- The return of live music is a long time coming for artists like Cousin Curtiss of Montrose. The singer-songwriter just released a new album that was recorded live at the Sherbino Courtyard in Ridgway, Colorado. As always, Curtiss delivers a high energy performance in his signature "root-stomp" style.
- Telluride singer-songwriter Emily Scott Robinson mixes folk and country as she reflects on faith, loss, hope and regret. She just released her third album American Siren. The North Carolina native moved to Colorado for social work, but found her calling as a music artist. “They’re both healing professions,” Robinson said.
- The pandemic took banjo player Chris Pandolfi off the road -- no touring with his bluegrass band The Infamous Stringdusters. So, holed up in his Denver home studio, Pandolfi managed to pluck a more ambient sound from his rootsy instrument. Pandolfi calls this solo project "Trad Plus Presents Trance Bajo," which plays on a term coined by the late mountain music pioneer, Doc Watson.
- Denver bassist Charlie Burrell celebrated his 101st birthday with a visit to the Colorado Music Hall of Fame, where he was inducted in 2017. Check out Denverite's story on that trip and listen to an excerpt of our Colorado Matters interview with Burrell from 2006 along with Burrell and the Ralph Sharon Trio playing at the Lakeside Amusement Park Jazz Club.
- We remember a celebrated figure in folk and country-music. Nanci Griffith, the Texas-born singer-songwriter known for her crystalline voice and storytelling chops, died in August. She was 68. Griffith's star rose in the late 1980s, including here in Colorado at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. Author and historian G. Brown of the Colorado Music Experience, reflects.
- Rachel Baiman has been in love with Colorado since she was in summer camp. The Nashville singer-songwriter went to Rocky Mountain Fiddle Camp in Divide, Colorado. It's where she honed her musical craft -- learning fiddle, then banjo, then guitar. That experience comes full circle when she returns to camp this summer as a teacher.
- Our colleagues at CPR Classical are producing a yearlong series called "Journey to Freedom: The Spirituals Radio Project." It's a collaboration with M. Roger Holland II, who is an Assistant Professor of African American Music & Theology at the University of Denver’s Lamont School of Music. He's also Director of DU’s Spirituals Project Choir. On a recent episode of "Journey to Freedom," Holland reflects on the spiritual “He Never Said A Mumblin Word," which imagines what Jesus Christ endured during the crucifixion.