Panama Red” with a Latin American accent.

3. The interwoven sibling harmonies of the three Lovell Sisters.

2. A transcendental “Dueling Banjos” with banjo savant Bela Fleck and West Africa’s most celebrated instrumentalist, the brilliant Toumani Diabete.

1. David Byrne’s entire kinetic set was one of the best I’ve ever seen at Telluride. Too cool for words.

9:45 p.m. Friday, bone-chilled in Telluride’s Town Park:  Listen, we saw and heard an awful lot of cool stuff since David Byrne danced off the stage in triumph Thursday night. We had a welcome dose of pure, clean bluegrass from the Blue Canyon Boys, remarkable progressive acoustic sounds from Crooked Still and The Greencards, loud rockin’country from Jenny Lewis and another normal Bela Fleck set, this time with West African cora virtuoso Toumani Diabate. We’ve seen him previously with a Tuvan throat singer, a theramin artist and a ukelele savant. You haven’t lived until you’ve heard “Dueling Banjos” done on five-string banjo and cora, a harp-like instrument.

But then came Elvis. The former angriest young man in punk wave rock arrived in his country crooner guise backed by the Sugarcanes, a six-man powerhouse assemblage including the exquisite harmonies of Jim Lauderdale plus Jerry Douglas and fiddler Stuart Duncan.  He opened with “Mystery Train” and “Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down”  and won the crowd with a strong rendering of his “Blame it on Cain.” Ballads and story songs from his new T Bone Burnett-produced album dealt with, as he announced, reprehensible politicians, murder, execution and love … the usual.  

Then, from out of the depths of the dirge, Costello and company nailed a lilting version of the Grateful Dead’s “Friend of the Devil” and re-invented “Everyday I Write the Book” as a slowed, sweetened and harmonized confection. His hit “Red Shoes” became a waltz. It was only appropriate that he ended his set with the country classic “The Race is On” which segued into a satisfyingly twangy “(What’s SoFunny About) Peace, Love and Understanding.”

Understanding they’d witnessed a rare and special event, the crowd roared out a collective thank-you-very-much as Elvis left the stage, if not the building.

2:20 p.m. Friday, Town Park, Telluride, between sets by the Greencards and John Cowan. Over the years the Telluride Bluegrass Festival has seen its share of debut performances. Here are a few selected dates and debuts:

1975: New Grass Revival
1976: John Hartford
1977: Peter Rowan
1978: Hot Rize; David Grisman Quintet
1979: Doc and Merle Watson
1980: Leon Russell
1982: Willie Nelson
1983: Bill Monroe
1984: David Bromberg
1985: Emmylou Harris
1986: Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
1989: Alison Krauss; Bruce Hornsby
1990: Shawn Colvin, James Taylor; Flecktones
1991: Lyle Lovett; Indigo Girls, Ani DiFranco
1993: Richard Thompson; John Hiatt; Dan Fogelberg
1994: String Cheese Incident
1995: Leftover Salmon; Del McCoury
1996: Steve Earle; Michelle Shocked
1997: Johnny Cash, Laura Love
1999: Earl Scruggs
2000: Natalie McMaster; Yonder Mountain String Band
2002: Linda Ronstadt; Robert Randolph; Ben Harper
2004: Jorma Kaukonen
2005: Wilco; Stanley Clarke; Jean-Luc Ponty; Bobby McFerrin
2006: Barenaked Ladies; The Decemberists; Neko Case
2007: Counting Crows; Chick Corea; Guster