Author: Nic

Let Me Take You Down (To The Basement)-The Denver Be-In

The first “Human Be-In” which took place in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park on January 14, 1967 was a seismic event that helped set the tone of the counter-culture toward the end of the 1960s. An all-day event featuring many of the great San Francisco bands of the day, and a number of speakers, poets, chanters and, most famously, Timothy Leary telling the assembled crowd to “Tune In, Turn On And Drop Out.” A seminal event by any standard. 

My wife Jill, a freshman at Berkeley at the time, was in attendance. Just to add a little reality to the scene, she claims to have been largely unaware of the music and drug subtext, but rather paints a picture of an innocent idealist in a plaid jumper there to raise her fist in political solidarity with the civil rights and anti-war movement. When she first sold me this picture, I was outraged at her popping of my hippie fantasy balloon, but as time has passed, this image has, in fact, endeared her to me even more. The ‘60s meant a lot of different things to different people, and overlaying a stereotypical scenario on top of her already fascinating and righteous life just seems silly. However, that day did change people’s feelings, and popular history has taken what it has wanted from the event. 

What many people may not know, is that the idea of a ‘Be-In’–an event for the youthful tribes to gather in a public space and fully freak, peak or politically activate– happened in a number of cities during the ensuing months. Incredibly, it happened in the Mile High City on September 24, 1967 at our very own City Park. I first found out about it during my career as an English teacher at Smokey Hill High School in the 1980s. 

One day after class, one of my students came into my office and said: “hey, you like The Grateful Dead don’t you? Well, my dad works for the Rocky Mountain News, and he found this picture in the paper’s archives and said you’d get a kick out of it.” My jaw hit the floor! I was looking at a black & white photo of The Grateful Dead playing on what are now the steps leading up to the west entrance of what was then called the Denver Natural History Museum (now Denver Museum of Nature & Science). There were no steps then; the band set up on a grassy landing in front of maybe a few hundred people. The crowd looked totally appropriate to the times, and the band looked like babies. A clean-shaven Jerry Garcia played a Guild Starfire guitar through wildly primitive amplification. In a different photo from the same event, he can be seen playing a psychedelic-painted guitar that I hadn’t seen before. Pigpen played an ancient organ. A shirtless Phil Lesh looks like he’s high, while a barely-adult Bob Weir is wearing striped high-water bellbottoms. 

What! Am! I ! Seeing! Here? Is this real? 

Yes! The more I looked at it, the more I could recognize that this was indeed Denver’s City Park, and this was indeed The Dead in 1967. I thanked the kid profusely and asked him if his father could get his hands on anything else documenting the event. He came back a few weeks later with a handful of other pictures:  a close up of Jerry; a close-up of Pigpen; different angles of the full band set-up; and, best of all, a color shot of the group. I was so thankful. I just couldn’t believe it. How was it possible I had never heard of this show? I was now on a mission.

Over the next decade or so, I learned this was The Denver Human Be-In, held the afternoon after The Dead had played two nights at The Family Dog. No set lists, recordings or photos exist of those two shows (just an amazing poster—-see my previous blog about The Family Dog to get a look at it). They remain a holy-grail search for Deadheads worldwide to this day. Similarly, virtually no information exists about The Dead’s set at the Be-In either. As it turns out, the event featured The Dead, Captain Beefheart, Tracy Nelson and Mother Earth, and Denver bands Lothar & The Hand People and The Crystal Palace Guard. This was a real event, and it happened right here in Denver. What a trip. 

I’ve met a few people who claimed to have been there, or had some information about the event. Unfortunately, none of it bore fruit. Memories were faulty and documentation non-existent.
I’ve been able to blow many minds with those pictures, but I had come to believe that the evidence I had was probably all that we’d ever see.

