Steve at Telluride #11: Blue Skies, Bluegrass, Blue Canyon Boys
Blue Canyon Boys
If yesterday was relatively light on actual bluegrass music—nary a banjo all day after Tim O’Brien—the festival catches up this morning: The banjos are coming out in full force, starting with last year’s TBF Band Contest winners, The Blue Canyon Boys, dyed in the cornhusk traditionalists—gtr, mando, banjo, bass—all Jim & Jesse harmonies and dark suits. They are first-rate instrumentalists, and they sang tighter-than-hide three-part harmonies around a single mic. Such a beautiful morning–the fans soaking up direct sun and mandolin. Fun cover: Cheap Trick’s “I Want You to Want Me.”
Maybe my brother Shane and I will enter the band contest next year with our two-man combo, Left Ridge, featuring our soon-to-be-written instrumental masterpiece, “Leftridgin’”; after all, I need to find someway to get an artist or press pass again next year—after sitting in the Pit all day yesterday, I’m already getting terribly spoiled.