The Telluride Bluegrass Festival
Near Telluride, Colorado
Every June, this town fills with banjos and mandolins for one of the most beloved music gatherings in America, the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. Its roots are humble and homegrown. In nineteen seventy three, a small group of friends threw a Fourth of July celebration in Telluride, and a local band called the Fall Creek Boys climbed onto a makeshift stage.
The crowd loved it. The next year, in nineteen seventy four, members of that same band and their friends organized the first true Telluride Bluegrass Festival, drawing about one thousand people. The idea is said to have been sparked when the musicians attended a bluegrass festival in Winfield, Kansas, and decided their spectacular Colorado valley deserved one of its own.
In the early years, tickets were cheap. Before long they were booking nationally touring acts, and the festival began its climb toward legend. Today musicians and fans travel from around the world to play and listen beneath these towering canyon walls, and many call it the most beautiful place on earth to hear music.