Fast forward to 2023 and the week after I sell my record store, Twist And Shout to my long-time manager Patrick Brown. I get a call from him saying an older gentleman has brought in a handful of old posters and would I mind evaluating them for purchase. I start going through them: Family Dog posters and other neat vintage items, unfortunately in poor condition. Then, I get to the final image and HOLY SHIT-it’s a poster for The Denver BE-IN. I can’t believe it. I immediately scour the internet for any other copy of this item (knowing full-well from past research it didn’t exist). I tell Patrick, yes, I will happily evaluate this collection, but I MUST OWN THAT BE-IN POSTER!!!! Patrick, sympathetic to my lifelong quest for Denver Rock relics, kindly purchased and gave me the poster in Day-Glo orange that actually says “The Denver Be-In” on it. The artist’s name appears at the bottom, but I can find nothing out about him. The gent who sold the poster claimed to have purchased it at the time but couldn’t provide any more details. The poster is one of my proudest possessions, and I encourage (no, beg) anybody with any first-hand information on this event to come forward and share!

Yes folks, the 1960s happened in Colorado, and here’s the proof.

– Paul Epstein, Co-Chair, Colorado Music Hall of Fame; founder/former owner of Twist & Shout; music historian and archivist

“I moved to Colorado in 1968 and started going to concerts almost immediately. I eagerly grabbed posters, flyers, ticket stubs, advertisements, concert recordings, pretty much any proof I could find that the event happened. In 1988, I started a record store called Twist & Shout, and my collecting of memorabilia went into even higher gear. Over the next 34 years, I had rare access to memorabilia of all types and sizes. Now that I’ve retired, the time seems right to start sharing these things, and the stories that go with them. So, every other Tuesday, I will ask you to Let Me Take You Down (to the basement) to check out some of the good stuff!” – Paul Epstein

 

I remember the first time I walked into the Rainbow Music Hall. It was not for a concert, because the building was then a tri-plex movie theatre. It stood on a piece of ground that had been adjacent to the Valley Drive-In Theatre (1953-1977) on the southwest corner of Evans and Monaco. Later the entire corner was redeveloped, and The Rainbow Music Hall was born from the removal of all interior walls of the movie theatre. Under the guidance of Colorado Music Hall of Fame Inductees Barry Fey and Chuck Morris, and boasting “Sound by Listen Up,” the theatre was an incredible upgrade to the Denver music scene. Intimate (capacity just under 1,500), perfect sight-lines, and what seemed like impossibly good sound, it provided a truly world-class venue to see truly world-class acts. When I think back to all I saw there, it’s almost hard to imagine. Yet, The Rainbow stayed open for only a decade –from 1979 until 1989. A full list of the ~1,000 acts that played there is available several places online, but I’m not sure any are completely accurate. 

Who was most impressive you ask? 

Well, just a small sampling of the amazing acts that graced that stage: Miles Davis, U2, The Police, The English Beat, Jerry Garcia Band (and his Jazz side-project Reconstruction), David Bromberg, Rickie Lee Jones (on her first national tour), The Blasters, Los Lobos, a drunken but musically valid Gene Clark, Cheech & Chong, a super young and hungry Stevie Ray Vaughan, The Ramones and of course, three nights of Bob Dylan playing an incredibly charged show of gospel (and no hits). 

At that Dylan show, genius poet and American treasure, Allen Ginsburg (then a resident of Boulder, thanks to The Naropa Institute) sat one row behind me. Mid-show Dylan pointed at him and said: “Don’t be taken in by false prophets, there is only one true way,” and he pointed skyward. At the time, I was furious and shocked, but with the passage of years I recognize those shows as being some of the best I ever saw. Whatever schtick Dylan is on (God, Sinatra, Blues or his own brand of brilliance) is just fine with me. 

Any night at The Rainbow was a great night in my book. It was all ages, and as I recall, this took the emphasis off booze inside the venue. I do remember waiting in line all day (most, if not all, shows were general admission) and getting plenty lit up in line–it was a real party out there. The lack of loud bar ambience now seems like a stroke of incredible luck. There weren’t hecklers, fights or stupid call outs for “Free Bird,” because everyone was there for the music. What I wouldn’t do to return to that place for one night. . .

I’m not exactly sure why The Rainbow closed, but it was a huge loss to the Denver music scene. In my opinion, there has never been another venue that matched both the booking with the sound, intimacy and ambience of that room. You knew you were lucky when you sat in one of those folding chairs in front of a legend like Miles or Bob, or took in a new act like U2. It was one of the major stepping stones of turning Denver from a small to a major music market– truly, one of the most important venues in Colorado history!

