Charlie Burrell
For breaking the color barrier in symphony music, the Denver legend is revered by generations of both classical and jazz devotees.
Elton John’s Colorado Connection
In the mid 1970s, the rage among top recording stars was to hole up at “destination studios.” So they headed for Caribou Ranch, near the Boulder County foothills hamlet of Nederland, Colorado. [...]
Bob Dylan’s Hard Rain
At 18 years of age, still lacking any real direction and learning his craft, Bob Dylan was essentially a scrawny kid trying to be a folk singer. He arrived in Denver in the summer of 1960 and [...]
Treat Her Right’s “I Think She Likes Me”
Treat Her Right was considered Boston’s best-kept secret until the punk-blues quartet recorded “I Think She Likes Me,” one of the best oops-she’s-married songs since Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Gimme Three [...]
R.I.P. Joe Cocker
After he reinvented the Beatles’ “With A Little Help from My Friends” and Traffic’s “Feelin’ Alright” in the late 1960s, Joe Cocker descended into a haze of alcohol and drugs, often seeming like [...]
Billy Joel’s Colorado Connection
With 1974’s “Piano Man,” Billy Joel notched his first chart hit. But, as he later explained, “My career was neither here nor there at that time.” For 1976’s Turnstiles, his third album, the piano [...]
Spinal Tap’s Colorado Connection
The funniest movie ever made about rock ‘n’ roll was 1984’s This Is Spinal Tap, a fictional and admirably accurate spoof of heavy metal stereotypes and the music business (penned by director Rob [...]
Starland Vocal Band’s “Afternoon Delight”
Windsong (1975) was probably John Denver’s most nature-inspired album. It lent its name to his newly established record label—formed, he said, to further Colorado musicians and his own [...]
