birthdays

SPONSORS

Terrapin Care Station
Cambridge Audio

The protean musician, artist and designer's years in Colorado found him composing, recording and performing countless works.

Tim Duffy

A symposium at Fiske Planetarium convened members of Spontanuity, whose psychedelic light show provided visual background for the Dead’s 1969 concert in Boulder.

Grateful Dead/Spontanuity

Photographer Stephen Collector applied his attention to detail and lighting techniques to the world of ’80s music, a striking portfolio he shares with the Colorado Music Experience.

James Brown
Jimmy Cliff, 1985

Singer Jimmy Cliff, reggae music’s first international hitmaker, died November 24, 2025. He was 81.

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 one of rock’s saddest casualties. But the gruff-voiced singer got his career back on track in the 1980s, staging a heart-warming comeback that saw him sing at the Oscars and win a Grammy for “Up Where We Belong.” Immensely popular in Europe, he had survived in the music business,  seemingly more focused and confident than in any period in his life.

Cleo Brown

Cleo Brown
A vocalist and pianist, Cleo Brown sang bawdy blues songs in the 1930s and 1940s, then retired and became a nurse. She was rediscovered living in Colorado in the late 1980s and returned to recording. She died in 1995.

On Record Book Series

On Record book series

Each volume of the award-winning On Record series gathers over 200 limited and extraordinary images and 100 interview-based profiles spotlighting an array of musical artists.

merch

merchandise

Explore the Colorado Music Experience’s store, stocked with stylish products and gifts for music fans.

hosted by g. brown

A non-profit organization established to preserve the legacies of Colorado music, CoME serves as a repository for informational and archival resources.

Jon Rizzi, G. Brown, Mark Zaremba and Chip Garofalo