Photo caption: A friend and customer of Twist And Shout gave me this battered and rusted piece of metal that said “Hall” on it—part of the marquee. As The Rainbow was being torn down, he and a buddy jumped over the construction fence and grabbed this one memento of the Denver landmark.

Photo caption: An ad from the opening night (Jerry Jeff Walker) handbill showing the first months of bookings. 

Photo caption: Handbill for Jerry Garcia’s band “Reconstruction” which has a nice photo of The Rainbow shot from the west.

 

– Paul Epstein, Co-Chair, Colorado Music Hall of Fame; founder/former owner of Twist & Shout; music historian and archivist

“I moved to Colorado in 1968 and started going to concerts almost immediately. I eagerly grabbed posters, flyers, ticket stubs, advertisements, concert recordings, pretty much any proof I could find that the event happened. In 1988, I started a record store called Twist & Shout, and my collecting of memorabilia went into even higher gear. Over the next 34 years, I had rare access to memorabilia of all types and sizes. Now that I’ve retired, the time seems right to start sharing these things, and the stories that go with them. So, every other Tuesday, I will ask you to Let Me Take You Down (to the basement) to check out some of the good stuff!” – Paul Epstein

The Denver Family Dog – Part 2

This week’s installment is a continuation of my musing on the lack of documentation and recording of the incredible shows played at Denver’s legendary The Family Dog. When one considers that Hendrix, Cream, Van Morrison, Zappa and so many other legendary artists played there, the fact that no tapes or film from inside the venue have surfaced and only a couple of photos, is shocking. There are tapes in existence from virtually all the other major venues from the ‘60s. 

To be precise, there circulates one song of The Doors (“Light My Fire”) in terrible quality, and one concert by the Mothers of Invention from May 3, 1968 (pretty good quality) and that is it! In the 50 plus years since its heyday nothing else has surfaced. How is this possible?

Early on in my career at Twist And Shout, I had a great customer named Ron Babcock. He was a native Denverite, who told me he had gone to every show at The Family Dog. He had some pretty specific recall of certain shows. From the stuff he purchased, I could tell he was a big-time music fan who had really seen some stuff in his life. He had detailed recollections of Van Morrison, The Doors, Blue Cheer and a few others. An interesting side note about Ron was that he was always covered with paint when he came into the store. I finally asked him if he was a painter, and he informed me that he was an assistant to legendary Denver expressionist Vance Kirkland (now the subject of a beautiful museum at 1201 Bannock Street in Denver). Our conversations started to revolve around Kirkland instead of The Family Dog. I wish I had been more persistent. In a way I am torn between thinking it is a great tragedy to history that no evidence exists, but in another sense, the lack of evidence has just added to the mystery and excitement of the place.

The legacy of The Family Dog is larger than you might realize. If he hadn’t built his reputation there, Barry Fey might not have had the wherewithal to build Feyline Productions into one of the most successful promotion companies in the world. He went on to literally change the face of concert promotion along with Bill Graham, Ron Delsener and a few others. He ended up eclipsing his original mentor Chet Helms in a big way. 

In the concert business, there are what they call tertiary, secondary and primary markets. It is fair to say that in 1967 all of Colorado was a very tertiary market, but through Fey’s groundbreaking work, Colorado has become a primary market. We have an abundance of incredible indoor and outdoor venues of all sizes. Also, Denver has moved from a semi-sleepy “cow-town” to a bastion of cutting-edge cultural innovation and progressive thought. Much of our state is unrecognizable from what it was in 1967 (for good or ill), but there along West Evans Avenue, the sight of historical innovation remains essentially untouched. My kids both live on the west side of town these days, and it has caused me to drive up West Evans a lot. No matter how many times I drive by 1601 West Evans, where The Family Dog once stood, I always get an excited chill at the history and what was to come.

Which leads us to the posters. Almost immediately upon moving to Denver in 1968, I became aware of the fact that there were psychedelic concert posters from this music venue that had recently closed. In those pre-internet days, it was really hard to get any firsthand information, so the process of figuring out the story has been a lifelong passion project for me. Over the next many years, I made it my business to track the posters down. They were pretty plentiful to find back in the 1970s but not so much anymore. They were produced in the Bay Area by the same artists who were doing the posters for the Avalon, Fillmore, Carousel etc., so these were the real thing. The best of the psychedelic artists, producing artwork for the cream of the 60s bands for shows on West Evans—absolutely mind-blowing!

