The CoME 150

Dubbed “the Denver Nightingale,” Billy Murray secures an engagement with Thomas Edison’s National Phonograph Company and becomes the first singer ever to make a living solely from recording.

Elizabeth Spencer, the stepdaughter of the first governor of the Territory of Colorado, makes her professional debut at Denver’s Orpheum Theatre before becoming the most prolific vocalist on Thomas Edison’s staff.

A classically trained violinist and composer raised in Boulder, George Morrison Sr. pioneers one of Colorado’s first jazz orchestras; he achieves international renown by the mid-1920s.

Born in Denver and raised in serious music by his father Wilberforce—the director of music for the Denver Public Schools—Paul Whiteman forms a dance band. He soon becomes the “King of Jazz,” the biggest name in the music business.

Fort Morgan native Glenn Miller, a music student at the University of Colorado, drops out and goes on to become the most successful of all big band leaders.

At age 10, Judy Collins begins classical piano study with Dr. Antonia Brico, a woman conductor; in her teens, Collins trades the keyboard for the fretboard of a second-hand guitar and emerges as a renowned star of the folk genre, claiming Colorado as her home state.

Excelling in both the classical and jazz musical worlds, Charles Burrell lands a job with the Denver Symphony Orchestra, making him the first person of color under contract with a major orchestra.

Rock ’n’ roll pioneer Chuck Berry writes “Sweet Little Sixteen,” his highest-ranking hit of the decade, after being inspired by a young autograph-seeker at the Denver Coliseum.

After graduating from Wheat Ridge High, Dean Reed makes “The Search,” a marginally successful folk-pop single. He then fell in love with leftist politics, settling in Communist bloc countries and electrifying kids as “the Red Elvis.”

Gary Stites, a Wheat Ridge High School rock ’n’ roller who dominates the local scene, scores a big national hit when the teen sound of “Lonely for You” peaks on the Billboard singles chart.

“Denver” by the New Christy Minstrels, a slick, commercial folk-pop group, hits No. 1 on KIMN, the Mile High City’s legendary AM Top 40 radio station.

The Astronauts occupy the Billboard Hot 100 with “Baja,” a surf instrumental—a remarkable feat in that they are from Boulder, Colorado, 1,000 miles away from the nearest ocean.

The Serendipity Singers, a well-scrubbed folk-pop ensemble organized at the University of Colorado, reach the national Top 10 with “Don’t Let the Rain Come Down (Crooked Little Man).”

The Beatles perform at Red Rocks Amphitheater, the only one of the initial dates on the band’s tour that doesn’t sell out—at least officially. It is well-known in Denver high schools that there are hardly any gates, ticket takers and bouncers, and a few thousand enthusiasts manage to sneak into the event.

Bob Lind, a folk musician who takes Denver coffeehouses such as the Exodus, the Green Spider and the Analyst by storm, finds pop music success recording “Elusive Butterfly,” a #5 national hit.

The Rainy Daze’ “That Acapulco Gold,” an ode to marijuana crooned in Roaring Twenties vaudeville style, is unceremoniously yanked from national radio playlists once word gets around about the Colorado-based hit’s inspiration.

The Family Dog is the center of Denver’s musical universe during a short time in the ’60s, but the police hate the idea of having a hippie club in their city—they bust Canned Heat, a drama immortalized in the song “My Crime.”

The day after Christmas, the members of Led Zeppelin perform their first U.S. concert, at Denver’s Auditorium Arena.

On the final day of the first and only Denver Pop Festival, the Jimi Hendrix Experience play its last concert. During the gig, Mile High Stadium is in an uproar.

The Rolling Stones move from theaters filled with shrieking teens to arenas, assembling a traveling rock ’n’ roll circus. The opening gig is scheduled at the Forum in Los Angeles, but the tour actually starts the day before with a “break-in” concert at Colorado State University’s Moby Gym in Fort Collins—a rehearsal, though no one calls it that.

Colorado’s hottest band, Zephyr releases a self-titled album, also known as the “rainbow in the bathtub” record for its cover, and reaches the Top 50, establishing Tommy Bolin as one of the premier young guitarists in the country.

Rising from of Denver as the cream of several bands, Sugarloaf delivers the big national smash “Green-Eyed Lady.”

Searching for some peace from the supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Stephen Stills finds his muse in Colorado, flying in a Lear Jet to airports in Boulder County that are close to his cabin near Gold Hill.

Jethro Tull’s concert at Red Rocks results in a riot, a debacle that convinces Denver officials to ban rock events at the outdoor venue—a ruling that holds until 1975.

The Eagles leave California to get their act together rather than develop in front of Hollywood’s eyes, getting their first gigs—in Colorado, playing two stints at the Gallery in Aspen, and five nights at Tulagi, the 3.2 beer nightclub on Boulder’s University Hill.

Jimmy Buffett, who spends his summers touring in the mountains of Colorado, goes out to San Francisco and leaves his girlfriend (later his wife) in Aspen. He writes “Come Monday” about her, and it becomes Buffett’s first hit single in 1974.

Serving as a de facto spark of the “second edition” of the Flying Burrito Brothers after Gram Parsons leaves the band, singer-songwriter Rick Roberts contributes his composition “Colorado.”

Tumbleweed Records, a small independent Denver-based label co-owned by Bill Szymczyk, scores a minor hit with Danny Holien’s “Colorado,” a quiet protest against the rape of the land that gets heavy play on FM radio stations.

A period of residing in Colorado gives the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band its best-known success: Will the Circle Be Unbroken, an unprecedented, groundbreaking three-LP set of traditional country numbers performed in conjunction with the original musicians who had greatly influenced them.

Inspired by his move to Aspen, venerable singer-songwriter John Denver begins the commercially potent phase of his career on a “Rocky Mountain High,” which later becomes an official state song of Colorado.

