Emmylou Harris - Telluride 2002

Bluegrass stays ever true to its roots at Telluride fest

By Jefferson Graham, USA TODAY

TELLURIDE, Colo. — O brother, what a festival.

Ten thousand "festivarians" flocked to this tiny mountain town of 1,500 people for four days of fiddles, banjos, mandolins and high harmonies at the 29th annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival.

Despite the threat of fires from nearby Durango and talk of canceling, the show went on as planned, with faint smoke in the skies and a wide range of music performed almost non-stop from the town park.

In a year in which a traditional bluegrass album — the soundtrack to O Brother, Where Art Thou? — won the best-record Grammy for the first time, Telluride kicked off a summer of roots celebrations with a who's who of traditional musicians (O Brother's Ralph Stanley and Emmylou Harris), jazz-bluegrass genre-benders (Béla Fleck and The Flecktones, David Grisman Quintet) and up-and-comers such as 21-year-old mandolin hotshot Chris Thile of Nickel Creek.

"We always knew there were bluegrass fans before 'the' album," Harris told the audience. "We just didn't know there were so many worldwide."

Nothing about the smash success of O Brother has changed the festival. It's been a sellout for years, with hotel rooms booked months in advance.

"For most of us, there's nothing new about 'Down From the Mountain,' " says festival director Craig Ferguson, referring to the successful tour featuring O Brother stars. "We are the mountain."

But what makes this festival such a standout is that while it embraces the acoustic roots of bluegrass, the audience is open to all sorts of musical variations.

Noted multi-instrumentalist Sam Bush, referred to by many here as the king of Telluride because he's performed here for 28 of the 29 years, says the audience — mostly young people in tie-dyed outfits and bare feet — is more of a "rock 'n' roll crowd. They want to dance, but they're up for any kind of music."

Bush switched back and forth from fiddle to mandolin in his rapturously received set, playing country-rock, reggae, blues, South African and even a traditional bluegrass variation of Prince's 1999. Besides his own set, he sat in with rock bands Cake and Leftover Salmon, a joint performance by Harris and Linda Ronstadt, and another veteran, Fleck, celebrating his 20th year at Telluride.

Few musicians were confined to their hour on stage. On Saturday afternoon, mythical supergroup The Boomchicks, put together for the festival and headed by uncredited singer Mary Chapin Carpenter and banjo player Allison Brown, began with just five members. By set's end, singing a rousing gospel-tinged version of the 1975 Paul Simon/Phoebe Snow hit Gone at Last, they had grown to 15, with Harris, Ronstadt, Nanci Griffith and Cajun singer Ann Savoy sharing vocals.

Fleck did a set with his band and guests Bush and Thile and two classical concerts with bassist Edgar Meyer, one in the middle of town, the other on stage.

"This is a festival like no other," Grisman summed up Saturday. "The most open definition of bluegrass on the planet."