-Quicksilver Messenger Service with local boys Super Band (several of whom would go on to be in Sugarloaf, a Colorado Music Hall of Fame inductee). This poster references Quicksilver’s Happy Trails LP, and really captures the nexus of the psychedelic and cowboy worlds.

-Grateful Dead – Two nights with Tracy Nelson and Mother Earth. This is the rarer variation of the poster with the name of the band written on the skull. Even in the ultra-completist world of Grateful Dead concert collecting, no copies of these shows exist.

-The Doors, Lothar And The Hand People and Captain Beefheart. This gorgeous Bob Schepf design, utilizing a Gustave Dore lithograph is probably one of the most sought after posters from The Family Dog. A masterpiece! Denver Band Lothar and The Hand People would go on to be enormously influential to modern bands in the decades to come.

-Jim Kweskin Jug Band with Solid Muldoon-two shows-one in San Francisco, one in Denver, designed by Rick Griffin and Victor Moscoso, make for one of the most unique presentations in rock poster history

-Chuck Berry (backed by Denver band New World Blues Dictionary) with The Sons Of Champlin. This Rick Griffin design is impossible to read, because it is in a made-up language.

 

-The Doors, The Allmen Joy, Gingerbread Blu-3 nights culminating on New Year’s Eve 1967. One of the most important Rick Griffin designs and possibly the most emblematic of all The Family Dog shows-The Doors would indeed “Break On Through” to much wider acclaim shortly thereafter. But this New Years Eve they played to less than a thousand Coloradans on West Evans.

– January 12 and 13, 1968–A rarely seen poster featuring American Standard (which was Colorado Music Hall of Fame inductee Tommy Bolin’s pre-Zephyr group), Beggar’s Opera Co., and 8th Penny Matter. Interestingly, this poster incorporates the Rocky Mountains as part of the design. A couple of local bands playing in the 60s at a legendary psychedelic ballroom. 

-Six handbills from The Family Dog

– Paul Epstein, Co-Chair, Colorado Music Hall of Fame; founder/former owner of Twist & Shout; music historian and archivist

“I moved to Colorado in 1968 and started going to concerts almost immediately. I eagerly grabbed posters, flyers, ticket stubs, advertisements, concert recordings, pretty much any proof I could find that the event happened. In 1988, I started a record store called Twist & Shout, and my collecting of memorabilia went into even higher gear. Over the next 34 years, I had rare access to memorabilia of all types and sizes. Now that I’ve retired, the time seems right to start sharing these things, and the stories that go with them. So, every other Tuesday, I will ask you to Let Me Take You Down (to the basement) to check out some of the good stuff!” – Paul Epstein

Any discussion of the music history of Colorado or the development of Denver as a cultural hub must invariably lead back to The Family Dog concert venue. In 1967, Colorado music promoting legend and Hall of Famer Barry Fey and his (former) wife Cynthia decided there should be a club in Denver that participated in the nascent “ballroom” music scene. The scene had been gaining traction on both coasts, especially in San Francisco, where hippie promoters Chet Helms and his partner Bob Cohen) were making waves with their communal organization called Family Dog Productions. Helms was mixing the best bands of the day with psychedelic light shows and having extraordinary results–at least artistically (The Family Dog was never really a profitable entity). The Feys went to San Francisco to discuss the possibility of opening a venue in Denver similar to Helms’ Avalon Ballroom. 

Amazingly, they left with a partnership to open a hip spot for psychedelic concert happenings in Denver. On September 8 and 9^th in 1967, Big Brother & The Holding Company (with Janis Joplin), Blue Cheer and Colorado band Eighth Penny Matter opened the venue, which closed only 10 months later. Promising great things on the horizon, the poster for the grand-opening concert is a classic Rick Griffin design with so many fantastic design elements, and really portends to the exciting, optimistic adventure the venue and society was heading towards.

