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The countdown to the 50th anniversary of the Telluride Bluegrass Festival (TBGF) has begun. Before you know it, you’ll find fiddles and mandolins blaring from your front porch, patchouli and grill smoke in the air, and hula-hooping hippies roaming the riverside paths. The highlight, of course, will be the stellar line-up of bluegrass legends, including Grammy-winning singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Tim O’Brien, on the Fred Shellman Memorial Stage in front of a sold-out Town Park crowd. .
The Telluride Daily Planet recently covered the band in their home office in Nashville as they prepared for a concert in their home state of West Virginia, then visited Maryland and Tennessee before arriving in Telluride.
“That’s how you get to Telluride. You drive around and you get there,” laughed O’Brien. “And you will be happy because when you see the waterfall you will know that you have come home.”
O’Brien is notorious for collaborating with other musicians over the years, including being paired with his sister Molly O’Brien, along with Mark Knopfler, Dan Auerbach and Sturgill Simpson.
“We get feedback from collaborators and things grow,” he explained. “It’s an open conversation. You throw an idea and someone responds to it and often builds on it. And soon you end up with something pretty good.” increase.”
He points out that some of his best collaborators are in his own band.
“Mike Babb played bass for many years and was a great support along with fiddler Shad Cobb,” he said. “And my wife, Jan Fabricius, is my harmony singer and mandolin player.”
It will be O’Brien’s 46th appearance at TBGF. He missed his first two years, wandering in 1977 and absent in 2006.
“Sam Bush, he blew me away,” O’Brien added. “He came the same year I came and I haven’t missed him since.”
O’Brien said Box Canyon, at the eastern edge of Telluride, will always be the main star.
“There’s something special about traveling to Telluride, and the anticipation it brings is like, wow, where are we?” he said excitedly. “And then the musical experience unfolds. People are a little dizzy because of the altitude, but that doesn’t matter. It elevates the atmosphere to excitement rather than hysteria.”
On Friday, June 16th, O’Brien will officially release his new album titled Cup of Sugar, marking the first time in his 50-year recording career that he has produced an all-original album. .
“In the past I’ve mixed traditional songs and cover songs with my own songs, but this time I have more songs to choose from and they’re all about the atmosphere, the older man’s point of view, which is Happy Gorgeous.” It provided a nice atmosphere, a lucky look at life,” he said.
This time he allowed the song to dictate the arrangement.
“I asked myself, is it all acoustic? Electric country records? Is it time to go electric?” “But in the end we ended up doing another set of pretty eclectic acoustic tracks. Session guys like Mike Rojas, Russ Perl and Jamie Dick, along with bandmates Mike Babb and Shad Cobb. If you’re with me, just invite them into the room and play the song, and they’ll find their way.”
He added, “One day Denise Crouch came in when Bub couldn’t come and a couple of Paul Birch joined in. .
O’Brien wrote three songs on the new album with bluegrass songwriter Ronnie Bowman. He’s known Ronnie Bowman for many years, but had never collaborated with him before. Dell McCauley shows off his signature guitar and tenor vocals on the song “Let the Horses Run.” Other co-writers on the album include Jonathan Byrd, Sean Camp, and Tom Juetz.
“My wife Jean and I wrote a song called ‘Gila Genryu,’ which is a mountain song about Gila Genryu, New Mexico, where Geronimo was born,” he said. “We’re very excited. We’ve already done some shows, debuted the material, and we’re getting a good response. We’re ready.”
O’Brien said he’s looking forward to meeting old friends like Sam Bush and Vera Fleck at TBGF’s 50th anniversary to see what they’re up to musically.
“They always come up with something new every year,” he said. “That’s one of the great things about Telluride. I don’t know, and I’ve had a little bit of each.It’s like a coming out party.A clan reunion.A big family reunion.”
The Tim O’Brien Band will perform on the Main Stage on Saturday, June 17 from 12:00pm to 1:15pm. For more information on TBGF, please visit www.bluegrass.com/telluride.
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