The lineup for the 42nd annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival is now complete. Bluegrass, Telluride-style, June 18-21, 2015, means an eclectic group of performers including Ry Cooder/Sharon White/Ricky Skaggs, Janelle Monáe, Punch Brothers, Trampled By Turtles, Lau, John Butler Trio, Hot Rize, Rhiannon Giddens, Yonder Mountain String Band, Rhonda Vincent, The Fairfield Four & The McCrary Sisters, and the Telluride House Band, among many others.
Telluride Bluegrass Festival won “Music Festival of the Year” at this year’s Pollstar Concert Industry Awards — a first for any bluegrass festival. The 10,000-person event makes its home at an elevation of 8,750 feet in Town Park, on the eastern side of Telluride, Colorado, serving up music one act at a time on a main stage (there’s no sound bleed or running from stage to stage at Telluride). Although the four-day passes sold out in about ten minutes back in December when they went on sale, there are actually single-day tickets for Thursday and Sunday still available at bluegrass.com. Nightgrass, the series of late night concerts at various venues in the town of Telluride, will be announced in April and tickets for those shows will be available by lottery.
Late last week, I spoke with Brian Eyster of Planet Bluegrass, the Lyons, CO-based company that produces the festival. He provided a glimpse behind the scenes at Planet Bluegrass, as he recounted how some of the lineup decisions that were made. He also shared thoughts and insights on the artists and the festival. I’ve interviewed Eyster previously, and spent time with him during the festival. The takeaway each time is how passionate he and all the folks at Planet Bluegrass are about the music, the people who play the music, and the people in the audience. That audience, the Festivarians, or Festivarian Nation as Eyster sometimes calls them, are last, but definitely not least. Festivarians are open-minded, knowledgeable, discerning folks who can take in the subtleties and nuances of delicate acoustic music or just dance like crazy if the tempo and volume turn up. They appreciate virtuosity, integrity, and honesty in all who perform on the Town Park stage. Festivarians could identify a pretender before he ever played the first note, but thanks to the work done by Planet Bluegrass each year, there’s little need for that skill at Telluride.
Still, the Planet Bluegrass folks are continually experimenting. There’s risk in that enterprise, but it generally works out even better than expected. I’ve attended seven out of the last nine years, and it’s remarkable how well it all comes together. As Eyster has explained to me in the past, it’s not bluegrass, it’s Telluride Bluegrass. That means it is okay to bring everything from modern bluegrass to roots, to rock and symphonic music together in one festival. But enough generalities, let’s talk summer solstice 2015 at Telluride.
Mando Lines: Janelle Monáe at Telluride on Friday night? Intriguing.
Brian Eyster: We became obsessive Janell Monáe fans a couple of years ago. This is the third year we’ve made offers. It hadn’t worked out with the schedule. Janelle is an electrifying live performer, someone who pushes boundaries. She gives this great positive energy to what she’s doing. Definitely pushes our genre in the direction of soul, r&b, and pop more than we’ve done in a very long time, if ever.
Similar to how the David Byrne set [in 2009] totally captured people because it was unique and there was such an attention to detail in every regard from the music, to the visual presentation, to dancing, to the level of musicianship, I think this is going to be something similar though, again, totally unique. Janelle is really one of these performers who captures all kinds of people. [She’s] performed at the White House a couple of times, the Nobel Peace Prize Gala, at the UN, at the top of bills at major festivals. At this point, Telluride is the only festival she has on the books for this year. It’s really something we’re incredibly excited about.
She is going to play Friday night between two of the most forward-thinking string bands in the world, that being Punch Brothers who play right before her and Trampled By Turtles right after her. Between those two, we go a totally different direction with a huge Janelle Monae stage show. Last year that spot was the Colorado Symphony with Bela Fleck. Again, another huge spectacle. I think last year it worked, spectacularly. Janelle will work in a totally different way – last year, people seated, listening carefully for musical nuances, this year it should be an electrifying, positive party. There’s a raging, furious intensity to what they [Trampled By Turtles] do, and with Punch Brothers there’s a lot of intellectual stuff they do. I think Janelle comes between those two, incredibly smart as a writer and performer, brings in all these elements. A day not to be missed.
Ry Cooder! Tell us about getting him to Telluride with Sharon White and Ricky Skaggs.