But, almost immediately, Denver police made the venue the subject of intense scrutiny with an eye towards stamping out the youth movement bubbling up worldwide. Colorado was still a pretty conservative place when I moved here in 1968, and the powers that be were wary of radical behavior popping up in their usually quiet city. The details of this conflict as well as so much more about The Family Dog can be seen in the important documentary Tale Of The Dog. Released in 2020 by Colorado filmmakers Dan Obarski and Scott Montgomery, this film is an important reference for Colorado music and should be sought out by all serious students of the scene (currently available on both Apple TV and Amazon Prime).

There are a number of factors about The Family Dog story that draw my attention besides the obvious musical connections. There is the confounding lack of evidence to be found about the venue. There is the legacy of the posters, the ongoing impact of the venue and its place at the crossroads of Colorado history. 

I drove over to 1601 West Evans yesterday, as I have many times over the years in an effort to glean something (photos are of the current building). Denver county line ends on just the other side of Evans, so this really is and was the outskirts of town. Both property costs and the ability to stay under the radar must have been factors in Barry Fey’s decision-making when he signed the lease. It’s hard to get the vibe at all these days. The building has been a strip club for a long time. It’s also hard to find info on the building before it became The Family Dog, but it was owned by a lawyer named Francis Salazar. He would end up being involved in the legal turmoil of the venue as it unfolded. There is a suggestion that it was a strip club before it became The Family Dog, but I am unable to confirm this. 

                          

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After The Family Dog closed, it became Francis Salazar’s law office, before becoming PT’s Gentleman’s Club which it remains to this day. The neighborhood has always been a mix of light industrial and mid- to low-income housing, and nothing has changed. It truly is one of the +few stretches of Denver that looks essentially like it did in 1967, and from the outside, other than the newfangled electronic signage, the building is remarkably unchanged. As I walked around the building I was struck by how large the parking lot was. It seemed like back in the unregulated days, the grounds of the building could accommodate maybe 50 cars. There was also ample neighborhood parking. As I stood by the side-doors I pondered a young Jim Morrison or Grace Slick standing there nervously catching a breath before going on stage to a crowd of young Coloradans. 

What the scene around the venue was like back in 1968 is just hard to imagine. I’ve spoken to many people who were, or claim to have been, at some or all of the shows at The Family Dog, and the lack of detail they can recall is breathtaking. There is a hackneyed trope about ‘if you remember the 60s, you weren’t really there’ which I have always dismissed. Because I did live through it, and I remember with technicolor clarity the events I witnessed. However, I can find almost nobody with specific details about the bands that played, what the sets were or what the light show experience (provided by Diogenes Lantern Works) was like. The dance floor was psychedelically-painted and coated with clear plastic, and yet there are no pictures showing the full color and glory of it

– Paul Epstein, Co-Chair, Colorado Music Hall of Fame; founder/former owner of Twist & Shout; music historian and archivist

“I moved to Colorado in 1968 and started going to concerts almost immediately. I eagerly grabbed posters, flyers, ticket stubs, advertisements, concert recordings, pretty much any proof I could find that the event happened. In 1988, I started a record store called Twist & Shout, and my collecting of memorabilia went into even higher gear. Over the next 34 years, I had rare access to memorabilia of all types and sizes. Now that I’ve retired, the time seems right to start sharing these things, and the stories that go with them. So, every other Tuesday, I will ask you to Let Me Take You Down (to the basement) to check out some of the good stuff!” – Paul Epstein

 

 

 

Did you know Led Zeppelin played their first American concert on December 26, 1968 at the Denver Auditorium Arena? The Auditorium and Arena, built in 1908 and holding over 12,000 people was the sight of so many great rock concerts in the 60s and 70s. Torn down in 1990, the sight is now home to the Temple Buell Theatre and Ellie Caulkins Opera House. 

But in 1968, Led Zeppelin was added at the last minute to a sold-out bill at the Auditorium and Arena, under American bands Spirit and Vanilla Fudge. Led Zeppelin ended up playing much of that tour as the opening act. In light of how historically significant the band has become, it’s kind of hard to believe promoter Barry Fey had to have his arm-twisted to add them to his already sold-out show in Denver. Reportedly the band was paid $500 for their performance! Yet it was the beginning of an ascent to greatness matched by very few other bands. 

