A LOOK BACK

• Timeline Slide Show

• Reminiscing about Boulder 1
• Reminiscing about Boulder 2
• Reminiscing about Boulder 3

• Boulder Comes of Age

• Pearl Street Celebrates 25 Years as a Pedestrain Mall

• Local Musicians Make Music and History

By Gil Asakawa

Quick, name the country’s greatest music capitals. Did you say New York, Nashville, Los Angeles, Motown (that would be Detroit), Austin, Memphis (if you believe Elvis is alive) and Seattle (if you like grunge-punk)? Well, add Boulder to the list, too.

For years, Boulderites have bemoaned the fact that we’ve never had a well-developed music scene. But the truth is, Boulder has impacted the national music industry since the mid-1960s when the Astronauts launched their career from Tulagi on the Hill. Furthermore, local recording is thriving and live music is a vital cultural force.

“I think the music scene here has been very successful,” says Scott Roche, owner of Coupe Studios, which specializes in commercial and post-production audio work and has worked with a stream of local musicians over the years. “I came here in 1972 so I’ve seen everything come and go, and it’s been a great ride!” Roche should know; the Boulder music scene has been his bread and butter for decades.

Another longtime insider who knows the scene inside out is music historian and reviewer Leland Rucker. In 2001, he and filmmaker Don Chapman produced Sweet Lunacy, a documentary on Boulder’s nightclub scene. “A lot of people thought Boulder was going to be more of a scene than it was, but the music industry infrastructure has never been here,” Rucker says. “For a city its size, though, I’ve always thought we had a great scene.”

In fact, expectations are one reason some Boulder bands remained anonymous, Rucker says. “One cliché was that everyone was after a record deal. Michael Woody and the Too-High Band is a perfect example. Here are great musicians who were so enamored of a major label deal that they turned down a deal with Michael Nesmith [a former Monkees band member who owned a small, independent label] to hold out for a deal with Elektra Records. That didn’t happen, and then the band broke up.”

The flip side is groups who scored deals that went sour. For example, Dusty Drapes and the Dusters, a band of long-haired hippies playing pure country, landed a deal with Columbia Records, but their album never came out because Columbia decided it would compete with Asleep at the Wheel, the label’s nationally known western swing band.

Despite soured deals, Boulder musicians “were all having too much fun in the ’70s,” Rucker says. Fans of that era’s nightclub scene delighted in Sweet Lunacy, whose Boulder Theater premiere was to a standing-room-only crowd that hooted whenever a long-gone club was featured.

“Boulder has always been fortunate to have a club that brings in national as well as local acts,” Rucker says. We all have nostalgia for places like Shannon’s and Tulagi because we all remember the first time we got drunk, threw up or got lucky there, or the first time we got wildly excited about a band.”

For the past decade, Fox Theatre has been that club, but in the ’70s, neighboring Tulagi on the Hill featured the Eagles as they honed their act before releasing their first album. Tulagi was also the site of the first-ever non-Texas gig for ZZ Top, a trio that became as famous for their beards and sunglasses as for their music. Shannon’s, Peggy’s Hi-Lo, Molly’s Back Room, Good Earth, Potter’s, Olympic Saloon and the Walrus were also popular clubs.

In the ’80s, The Blue Note, Boulder Theater and the Boulder Wave began hosting national acts. Today, Boulder Theater still books big-name concerts, and the Chautauqua Summer Festival features national acts every year.

Think Globally, Perform Locally

The measure of a music scene isn’t national acts, however. It’s the heart and soul of local musicians playing for hometown crowds. Fortunately, Boulder has never had a dearth of bands or fans.

Boulder’s first band of note was the Astronauts, whose early 1960s hit, Baja, featured instrumental surf music. Another ’60s group, Flash Cadillac and the Continental Kids, gained a reputation for wild, out-of-control shows at clubs like Tulagi. Because of those performances, Flash was featured playing oldies in the 1972 film American Graffiti and on a 1974 episode of Happy Days. The band also appeared in the USO concert scene in Apocalypse Now, while continuing to tear up Boulder stages. Now based in Colorado Springs, Flash continues to perform with symphonies nationwide. The band’s new singer, Timothy P. Irvin, formerly of Rural Route 3, another Boulder country band, replaces longtime lead singer Sam McFadin, who died in 2001.

The 4Nikators, a spin-off band formed by original Flash drummer Harold Fielden, has maintained the band’s raucous reputation via Boulder clubs and private performances for corporate clients worldwide. As you can guess by their name, the 4Nikators play hard but don’t take themselves too seriously.