Having Ry Cooder in the lineup is something that Craig [Ferguson, President of Planet Bluegrass,] has been chasing for 25 years. Whenever there are rumblings that Ry is considering playing some festival dates, we’ve reached out to him, but it hasn’t worked out. He does not play many festival dates, it’s like a couple in a decade. So they came to us and said we want to collaborate [with Sharon White and Ricky Skaggs]. They’d done something together at the Grand Ole Opry last September, and they said they wanted to do it again, on the Telluride stage. We said, “Absolutely,” and the whole thing was done in a day. There’s that level of excitement on their end and obviously on our end. Right now the only two shows scheduled are Telluride and Carnegie Hall. [Note: Eyster could not confirm details on the Telluride show, but the Carnegie Hall listing shows that Joachim Cooder (Ry Cooder’s son) will be playing drums and Mark Fain will play bass.]
Hot Rize is a favorite of mine. But I saw that Red Knuckles and the Trailblazers were top of the bill at Rockygrass. I’m just wondering if they’ll all show up at Telluride.
Well, you know, I think in Telluride, I think the Trail Blazers are going to squeeze into the closet in the back of the bus. It’s still undetermined whether or not, at Rocky Grass, whether there will be any Hot Rize. Have you seen these videos the Trail Blazers have been putting together? The most recent one, Waldo is talking to Nick, Nick asks, ‘Should I show up to this gig, what’s going on?” Waldo tells Nick, “Well, we have a bass player, maybe he’d let you sit in on one of the easier songs.” But that’s the Rockygrass story. In Telluride, the Trailblazers will probably be tagging along, but I can’t say for sure. But those guys are having such a banner year – Hot Rize, I’m talking about now. Great, great record. Getting such a great reception around the country.
I’m looking at the Thursday lineup, and it’s pretty amazing. Late afternoon you’ve got Robert Earl Keen, then Rhiannon Giddens, two strong, but very different sets, back to back.
Both of them have such great records out. Both played the festival in the past. Robert Earl, it’s been more than twenty years since he’s played, and this seemed like the perfect time to bring him back with this great bluegrass record and rejuvenated connection to Peter Rowan, one of the Telluride legends. He is just so excited to come back and play this music in front of a Telluride audience. Then Rhiannon, she’s torn it up every time we’ve had her with the Chocolate Drops, nearly inducing a riot level of excitement from the crowd by the end of their set. The new record is just beautiful. T Bone [Burnett] produced it, we hear these other sides that we hadn’t heard before. It’s a big band. It’s her, members of the Chocolate Drops plus a bass and a drummer. They cover a lot of musical ground, and she’s just such a great singer, such a great artist, and she has a great sense of how to connect with an audience.
When I think Telluride, it’s Yonder Mountain String Band on Saturday afternoon around 4 o’clock. Last year after Jeff Austin’s departure they brought in designated guests to sit in, but the band lineup is now set?
Pretty solid as a five-piece, with Allie Kral, great fiddler, who tore it up with Cornmeal on the Telluride stage a few years back, and Jake Jolliff (mandolin), who also played Telluride with Joy Kills Sorrow, who is a monster player. We had them [with this lineup] at Kinfolks Celebration here in Lyons last September. They really sounded inspired. Lots of energy. They have a new record coming out and I believe it’s coming out the week of Telluride, it’s scheduled around their appearance at Telluride. [Saturday afternoon is] just a slot that the band feels great about playing. Lake Street Drive is going to go right after them, so it’s them, Lake Street Drive, then Sam Bush.
After Saturday night, there’s Sunday morning. It’s become a favorite of ours over the years, and we’re always interested to see what you come up with. Dailey and Vincent were great last year, but you’re going in yet another direction this year.
It’s a set that we give tremendous thought and deliberation to every year. And each year, we try to make it a little different, try to make it a can’t miss moment of the festival. We heard about this collaboration with The Fairfield Four and the McCrary Sisters, both of whom played the festival in the past. The Fairfield Four appeared as an a cappella quartet, and the McCrary Sisters performed with Mike Ferris a few years ago, another unforgettable Sunday morning. The McCrary Sisters, their father was a founding member of the Fairfield Four, so there’s tight kinship between them. It’s going to be a stirring Sunday morning. Sometimes we go in the direction of bluegrass gospel, like last year with Dailey and Vincent, and we’ve gone in a number of other directions, it’s been a couple of years since we’ve done African American gospel, a church thing on Sunday morning.
You give a nod to the more mainstream bluegrass world with Rhonda Vincent & The Rage on the bill, also on Sunday.
It’s been over 10 years since we’ve had her. She’s a great singer, that whole band is just fantastic. It just worked out really well. We were looking at Sunday, and we just said Sunday needs a shot of hard core bluegrass and we started at the top with Rhonda, and it worked out. I think they’d planned to take the weekend off and they heard the possibility of Telluride and they made it happen for us. Thrilled to have them in the lineup again.
Sunday also has a shot of country, with Kacey Musgraves. She’s mainstream, but seems to have some alt cred, too. Tell us about that lineup pick.