The fact that Zeppelin started this incredible climb right here in our home town is a cool enough story; however there are a few footnotes that make this story even more historically relevant. First is the relationship that existed/evolved over the years between Zep and Spirit. In ‘68, ‘69 and ‘70 Zep occasionally covered the Spirit song Fresh Garbage in their sets. Spirit, formed in California in 1967, originally consisted of guitarist/songwriter Randy California, drummer Ed Cassidy, Colorado Music Hall of Fame inductee Mark Andes (later a member of Firefall), Jay Ferguson and John Locke. Over many years and lineups (always including California and Cassidy), Spirit became a highly respected and prolific band; although aside from a couple of fantastic singles, mainstream success eluded them. 

In 2014, Mark Andes filed a copyright infringement suit against Led Zeppelin saying that the opening chords of their epic hit Stairway To Heaven was ripped off from the Spirit song Taurus. A quick listen will confirm the similarity; however Led Zeppelin ended up prevailing in the suit. It was a very interesting case to follow and one has to marvel at the fact that such a large case started at a gig on the night after Christmas –right here in Denver. 

On a more personal level, this show has loomed large in my world because of the photograph you see displayed. Early in my career at Twist and Shout, I had a great customer named Steve “Jellyroll” Morton, who fronted a Denver cover band called Sticky Fingers for many years. Steve came in all the time, and we became friends. He told me he had been at Led Zeppelin’s first show and that it had been in Denver. I was disbelieving (this was before the internet, so affirmation was more of a challenge) and asked him to prove it. 

The next day, Jellyroll came in and pulled a photo out from inside his trench coat. My jaw dropped. An absolutely pristine photo of Jimmy Page looking like a young angel with his bow across the strings of his famous, psychedelically painted 1959 Fender Telecaster—the same one he had used on stage for years and to record such iconic songs as Stairway To Heaven. The picture was unreal, and Jellyroll said: “I was there to see Spirit, and I just stuck my camera above my head and that’s the photo I got.” I asked him to make me a copy, and he graciously obliged. It hung in Twist and Shout for many years. 

Fast forward to 1995 and I get a call from the office of Denver rock promoter Barry Fey. He’d heard about the photo and wanted to present a copy to Jimmy Page at his upcoming Page and Plant concert at Fiddler’s Green. It seems somewhere in the 70s, a roadie, thinking he was doing Page a favor, painted over Jimmy’s personal customization. The guitar had been a gift from Jeff Beck in 1967 and in spite of it being broken, it was a favorite item of Page’s. He wanted a photo of that original paint job. So arrangements were made and a photo was presented to Page backstage at his memorable Fiddler’s Green concert. 

Less than a year later, I get another call. This time it is a bigtime guitar gear collector in England who has heard about the picture and that a rare Marshall amplifier head can be seen behind Page in the photo. Again, we go through a bunch of back and forth and eventually he gets the image and publishes an article about it in a British guitar magazine. Funny. 

The photo now sits on my wall at the top of a stairway, so that every time I emerge from my listening room and head upstairs, it is the first thing I see. I love that photo, and I love that everything ties back to one Denver fan who randomly stuck his camera up in the air in 1968 and made history. Thanks Jellyroll!

– Paul Epstein, Co-Chair, Colorado Music Hall of Fame; founder/former owner of Twist & Shout; music historian and archivist

“I moved to Colorado in 1968 and started going to concerts almost immediately. I eagerly grabbed posters, flyers, ticket stubs, advertisements, concert recordings, pretty much any proof I could find that the event happened. In 1988, I started a record store called Twist & Shout, and my collecting of memorabilia went into even higher gear. Over the next 34 years, I had rare access to memorabilia of all types and sizes. Now that I’ve retired, the time seems right to start sharing these things, and the stories that go with them. So, every other Tuesday, I will ask you to Let Me Take You Down (to the basement) to check out some of the good stuff!” – Paul Epstein

 

 

 

Colorado’s event ticketing laws are under scrutiny. As an advocate for Colorado’s music community, Colorado Music Hall of Fame endorses Senate Bill 60 “Consumer Protection in Event Ticketing Sales,” currently being reviewed by the Colorado’s House of Representatives.