The ’60s gave way to the ’70s and a new era of Boulder music characterized by a Boulder blues-rock band called Zephyr, which featured the husband-wife team of bassist David and vocalist Candy Givens, along with whiz-kid guitarist Tommy Bolin. Zephyr had a fanatical following—and a major label deal—but never broke the national charts.

Bolin left Zephyr early on to join the James Gang for two albums and then the popular hard-rock band Deep Purple. He also released two solo albums, Teaser and Private Eyes. A talented guitarist with a penchant for mixing his rock chops with a jazzy mentality, Bolin bought heavily into the rock star cliché, but his career was cut short when he died of a drug overdose in 1976.

In the early ’70s, another young guitarist and CU student named Jock Bartley happened to catch a concert by country-rock pioneer and former Byrds band member Gram Parsons, who was touring at the time with Emmylou Harris. Bartley auditioned for Parsons and a week later became part of the Fallen Angels Band, touring the country until Parsons OD’d in 1973. When Bartley returned to Boulder, he replaced Bolin in Zephyr, which continued playing in various configurations into the ’80s.

Also during the ’70s, Boulder became a popular hangout for well-known national musicians including former Buffalo Springfield member Richie Furay, who fronted the acclaimed country-rock band Poco; former James Gang frontman Joe Walsh (whom Bolin was hired to replace); and Stephen Stills of Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, who moved to Gold Hill and even joined the volunteer fire department. Producer James Guercio’s Caribou Ranch recording studio in nearby Nederland also attracted a gauntlet of stars, from Elton John, Tom Petty and the late John Denver to Chicago and Dan Fogelberg, who formerly lived by Rollinsville and now lives near Pagosa Springs, Colo.

Magic Music, another ’70s band, looms large in the annals of Boulder rock. The group played acoustic-based music and featured a young Chris Daniels, who’d been playing with an earlier group named Rosewood Canyon. “We did the hippie thing,” says Daniels, a former Boulderite who now lives in Denver. “We lived in school buses and a donut truck in Eldorado Canyon. Our music was like a mix of String Cheese Incident, Leftover Salmon and the old British folk band Pentangle. We had two acoustic guitars, a flute, bass and percussion, usually tablas. The songs had a lot of elves, druids and fairies in them. We had all kinds of brushes with fame.”

Magic Music performed at the first two Telluride Bluegrass Festivals in ’73 and ’74, and the first Earth Day Festival in 1970. It also held its own in local clubs and was often booked at the Good Earth, along with the funky Freddi-Henchi Band. “Back then it worked,” Daniels says. “The hippies would get all blissed out and mellow with Magic Music, then Freddi-Henchi would take the stage and everyone would get the soul shakes.”

Daniels left Boulder to earn a B.A. in music theory at the University of California, Berkeley, then returned as a member of Spoons, an influential Boulder country-rock band. In the early ’80s, he toured with former Amazing Rhythm Aces frontman Russell Smith, who lived in Boulder at the time. Daniels later formed a rhythm-and-blues horn band, Chris Daniels & the Kings, as a one-night joke. Eighteen years later, the band has produced nine album, tours worldwide and still plays local gigs including one on July 3 at the courthouse plaza on Pearl Street Mall.

At the time, the country-rock sound pioneered by Parsons and popularized by groups like Poco was a commercial mainstay nationally and in Boulder. Firefall was a Boulder-born group that polished the sound to become famous. Formed by Jock Bartley and songwriter Rick Roberts, Firefall had a string of mid-’70s and early ’80s hits such as You are the Woman, Mexico and Just Remember I Love You. Boulder’s Navarro split the difference between Magic Music and Firefall. The group played area clubs until Carole King picked them up as her backup group, then released two major label albums in the late ’70s. Another ’70s Boulder band, Sugarloaf, also had a couple of top-40 hits: Green Eyed Lady and Don’t Call Us, We’ll Call You.

Miles of Styles

Along with country rock, a folksier type of music popularized early on by the national band Hot Rize kept Boulder on the musical map. Nominally a bluegrass group, Hot Rize featured “Dr. Banjo” Pete Wernick, bassist Nick Forster, mandolinist Tim O’Brien and guitarist Charles Sawtelle, all of whom sang and played a quirky mix of traditional and contemporary standards and originals. The group kept sets lively through appearances by their alter-ego country group, Red Knuckles and the Trailblazers. Sawtelle died a few years ago, but Forster is still a Boulder mainstay who, together with his wife Helen, hosts the national weekly radio program E-Town recorded live at Boulder Theater. Wernick still performs, and O’Brien, now based in Nashville, is a respected singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist.

