The Telluride Bluegrass Festival is now in its thirty-fourth year. Who would have thought that the 1973 Telluride Fourth of July Celebration would start something that turned out to be something so important to the future of Telluride.

Over the years a half a million people have been to the festival and I can’t tell you the number of people I’ve met that were first introduced to Telluride by the Bluegrass Festival. Add into that the Festival Culture of Telluride which was all started by Bluegrass add thirty-four years and you get some idea of what I’m talking about.

It was fortuitous. We couldn’t have come up with something like this if we had tried to—it just happened. Bluegrass was followed the next year by the Film Festival and the Chamber Music Festival and soon Jazz was added and now I can’t count ‘em all.

From a financial point of view, in the early years the festivals were the difference between paying the bills and going broke.

The first couple of years the Bluegrass Festival was held on the Fourth of July, so some of the marketing was a done deal. In 1975, there was a group of “Know” people that actually put it to a town vote and the Bluegrass Festival was cancelled—at least for awhile. Jerry Race, our mayor opened negotiations and aided by a poor summer economic forecast allowed it be brought back, but in late June. It has been held in late June since.

The same people the next year actually led a campaign to cancel the Fourth of July celebration in Telluride. Believe it or not, it was canceled. They didn’t want the people. I did not agree with them since it was the two hundredth anniversary of our country and the hundredth year celebration of the event in Telluride. But the “know” people “know” everything and the answer is “NO”.

So, we had a fireworks show in Placerville and the “know” people got to celebrate “NO” in Telluride.

I am no expert on the Bluegrass Festival, but it seems to me that the festival is responsible for the revival of Bluegrass music in general and more specifically has turned a lot of people on to Bluegrass and made a bunch of kids pick up the banjo and the fiddle that wouldn’t have otherwise, plus it both saved and made Telluride as we know it.

Telluride’s own Bill Nershi took up the guitar after going to the Bluegrass Festival one year and practiced on Main Street in front of the Floradora for years and years. We never thought he was going to get it, but then one day he got good—real good. He’s now one of the founders and the guitar player for String Cheese, which got their big break at the band contest and a few years later in 1994 head-lined the show. There was also the Dixie Chicks and Leftover Salmon that had the same experience and I’m sure there are historians out there that know it all. It would sure be nice if someone would write the story.

James doing a fund raiser with Norm at KOTO

Like everyone else, we’ve made our share of friends through Bluegrass. In 1991, James Taylor was a head-liner and James and his daughter Sally and son, Ben became good friends as did Shawn Colvin a year later, and the Yonder Mountain String Band years later. Bluegrass is always a reunion and old home week.

We all miss Fred Shellman, but everyone agrees that Craig Ferguson has done a great job. He’s taken it to the next level and then some.

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