The ticketing systems in Colorado are rife with challenges for ticket-buyers, as well as musicians and their promoters. Scalpers and bots come in and buy up tickets at face value, and then inflate the prices to re-sell them. Taylor Swift made international news when her 2023 tour went on sale; tickets for her shows are being sold for as high as $30,000 a ticket on the resale market! This has to stop. It doesn’t help anyone…except the resellers.

Musicians should be in control of setting ticket prices for their shows and making them affordable for their fans.

Just this month, British band The Cure made headlines calling out Colorado’s ticketing laws as the band attempted to keep its show prices low. On March 10, The Cure made this statement to its fans on Twitter (and the story was picked up by numerous media outlets)…

“Unfortunately, despite our desire to protect our low ticket prices for fans, the states of NY, IL and CO make this very difficult – they actually have laws in place that protect scalpers! For shows in these states we urge fans to buy or sell tickets to one another on face value exchanges like twickets.live and cashortrade.org. Fans should avoid buying tickets that are being resold at inflated prices by scalpers, and the sites that host these scalpers should refrain from reselling tickets for our shows.”

We need to put the power back into the hands of the musicians and the industry supporting them. And we need to keep music and entertainment ticket prices from being prohibitive. 

Anchored by Red Rocks Amphitheatre, named the most visited venue in the world, Colorado is the music state of the United States, with prolific music tourism. And Colorado’s music industry—from the local musicians to the crew workers, venue managers, promoters, production staff and more—has a major impact on Colorado’s GDP. Colorado needs to be leading the way with laws that protect musicians and consumers; instead, we’re trailing far behind. 

YOU too can help ensure that Senate Bill 60 passes. Show your support for Colorado’s vibrant music community by participating in the legislative process:

• submit a written testimony;
• testify before a committee remotely or in person; and
• listen to committee proceedings and watching floor proceedings over the internet.

MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD  (Click the Ticket below)

Were you at this show?

Years ago, while working at Twist And Shout, a small piece of paper fell out of a record I had just purchased. I almost tossed it in the trash. However, I luckily turned it over and noticed that it had a cute illustration on it. When I looked closely, I was startled to see it was either a ticket or a small handbill for a concert at “Univ. of Col. Stadium.” It advertised Country Joe And The Fish, the Steve Miller Band, Buddy Guy, Sons Of Champlin and Tim Hardin. Wow, that’s quite a lineup. How is it I never heard of this event? 

Many years later, I was able to find an image of an actual poster for the event. Apparently on September 7, 1969 (less than a month after Country Joe’s career-making set at Woodstock) these bands played at what we now call Folsom Field (renamed after head C.U. football Coach Fred Folsom in 1944). 

There have been a handful of concerts at Folsom Field over the years, most consider dating back to The Grateful Dead’s legendary performance on September 3, 1972. This Country Joe show predates the Dead by three years; yet I have had an impossible time finding any first-hand proof that this show happened. I’ve never met anybody who claims to have been there, and I can’t seem to find any chatter about it on the internet. How is this possible?

I can only speculate that either it was canceled, or it rained, or that it was so poorly attended that nobody took notice. While possible, this seems unlikely- a week or two into the new semester at C.U., one of the stars of Woodstock heading an all-star line-up on campus. It seems like this show would have been a bigger deal. Which kind of brings me to my point…we here in Colorado are right in the middle of history. Sometimes it’s easy to forget, because history is such a slippery thing, and the minute turn of a news cycle or a major weather event can cancel or alter all memory and coverage of other events. Not that this was a world-shaking event, but it is surprising to me that there seems to be so little public memory or record of it. 

The poster is a cool design by an artist named Hess and has some interesting ticket outlet information at the bottom. The poster also makes mention of lights by spontaneity-I would love to know if this was a local light show company. All said, I prefer the sweet, homemade nature of the original ticket that fell from the album. 

Let us know if you were at this show.