Boulder’s folk scene usually doesn’t get credit, but groups such as Ophelia Swing Band, which played acoustic swing and blues in the early ’70s, influenced local musicians to a large degree. Other folksinger/songwriters—from Scott Seskind in the ’80s to Wendy Woo today—also called Boulder home. Folk music’s influence is still apparent vis-à-vis popular Boulder bands such as Left Hand String Band, String Cheese Incident, Leftover Salmon and Yonder Mountain String Band, which all play eclectic “jamming” rock infused with bluegrass.

Rhythm and blues also thrived in Boulder through the efforts of Tim Duffy and his James Brown-inspired Orchestra of Clouds, and the venerable Freddi-Henchi Band. With its brassy horn arrangements and dance repertoire, Freddi-Henchi was the ultimate party band, a reputation that continues today. Catch their act Aug. 7 at the courthouse plaza. “They were a trip,” Roche says of the band. “The Good Earth was my favorite place, and I used to sneak in [he was underage] during Freddi-Henchi’s prime. They were a lot like Earth, Wind and Fire.”

Boulder’s jazz community has a spot in history, too. World-renowned saxophonist Spike Robinson lived here for years and was a fixture in area clubs before relocating to the United Kingdom, where he died last year in his adopted hometown of Writtle. In the 1980s, the vocal chemistry of Rare Silk earned this women’s a capella jazz group a major label record deal. Managed by Roche and his partner, Patrick Cullie, Rare Silk earned three Grammy nominations and toured worldwide, but always returned to Boulder.

Boulder was also home to Colorado’s first punk-rock band. In 1977, a group called the Ravers recorded Cops Are Punks at Boulder’s Mountain Ears Studio. The single received national press from the then highly regarded magazine Trouser Press. Eric Boucher was a young Ravers fan and roadie who attended Boulder High School. He later changed his name to Jello Biafra and formed the very influential and popular Dead Kennedys band.

Another Boulder punk band, the Corvairs, was formed in 1978 by two CU students, Phil Gammage and Miles Syken. Other punk bands with names like The Transistors and The Raves rocked local clubs. The Milkmen was a one-night sensation that won a KBCO song contest but never followed through with performances.

Other regulars on Boulder marquees included rhythm-and-blues/rock saxophonist Kat Orlando (now playing in Detroit); the Rockin’ Rudolphs, a seasonal favorite; and New Orleans-flavored Gris Gris led by singer-songwriter and keyboardist Steve Conn. In the early ’80s, Conn was a regular soloist at the Hotel Boulderado’s mezzanine, where he combined wide-ranging musical tastes with political commentary and an acerbic wit. Guests often sat in on his sets, including longtime friend Sonny Landreth, a Louisiana slide guitarist who was part of the early ’70s Magic Music scene.

Riding a New Wave

As new wave carried Boulder into the ’80s, a less party-oriented, more mature music industry developed. Notable bands such as Electric Third Rail strove for national attention but never got it. By the late ’80s, however, bands such as Big Head Todd and the Monsters and The Samples had shots at major record deals. The Samples even brought their label, W.A.R.? (What Are Records?), to Boulder. A New Orleans band, the subdudes, relocated to Fort Collins and regularly played at JJ McCabe’s and the Boulder Theater until eventually signing with a major label.

Big Head Todd developed a huge following playing at JJ McCabe’s, but drummer Brian Nevin says private parties at CU fraternities jump-started their career. “There are a lot of great die-hard music fans in Boulder, but we started in an era when mostly college students went out to see live bands,” Nevin says. “Playing parties really established our audience. That’s how we got a weekly gig at McCabe’s. Plus, a lot of college kids were from out-of-state, which helped us establish fan bases in cities like Chicago and San Francisco. Wherever we toured, CU students would tell their friends about us.” The band recently released Riviera—its seventh album and first studio recording in years—and plays Red Rocks on July 27.

Another regular Boulder band was a four-piece acoustic group called the Predictors. Like many club bands, the Predictors played mostly cover material, focusing on folk-rock and country rock. Their mainstay was a cozy club called Brandy’s in the Boulder Inn, but the group also made the rounds of other late-’80s venues including Peggy’s Hi-Lo, the Sundan

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