Accompanied at Caribou Ranch by his band Barnstorm, Joe Walsh records “Rocky Mountain Way,” a song inspired by his move to Colorado. The classic-rock mainstay becomes his signature tune.

Having moved with fellow band members to Colorado, Richie Furay writes Poco’s most distinctive composition, “A Good Feeling to Know,” while walking down a road to his house near Nederland.

Flash Cadillac, the beloved 1950s oldies band formed at the University of Colorado, earns acclaim in the movies, portraying the sock-hop band Herby & the Heartbeats in American Graffiti, George Lucas’ Academy Award-nominated classic.

In Boulder to play Tulagi, REO Speedwagon writes “Ridin’ the Storm Out,” a classic rock staple, after getting caught in a wintry blizzard while hiking in the Flatirons.

The band Chicago films Chicago: High in the Rockies, the first of two network television specials, near the Boulder County foothills hamlet of Caribou Ranch, the members pretending they are cowboys.

Queen begins its first American tour by opening for Mott the Hoople at Regis College in Denver.

Bob Seger’s “Get Out of Denver” makes its way to the Billboard chart; the song becomes a classic, covered in the next decade by Dave Edmunds, Eddie & the Hot Rods and Dr. Feelgood.

Caribou Ranch, the legendary recording complex near Nederland, Colorado, gains prominence when Elton John records the gratefully titled Caribou, the first of several chart-topping albums he makes there.

Emmylou Harris’ debut album, Pieces of the Sky, yields the achingly beautiful “Boulder to Birmingham,” her heartbroken paean to her mentor, the late Gram Parsons.

Michael Murphey’s Colorado journey begins with the classy, heartfelt ballad “Wildfire”—“the song about the horse,” recorded at Caribou Ranch—which shoots to #3.

Bill Fries’ character C.W. McCall reaches No. 1 with the surprise hit “Convoy.” Eleven years later, Fries retires to the town of Ouray, Colorado (pop. 684), where he is elected mayor.

Sam Bush plays his first Telluride Bluegrass Festival with his band New Grass Revival; he guests at every festival for 50 consecutive years, becoming so well-loved and respected that he earns the title “the King of Telluride.”

Elvis Presley, the anointed King of Rock ’n’ Roll, takes his private jet from Memphis to Denver to fetch the Fool’s Gold Loaf— a$37.95 concoction from the Colorado Mine Company restaurant featuring a butter-smeared sourdough loaf hollowed out and filled with a jar of smooth peanut butter, a jar of blueberry preserves and one pound of crisp lean bacon.

Bob Dylan and his Rolling Thunder Revue film a concert under stormy skies at Hughes Stadium in Fort Collins; a one-hour television special, appropriately titled Hard Rain, airs on NBC.

For Turnstiles, his third album, Billy Joel puts together his own band and does most of the vocals, overdubs, mixing and production at Caribou Ranch; the group, which remains mostly intact to back Joel on his greatest hits through the next decade, plays its first gigs at the Good Earth, a Boulder nightclub.

Firefall’s soft-rock blend of country and pop defines the “Colorado sound” with three singles—the Top 10 “You Are the Woman,” “Livin’ Ain’t Livin’” and “Cinderella”—and the band’s debut album turns the magic platinum mark.

On his way to becoming a rock music legend from the Denver-Boulder area, where his exceptional talent and versatility led to success as a solo artist as well as gigs with Zephyr, James Gang and Deep Purple, guitarist Tommy Bolin dies at the age of 25.

Singer-songwriter Dan Fogelberg spills out songs from his new Colorado hideaway, a 9,000-foot perch in the Rockies, and Nether Lands is a platinum seller.

Carole King enlists Boulder’s Navarro as her “side-by-side” band for the Simple Things album, which goes gold.

While living in Steamboat Springs, Mary MacGregor simultaneously tops the pop, country and easy listening charts with “Torn Between Two Lovers.”

Singer-songwriter Michael Johnson, who grew up in Denver and was expelled from his Catholic family high school for mooning a nun, scores his first big pop and adult contemporary hit, “Bluer Than Blue.”

Aspen resident Steve Martin records the second side of A Wild and Crazy Guy at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in front of a roaring audience; it wins the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album

After weeks of cajoling by his manager and booking agents, Bruce Springsteen agrees to do his first-ever outdoor show, making his Colorado debut at Red Rocks Amphitheatre.

Earth, Wind & Fire reworks the Beatles’ “Got to Get You into My Life” at Northstar Studios in Boulder and then performs the funky Top 10 single in the ill-fated Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band movie as themselves.

David Bowie, rock’s ultimate chameleon, makes his theatrical debut playing the title role in The Elephant Man, opening its run in Denver before taking over the New York production.

Early on a tour, at the University of Southern Colorado in Pueblo, Van Halen decides that a provision in their contract rider—that meals always include servings of M&M candies with the brown ones removed—is not met, and the school claims that the band causes thousands of dollars’ worth of damage trashing the facilities.

Rock eccentric Mojo Nixon, still appearing under his birthname Kirby McMillan, is questioned by the U.S. Secret Service for his band Zebra 123’s part in the Assassination Ball at the notorious Malfunction Junction in Denver’s Capitol Hill area.

Eager to tour after a temporary setback from alcoholism, Warren Zevon meets a little-known Colorado group called Boulder and takes to the road, cutting a live recording, Stand in the Fire.

Gary Morris sustains a string of smash country singles, crediting Colorado as the place where he gained his most valuable experience.

Pianist, conductor, arranger, composer and producer Dave Grusin runs GRP Records, a classy mainstream jazz label, and the Colorado native records Mountain Dance, the most successful of his own albums to crack the charts.