Herb Kauvar, the owner of the Sink and Tulagi, helped define Boulder’s burgeoning music scene. He steered the Sink through the turbulent ’60s, and Tulagi was known in the early ’70s as a launch pad for every significant act on the upswing—future stars such as the Eagles, Bonnie Raitt and ZZ Top—in every genre, from rock, blues and country to jazz, folk and comedy. He died on October 24, 2020, at age 93.

Time Code

Herb talks with G. Brown about moving to Boulder in 1960 to run the Sink (0:58), selling record-setting quantities of 3.2 beer (4:13), giving Flash Cadillac, Zephyr with Tommy Bolin and other musicians their start at the Sink (6:49), the litany of future stars who performed at Tulagi (10:32), the impact of the counterculture on University Hill (24:53) and a flashback to working at Red Rocks in the ’50s (25:52).