KOTO Brings the Telluride Bluegrass Festival Home

Hail to Mother Bluegrass

Bluegrass music and Telluride, Colorado go together like sunshine, summer and sizzling, take-me-on-a-memorable-ride events. Together these components make one heck of a happening, a kaleidoscopic celebration of music and good times, known as the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, now in its thirty-ninth year.

I’m taking a break from my own festivating to let you know that you, too, can be a part of this world-renowned event. Tune in right now to KOTO, Telluride’s public radio station, to hear the festival broadcast live (that’s during regular festival hours this weekend, of course). Since typically ninety percent of festival artists allow their performances to be aired live on KOTO, you can count on listening to some of the greatest musicians in the land throughout the entire weekend. Click here to see the lineup, throw down your tarp, pour yourself a cool one as fresh and frothy as what you’d find at the KOTO Beer Booth at Bluegrass and allow yourself to be transported to one of the greatest musical gatherings on earth.

Beth Lamberson Interviewing Steve Earle During Last Year’s Bluegrass

“It’s a big undertaking,” says Suzanne Cheavens, co-producer along with Stephen Barrett, of KOTO’s broadcasting of the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. “KOTO is programming and radio, and we’re real proud to put it on,” she adds. “We’re real grateful to Planet Bluegrass for getting this on the air and helping us get in touch with the artists,” Suzanne continues.

Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi Chatting with Suzanne Cheavens and Stephen Barrett During a Live Broadcast from Telluride Blues & Brews Festival, Another Popular T-ride Event

KOTO’s rapport with artists from the greats such as Béla Fleck and Sam Bush to up and coming songwriters, known as the Telluride Troubadours, has strengthened over the years, largely with the help of Beth Lamberson, KOTO’s interim executive director. Beth schedules and conducts most of the interviews broadcast live on KOTO with artists that have just performed on the main stage in Telluride Town Park. These friendly, casual and often revealing chats almost make up for the fact that most on-air listeners are not actually sitting in the park surrounded by T-ride’s awe-inspiring peaks, one of the most sublime settings for any kind of gathering on the planet.

Telluride Bluegrass Festival: A Helluva Hula Fest, Too

Back in the studio, KOTO team members take turns providing invaluable air time to Telluride Troubadours, ten lucky singer/songwriters from all over the country chosen to come to T-ride to participate in the festival. The finalist takes a main stage slot on Sunday, another much-anticipated set also broadcast live on KOTO.

But don’t let me be the only one to tell you how great the music is at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. “They’re bringing in the best, the cream of the crop from here and the U.K.,” I heard Jerry Douglas say yesterday in one of KOTO’s between set interviews. Yeah, I was at home still plugging away at my desk and very grateful to KOTO that I could bring the festival into my home. I was in the park, however, last night, totally enchanted by Allison Krauss and Union Station. Thank goodness, too, since she and John Prine were among the few that didn’t authorize a KOTO broadcast of their show.

Telluride Bluegrass Soirée

That’s O.K. since there’s plenty other good music to go around all weekend long, enough to keep folks happy all over the world as e-mails from as far away as Iraq and Australia testify. “Our bandwidth usage goes off the charts during this weekend,” Suzanne tells me. So give it a try, tune in, and embrace this huge chunk of Colorado fun at KOTO like the rest of us 10,000 people here in Telluride this weekend. And if you like it, click here and make a donation to our entirely noncommercial, non-underwritten radio station, one of the very few remaining in the U.S. It certainly beats the price of admission and you’ll be helping to keep the great tradition of community radio alive and well in the U.S.

Happy everything to all of you festivarians and don’t forget the sunscreen!

Check out Welcoming Summer and Contemplating Climate Change to read more about my take on the Telluride Bluegrass Festival.

Telluride House Band

Thank you to Benko Photographics and KOTO Radio for the use of the images in this post.