Telluride Bluegrass Festival

12:45 p.m. Friday, aching blue sunny skies and Crooked Still, a progressive bluegrass band that includes a cellist, are onstage. In 1992 as a music critic at the Daily Camera I wrote a Telluride preview feature that was published June 14, 1992. Headliners that year included David Wilcox, Ralph Stanley, Hot Rize, and Alison Krauss.  Sam Bush performed with New Grass Revival, Strength in Numbers and with Emmylou Harris’ Nash Ramblers. Interviewing Shawn Colvin (who is also on the 2009 lineup) beforehand, I found out she had a Boulder connection:  

“My grandparents lived in Boulder (in the early 1970s) , on Baseline Road. My first ski trip was to Winter Park.”

10:50 a.m. Friday, Town Park, Telluride:  David Byrne looked a tad apprehensive as he took the stage at 9 p.m. Thursday.  His three dancers (who also sang and played instruments)  and his three backup singers (who also danced) plus two percussionists, a keyboardist and a bassist (who also did some dancing and singing) looked bemused. They were all dressed in white from head to toe. White-haired Byrne stood under the old wooden sign above the stage that reads: Telluride Bluegrass and Country Festival, seeming to wonder: How did I find myself here?

The savvy audience understood immediately and remained standing and dancing for most of ex-Talking Heads’ leader’s  first day closing set that was something completely different … and that’s saying a lot for a stage that has hosted everyone from Tibet’s Drepung Monks and jazz bassist Stanley Clarke to Poi Dog Pondering, digeridooist Xavier Rudd and honky tonk guitarist Junior Brown. More to come……