Playing the Telluride stage was on her bucket list. An artist of her stature, she won Grammys for Country Album and Country Song of the Year last year, when someone like that reaches out to us, we’re incredibly excited. She’s such a witty, sharp songwriter. She speaks for the values of freedom, living your life the way you want to live it, the values that are really close to the Festivarian Nation, and she really speaks to that with a fresh voice. People who are not familiar with her yet are going to be really excited. You’ve probably seen her performance from Cayamo with John Prine. Looked like she really won over a lot of fans there. Her songs are so clever.
You always have a band that’s on your bucket list. Tell us about it this year.
Band I’m most excited to see, I’ve been wanting to see for years, but who has not come to this country is the Scottish trio Lau. They won the BBC Folk Award for best band three times in a row. A writer at The Guardian called Lau the best band in the UK, they’re just a remarkable acoustic trio of guitar, accordion, and fiddle. They take that music in a direction it’s never gone before. Tim O’Brien and Jerry Douglas both are huge fans of the band, both recommended them to us. Jerry has toured with the guitar player, invited Kris Drever, the guitar player, to be a part of his UK tour. Tim worked with Kris on his last record. This will be their first US festival, really their first big gig in the US, after having their own festival in Scotland. I’ve loved their records for years, and got to the point where I was ready to take a trip to Scotland to see them. We’ve been trying to get them for three years, but it hasn’t worked out because of schedules. They were one of the first bands we hired this year. Jerry and Tim both were very enthusiastic, saying to get those guys to Telluride, do what you’ve got to do.
I’ve been watching John Butler Trio videos and listening to their stuff since the first lineup announcement came out. Tell us about this group.
They played the festival in 2005. They are superstars in Australia, and they’ve sold out multiple nights in Red Rocks. Huge act. Craig still remembers that John showed up ten years ago, and he was either down front watching every single act, just soaking it all in, or back stage playing his guitar. He’s someone who got the festival and felt it in a very deep way. We had them at our Folks Festival in Lyons two years ago. They were the buzz of the festival. The energy that those three bring – John’s an inventive guitar player, he’s up there playing a twelve string guitar, finger picking style, some effects, it’s this massive sound, he’s working improvisation, there’s this telepathic interplay between the three guys on stage, great set of tunes, all about connecting with the audience and every member of the audience connecting with each other. It’s like a spiritual musicality to what they’re doing. Very deep and yet also a party. That’s going to be a tough set to follow [on Thursday night], and the only guys to do it are the Telluride House Band.
We’ve got to talk about the Telluride House Band [Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Bela Fleck, Bryan Sutton, Edgar Myer, and Stuart Duncan]. We are fortunate to have them together each year, talk about how you make that happen.
They all live in Nashville at this point, but this is the time that they have an opportunity to get together and play. The combination of their shared history, each one of those artists playing the festival for decades, having personal connections with people in the audience, having seen the spectacular sets that have happened on that stage, they take that gig very, very seriously. That is the time that their virtuosity and ability to collaborate and just be in the moment is really pushed, and they really want to push each other harder than maybe they do any other time all year. They all arrive a couple of days early, and they spend that time putting together the House Band set. It’s different every year, some years they’re pushing toward trad bluegrass, some years they’re pushing towards new compositions that they’ll premier on the Telluride stage, but I don’t think anybody knows until they get together those couple of days before the festival. It’s something really special, and it’s something we’re so lucky to have had for so many years.
Telluride 2015 single-day lineup for each day (listed in reverse performance order):
THURSDAY, JUNE 18, 2015
* Telluride House Band featuring Sam, Bela, Jerry, Edgar, Bryan & Stuart * John Butler Trio * Hot Rize * Rhiannon Giddens * Robert Earl Keen * Jerry Douglas Band * Noam Pikelny & Stuart Duncan *
FRIDAY, JUNE 19, 2015
* Trampled By Turtles * Janelle Monáe * Punch Brothers * Bela Fleck & Abigail Washburn * Peter Rowan’s Twang an’ Groove * Lau * Johnnyswim * Mustered Courage *
SATURDAY, JUNE 20, 2015
* Leftover Salmon * Sam Bush Band * Lake Street Dive * Telluride Troubadour * Yonder Mountain String Band * Steep Canyon Rangers * Robert Ellis * Trout Steak Revival * Band Contest Finals *
SUNDAY, JUNE 21, 2015
* Cooder – White – Skaggs * Kacey Musgraves * Greensky Bluegrass * Chris Thile & Edgar Meyer * Brett Dennen * Rhonda Vincent & The Rage * Rock My Soul featuring The Fairfield Four & The McCrary Sisters *
Details on Telluride Bluegrass are at www.bluegrass.com.
Photo is courtesy of Benko Photos.
