CMT Blog: Bryan Sutton

As the sun rose on the Summer Solstice, high above the festival grounds, I was busy celebrating the birth of the season with a ridiculously late lie-in. I’d jammed the night before until 7 a.m. with some of the finest acoustic musicians in the world, and only got back to my bed by 9 a.m., dishevelled and exhausted. That’s why I’m unable to tell you how Mike Farris did. The same for WPA (featuring Glen Phillips and Sara Watkins), the SteelDrivers and Todd Snider. Is this why I’m a musician and not a journalist … ? I’ll leave it to Tim O’Brien, who gave Farris the award for Most Effective Use of Three Chords. He also raved about the SteelDrivers (listen to Lee Ann Womack’s version of “Either Way” for Chris Stapleton’s amazing vocals) and WPA. Tim himself gave an exquisite set, armed with Stuart Duncan on fiddle, Bryan Sutton on guitar and Dennis Crouch on bass — a real master class in singing, playing and writing.

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We awoke on Telluride Mountain on Saturday (June 20) — day three of the Telluride Bluegrass Festival — to a dark and cloudy day threatening rain, so we all donned our raincoats and unloaded the gear as smatterings of rain fell upon us. Music lovers at this festival are not deterred by such transient things and most seemed to have packed accordingly. Several guests, including Bryan Sutton, Luke Reynolds and Kasey Chambers and her father, Bill Chambers, joined us onstage at a workshop in Elk Park in the centre of Telluride. It’s always fun to invite a singer on stage and try and see if you know a song in common — little does the audience know you are often inches away from a possible disaster! But not at Telluride. All the guests were amazing and sang their hearts out.

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As far as the official showcases go, I think this was one of the finest lineups for the Americana Music conference in quite a while. Although I always try to discover new bands at these events, I never miss a Buddy Miller show in town, and Saturday night at Mercy Lounge was no exception. He didn’t sing the song I got obsessed with last year, but a yearning rendition of “Don’t Tell Me” was a very gracious consolation prize. His set came right after a Glen Campbell tribute downstairs at the Cannery, with the Rhinestone Cowboy himself singing a few hits.
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Every year, around the third week of July, bluegrass pickers from across the country descend on a little piece of land along the St. Vrain river in Lyons, Colorado. They come for the scene, they come to socialize, cook, eat, drink, pick and hang, but mostly they come to learn. The Rockygrass Academy has long been a favorite event in the Colorado acoustic music scene, but more recently people have been coming from as far away as England to attend this event.

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It doesn’t get much better than hearing live bluegrass, sitting under the sun, camping out, and maybe hitting up a nearby river for a dip. If work commitments and travel expenses didn’t exist, here’s how I’d spend July.

Grey Fox Bluegrass — (July 17-20 in Oak Hill, N.Y.) How I wish I could go this year! Hot Rize will be performing, celebrating a 30-year anniversary. I could really go for some “Coleen Malone” right about now. And for you hardcore Hot Rize fans, there will even be a set by Red Knuckles & The Trailblazers. Seeing Bryan Sutton dressed in true Trailblazer attire while playing some intense bluegrass is an incredible sighting, let me tell ya. All-girl old-time string band Uncle Earl will also make one of their few appearances of 2008 here, and so will the Infamous Stringdusters.

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“To hell you ride.” That they say, or someone said, is the origin of Telluride’s name; and quite a ride it truly was. Not a conventional bluegrass festival by any stretch, Telluride Bluegrass Festival draws a wide circle around acoustic music and invites everybody in for a great time. As an indication of the quality involved here, the ‘house band’ was none other than Sam Bush, Bela Fleck, Edgar Meyer, Jerry Douglas, Bryan Sutton and Luke Bulla. This group played some of the most amazing music I’ve ever heard. At the other end of the spectrum, the King of Soul Solomon Burke and his band performed a Sunday morning set and it was church; there may have been a few dry eyes out in Town Park that morning, but they weren’t mine.

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