Rock, blues, soul and funk all made their mark in Colorado, from the plains of Pueblo to Boulder’s welcoming musical environment. These players sat in or opened for each other, regardless of genre, creating a mix-and-match music scene.
Visit the free Colorado Music Hall of Fame Museum at Red Rocks Amphitheatre Trading Post. Open daily.
Beginning in the 1950s, when Walt Conley helped nurture an inclusive scene at his club, Conley’s Nostalgia through years of community building at Swallow Hill, Colorado has been an important stop on the national folk circuit.
Visit the free Colorado Music Hall of Fame Museum at Red Rocks Amphitheatre Trading Post. Open daily.
Airplay and live dates are like oxygen for musicians. Despite our thin air, Colorado gives them both. Radio station 97.3 KBCO often works hand-in-glove with local promoters such as Chuck Morris. The result? A musical environment where new artists and rock legends thrive.
Visit the free Colorado Music Hall of Fame Museum at Red Rocks Amphitheatre Trading Post. Open daily.
Colorado has played a significant role in the popularity of jazz and rhythm & blues in American music. East High School’s music department has been one of the most impactful incubators of aspiring musicians, graduating popular groups and highly influential jazz composers, including several from this class of inductees.
Visit the free Colorado Music Hall of Fame Museum at Red Rocks Amphitheatre Trading Post. Open daily.
In the early ‘70s, Dan Fogelberg, Joe Walsh and Barnstorm and so many more sought musical inspiration high in the Rocky Mountains. When Chicago producer James William Guercio built the sprawling, state-of-the-art Caribou Ranch recording studio outside of Nederland, the international music community changed forever.
Visit the free Colorado Music Hall of Fame Museum at Red Rocks Amphitheatre Trading Post. Open daily.
From the turn of the 20th century, Colorado’s abundance of big bands, ragtime performers and singers lured fans from across the music world. Throughout the early days of recorded history, Colorado looms large with a string of important big-band leaders and songbirds.
Visit the free Colorado Music Hall of Fame Museum at Red Rocks Amphitheatre Trading Post. Open daily.
Though some of their roads may have started elsewhere, it was in Colorado that these influences came together to create a new genre of timeless music. The “West Coast sound” has deep roots in the Rockies.
Visit the free Colorado Music Hall of Fame Museum at Red Rocks Amphitheatre Trading Post. Open daily.
The ‘60s proved that folk wasn’t just a Greenwich Village phenomenon. Folk and folk-rock have long been associated with Colorado’s rustic beauty, and those sounds were beginning to shake the music world.
Visit the free Colorado Music Hall of Fame Museum at Red Rocks Amphitheatre Trading Post. Open daily.
International surf hits without an ocean. Hit records without a record deal. A throwback to ‘50s nostalgia. Crazy radio stunts that made national headlines. The music scene in Colorado would not be ignored in the ‘60s.
Visit the free Colorado Music Hall of Fame Museum at Red Rocks Amphitheatre Trading Post. Open daily.
Polar opposites in temperament, the mercurial Fey and gentlemanly Tuft were nonetheless devoted to the same purpose: making Colorado an essential haven for live music, from rock to folk.
Visit the free Colorado Music Hall of Fame Museum at Red Rocks Amphitheatre Trading Post. Open daily.
© Colorado Music Hall of Fame
© Colorado Music Hall of Fame