Telluride Blues & Brews Festival 2004

TELLURIDE BLUES & BREWS FESTIVAL
Telluride, Colorado, Sept. 16-19, 2004
© September 2004 Michael Koster

It was a soppy wet weekend as 8,000 concert goers descended on Telluride's Town Park for three days of blues, funk, R&B, gospel and jam-band rock at the 11th annual Blues & Brews Festival. Despite the chicken shack backdrops and similar rural cliches, the vast majority of artists were worlds away from traditional rural blues (chances are this was the closest Jonny Lang and Indigenous have ever gotten to a chicken shack). Of more than 30 mainstage and late-night "juke joint" club acts, you could count on one hand the number of traditional blues players.

What the festival did have plenty of, aside from mud, was New Orleans sounds. It seemed as if half that city's musicians had been sucked through a cosmic pipeline and dropped on the Telluride stage. Seven bands and countless musicians hailed from the Big Easy, including the Neville Brothers and Dr. John.

While the good doctor has been known to practically sleep through many of his gigs these days, the mountain air — and a lucky break in the weather — seemed to invigorate him and his skin-tight, top-notch band. Unlike many of the weekend's artists, who can't hold a note at 8,750 feet, the altitude didn't seem to bother Dr. John. He may look worse for wear and tear, but his gruff soulful Nawlins drawl, like a fine wine, has only gotten better with age. He tore through his old-school set — Big Easy funeral marches, uplifting gospel, crowd pleasers like "Right Place Wrong Time" — and tickled those keys like the spirit had grabbed hold of him.

Last on stage was the great B.B. King who, at age 79, has also been known to coast through his performances (including recent weak shows in New Mexico). A certain amount of predictable screwing around ate up about half of his set (his band plays the first portion of the show without him, there's lots of call-and-response and back-and-forth with the crowd as well as obviously rehearsed "spontaneous" banter with his band). But when the seated, slightly hoarse icon actually picked up his guitar and played, the results were extraordinary. The highlight was a middle section of the show in which his guitarist and bass player sat down with him and the three of them concentrated strictly on music — as opposed to showmanship. King hit those signature notes like he felt every one of them. And he's still got the coolest expressions in the business, as if his facial muscles are calibrated to his guitar strings.

Other highlights included the jazzy R&B of Hazel Miller, the left-field funk of New Orleans' Bonerama (featuring five trombones and a tuba) and the trippy hard rock of Stockholm Syndrome (heavy rain put a stopper on the crowd's enthusiasm, making Stockholm Syndrome the most underappreciated band at the festival). Another fine moment was when three members of Bonerama, fresh from a triumphant festival debut earlier that day, traded feel-good trombone licks with guitarist Warren Haynes during Gov't Mule's rock-solid set — a wonderfully successful surprise.

It was a pleasure to be exposed to young bands like Bonerama and Papa Grows Funk, whom most folks have presumably never heard of. It almost made up for the striking lack of traditional blues. It will take a lot of musical magic over the long run, however, to make up for organizers' decision this year to abandon their long-running tradition of working with local microbrewers in favor of an Anheuser-Busch sponsorship. Which meant that, outside of a three-hour grand tasting, the only brews available were Budweiser, Michelob and Red Hook. Maybe next year they should change the name to the Budweiser & Blues Festival.