Friday, April 19, 2024
The Ute Theater - Rifle, CO
132 E 4th St., Rifle, CO 81650
Reserved Seating $25/$35
Parker Millsap quickly made a name for himself with his captivating live performances, soulful sound, and character-driven narratives. He's had a string of successes including an appearance on CONAN, a performance with Elton John at the Apple Music Festival, an Austin City Limits taping & an Americana Music Association nomination for Album of the Year. He's shared the stage with folks like Jason Isbell, Shovels & Rope, Patty Griffin, Houndmouth, and many others. Learn more at www.ParkerMilsap.com.
Inspired by the unvarnished honesty of those vintage performances, Linaberry launched The Bones of J.R. Jones in 2012 and, operating as a fully independent artist over the course of the ensuing decade, released three critically acclaimed albums along with a trio of similarly well received EPs; landed his songs in a slew of films and television series including Suits, Daredevil, Longmire, and Graceland; and toured the US and Europe countless times over as a one-man-band, playing guitar or banjo while simultaneously stomping a modified drum kit everywhere from Telluride Blues to Savannah Stopover. Learn more at www.thebonesofjrjones.com.
Monday May 6, 2024
The Rialto Theater - Loveland, CO
228 E 4th St., Loveland, CO
Reserved Seating $49 $59
Wednesday May 8, 2024
The Avalon Theater - Grand Junction, CO
645 Main St, Grand Junction, CO
Reserved Seating $29 $39 $59
As a teen fiddler, Bush was a three-time national champion in the junior division of the National Oldtime Fiddler's Contest. He recorded an instrumental album, Poor Richard's Almanac as a high school senior and in the spring of 1970 attended the Fiddlers Convention in Union Grove, NC. There he heard the New Deal String Band, taking notice of their rock-inspired brand of progressive bluegrass.
Acuff offered him a spot in his band. Bush politely turned down the country titan. It was not the music he wanted to play. He admired the grace of Flatt & Scruggs, loved Bill Monroe - even saw him perform at the Ryman - but he'd discovered electrified alternatives to tradition in the Osborne Brothers and manifest destiny in The Dillards.
See the photo of a fresh-faced Sam Bush in his shiny blue high school graduation gown, circa 1970. Tufts of blonde hair breaking free of the borders of his squared cap, Bush is smiling, flanked by his proud parents. The next day he was gone, bound for Los Angeles. He got as far as his nerve would take him - Las Vegas - then doubled back to Bowling Green.
"I started working at the Holiday Inn as a busboy," Bush recalls. "Ebo Walker and Lonnie Peerce came in one night asking if I wanted to come to Louisville and play five nights a week with the Bluegrass Alliance. That was a big, ol' 'Hell yes, let's go.'"
Bush played guitar in the group, then began playing mandolin after recruiting guitarist Tony Rice to the fold. Following a fallout with Peerce in 1971, Bush and his Alliance mates - Walker, Courtney Johnson, and Curtis Burch - formed the New Grass Revival, issuing the band's debut, New Grass Revival. Walker left soon after, replaced temporarily by Butch Robins, with the quartet solidifying around the arrival of bassist John Cowan.
"There were already people that had deviated from Bill Monroe's style of bluegrass," Bush explains. "If anything, we were reviving a newgrass style that had already been started. Our kind of music tended to come from the idea of long jams and rock & roll songs."
Shunned by some traditionalists, New Grass Revival played bluegrass fests slotted in late-night sets for the "long-hairs and hippies." Quickly becoming a favorite of rock audiences, they garnered the attention of Leon Russell, one of the era's most popular artists. Russell hired New Grass as his supporting act on a massive tour in 1973 that put the band nightly in front of tens of thousands.
At tour's end, it was back to headlining six nights a week at an Indiana pizza joint. But, they were resilient, grinding it out on the road. And in 1975 the Revival first played Telluride, Colorado, forming a connection with the region and its fans that has prospered for 45 years.
Bush was the newgrass commando, incorporating a variety of genres into the repertoire. He discovered a sibling similarity with the reggae rhythms of Marley and The Wailers, and, accordingly, developed an ear-turning original style of mandolin playing. The group issued five albums in their first seven years, and in 1979 became Russell's backing band. By 1981, Johnson and Burch left the group, replaced by banjoist Bela Fleck and guitarist Pat Flynn.
A three-record contract with Capitol Records and a conscious turn to the country market took the Revival to new commercial heights. Bush survived a life-threatening bout with cancer, and returned to the group that'd become more popular than ever. They released chart-climbing singles, made videos, earned Grammy nominations, and, at their zenith, called it quits.
"We were on the verge of getting bigger," recalls Bush. "Or maybe we'd gone as far as we could. I'd spent 18 years in a four-piece partnership. I needed a break. But, I appreciated the 18 years we had."
Bush worked the next five years with Emmylou Harris' Nash Ramblers, then a stint with Lyle Lovett. He took home three-straight IBMA Mandolin Player of the Year awards, 1990-92, (and a fourth in 2007). In 1995 he reunited with Fleck, now a burgeoning superstar, and toured with the Flecktones, reigniting his penchant for improvisation. Then, finally, after a quarter-century of making music with New Grass Revival and collaborating with other bands, Sam Bush went solo.
He's released seven albums and a live DVD over the past two decades. In 2009, the
Americana Music Association awarded Bush the Lifetime Achievement Award for Instrumentalist. Punch Brothers, Steep Canyon Rangers, and Greensky Bluegrass are just a few present-day bluegrass vanguards among so many musicians he's influenced. His performances are annual highlights of the festival circuit, with Bush's joyous perennial appearances at the town's famed bluegrass fest earning him the title, "King of Telluride."
"With this band I have now I am free to try anything. Looking back at the last 50 years of playing newgrass, with the elements of jazz improvisation and rock & roll, jamming, playing with New Grass Revival, Leon, and Emmylou; it's a culmination of all of that," says Bush. "I can unapologetically stand onstage and feel I'm representing those songs well." Learn more at www.SamBush.com.
Copyright © 2023 Sandstone Entertainment, Inc., All rights reserved. | Contact: rw@sandstoneconcerts.com
Sandstone Entertainment Inc. promotes and produces national touring artists in Grand Junction, Colorado and the surrounding area. Sandstone events utilize the highest industry standards for concert production to provide the customer with a first class concert experience.
Sandstone Ticket Hotline: (970) 243-TIXS
Email: rw@sandstoneconcerts.com
Join our mailing list and be the first to get concert updates.