– Paul Epstein, Co-Chair, Colorado Music Hall of Fame; founder/former owner of Twist & Shout; music historian and archivist

“I moved to Colorado in 1968 and started going to concerts almost immediately. I eagerly grabbed posters, flyers, ticket stubs, advertisements, concert recordings, pretty much any proof I could find that the event happened. In 1988, I started a record store called Twist & Shout, and my collecting of memorabilia went into even higher gear. Over the next 34 years, I had rare access to memorabilia of all types and sizes. Now that I’ve retired, the time seems right to start sharing these things, and the stories that go with them. So, every other Tuesday, I will ask you to Let Me Take You Down (to the basement) to check out some of the good stuff!” – Paul Epstein

 

 

 

Colorado Music Hall of Fame is truly honored to be a member of SCFD (the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District). This month in our second year as a SCFD cultural partner, The Hall was awarded over $26,000. SCFD is a sales tax collected and distributed to nearly 300 cultural organizations in the seven-county Denver metro region. SCFD makes our community more vibrant! Read more about how SCFD works in their 2021 Annual Report.

 

“John Denver’s presence here and specifically writing songs that referenced the beauty of the area and this idealized world that people imagined when they heard those songs, I think it had a profound effect on the way people here felt about the state and felt about themselves,” Paul Epstein, Hall of Fame board co-chair as quoted in KUNC, a NPR-affiliate special on John Denver and the song’s anniversary.

On September 16^th, Windstar Records and Secretly Distribution released a reissue of Rocky Mountain High on limited-edition blue vinyl. From the time of its release fifty years ago, Rocky Mountain High has done wonders to promote our lovely state. In 2007, the song officially became Colorado’s second state song. Now in celebration of its historic anniversary, Governor Jared Polis renamed a trail at Golden Canyon State Park the “Rocky Mountain High Trail” in its honor. 

LISTEN TO MORE OF THE NPR SPECIAL https://www.kunc.org/regional-news/2022-09-26/john-denvers-iconic-tune-rocky-mountain-high-turns-50 

Here are some other fun ways you can celebrate John Denver’s historic album and song too:

Visit Colorado Music Hall of Fame’s museum at Red Rocks Trading Post. The Hall has a great display on Denver. And don’t forget to take your Red Rocks pictures next to the ___foot bronze statue of Denver, titled “Spirit” by artist Susan DiCicco, which was donated to Colorado Music Hall of Fame by the Windstar Foundation. 

---

Attend one or the entire week long of concerts and activities from October 5 – 12^th at the John Denver Celebration in Aspen. Perfect timing to also see the leaves changing in the gorgeous Roaring Fork Valley! 

---

Buy John Denver’s limited-edition reissued album and other commemorative anniversary merchandise.

---

Keep your eyes and ears open—more events, concerts and celebrations will continue to be announced through the anniversary on October 30^th!

Colorado Music Hall of Fame is proud to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month this year with our first-ever bilingual exhibits at The Hall’s museum at Red Rocks Trading Post. Come visit the museum, which is free and open 363 days a year.

Here are some other ways to engage in Hispanic Heritage Month in Colorado:

Tune in to KUVO (89.3 Denver, 89.7 Breckenridge) on Sundays during Hispanic Heritage Month—or any month. From 8 am – 5 pm, the station’s programs include: La Nueva Voz, Canción Mexicana, La Raza Rocks, Salsa Con Jazz. And every Friday night from 8 pm to 10 pm is KUVO’s Latin Soul Party.

---

Dance in the streets at the Larimer Sessions all month: on October 1^st with Machu Linea bringing electronic dance to the Square; on October 22^nd with DJ Cyn, spinning Latin-inspired house/dance music; and on October 29^th for Fiesta Finale ft. Los Mocochetes, a Xicanx/Funk band. Larimer Sessions are free, Saturdays through October from 6 pm – 8 pm at Larimer Square in Downtown Denver.

---

Visit the Denver Art Museum’s “Who Tells a Tale Adds a Tail: Latin America and Contemporary Art,” a multi-media exhibition of millennial-generation artists that includes painting, video, sound, digital and performance art, sculpture and textile. Through March 5, 2023, included in regular museum admission.

---

Congratulations to the sixth annual Latin Beats: Sonidos de las Américas for their upcoming sold-out show! In celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month and the Latin culture’s influence on sound in the Americas, the Mexican Cultural Center and the Colorado Symphony present this free concert, showcasing a fusion of traditional, classical, and contemporary music. This year’s show, scheduled for October 6^th is already sold-out, but look for it again next year!