Kale graduated in 1979 but continued to help out at the Program Council. She advised several classes of Council staffers and was considered a mentor. To make ends meet, she took jobs that accommodated her music-dominated schedule, working at CU’s bookstore and registration, and helping out at local entertainment venues.

In 1986, Kale was hired to write the “Out and About” column for the Colorado Daily, which allowed her to continue doing what she loved: attend music events and promote local and emerging talent. At the Daily, Kale established herself as a music writer; her beat was Boulder’s theater and club circuit.

Zephyr’s second album, Going Back to Colorado, was recorded for Warner Brothers with producer/engineer Eddie Kramer at Jimi Hendrix’s brand-new Electric Lady studios. Hendrix died during the sessions, and the Zephyr project was left unfinished in the ensuing chaos.

In 1971, frustrated by ever receding success, members Bolin and Berge left the band. Candy and David recruited Colorado musicians Jock Bartley, Michael Wooten and Daniel Smyth, and after several months of rehearsal, the newly-formed Zephyr recorded their second album for Warner Brothers, Sunset Ride, which received great reviews and response from radio programmers. Zephyr played on through the 70s and into the 80s, still writing and recording until Candy’s tragic death in 1984.

In addition to his promotion work, Spicola opened two clubs in Pueblo: the Fantastic Zoo and Pinocchio’s. Before long, he was putting on concerts with national and international acts at larger venues.

In 1963, he began bringing in now-classic acts, from the Rascals to Ike and Tina Turner and a host of bands that later became part of the British Invasion. In order to accommodate the sell-out crowds these headliners would draw, Spicola turned to larger venues around Colorado Springs. The defining moment of his concert promotion career came on August 18, 1968, when the Who played at a 3,000-seat concert hall in the Springs. The band had flown in from London for its first Colorado appearance; tickets were $5.

“In the ’60s, we all had an affair with music,” Spicola remembers, noting that in addition to the Who, such icons as the Jefferson Airplane, ZZ Top and Fleetwood Mac came to Colorado through his efforts. Twenty of the artists he introduced to the state have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.

Taylor released his first solo album, Blue-Eyed Monster, on Shoelace Music in 1996. The next year, When Negroes Walked the Earth earned a review in Playboy from rock critic Dave Marsh.

Taylor’s vocal, guitar and songwriting talents were recognized in 2000 with a Sundance Composers Lab fellowship. That same year, Taylor released his breakthrough album, White African, on Northern Blues Music. His songs confronted his personal connection to the legacy of lynching  — his great-grandfather had been lynched — and other dark topics. Taylor shocked the blues world with a heartfelt vocal delivery that accentuated his exploration of race relations and social injustice.

The roots of the style that became Taylor’s most recognizable contribution to the blues are on 2003’s Truth Is Not Fiction. Music critics were both enthralled and mystified by Taylor’s “trance blues” style. Truth Is Not Fiction earned rave reviews, as well as a Downbeat critics’ award for Blues Album of the Year.

Double V came out in 2004, the first of eleven albums produced by Taylor. It also marked the increased presence of his daughter, Cassie, who would become an integral part of his band on bass and vocals. Double V won a second Downbeat critics’ Blues Album of the Year award, while a Living Blues readers’ poll awarded both Taylor and Etta James Best Blues Entertainer honors. In 2007, Downbeat named Taylor’s Definition of a Circle Blues CD of the Year.

The band went through personnel changes in the late ’80s and ’90s after Graves left the group, though he rejoined several times, reuniting Henchi with Freddi. But Graves died on June 12, 2009, after a long battle with cancer. His younger brother, Richard Graves, remembers that he was “an energetic, outgoing person who was a lot of fun to be around,” and adds, “He won’t ever be forgotten by anyone he ever met.”

Freddi Gowdy continues to sing and do commercials; for the past seven years, he’s performed as the co-frontman and vocalist in Chris Daniels & the Kings, working with everybody from Johnnyswim to Garth Brooks, when the Kings backed him at a Fiddler’s Green show in 2018. With the Kings, he’s released two award-winning albums and toured Europe.

Offering a solid representation of original music in the genres of Americana, pop, rock, world, jazz, swing, bluegrass and blues with a touch of classical and New Orleans influences, as well as a liberal seasoning of traditional and cover songs, the group’s performances have evolved over its long lifespan, which included a twelve-year break in the early part of this century.

In concert, the dynamic combinations of performers and styles can go from a solo to a duo or quartet, then build to the full-band experience and dissolve again into an intimate trio setting.

No two MoFos shows are alike, and that is the magic and beauty of this pioneering, inventive and durable group of gregarious, high-level musicians.

In 1959, Hal Neustaedter opened the Exodus in the Raylane Hotel, bringing premier folk acts to Denver. According to Fritz, “On October 16, 1959, the Exodus hosted…Denver’s first Folk Music Festival. Josh White was the headliner. The line-up included Walt Conley, Judy Collins, the Harlin Trio, George Downing, The Travelers, and Dave Wood among others.” A recording, Folk Festival at the Exodus, was made of the event; on it, Conley sings “900 Miles,” “Worried Man Blues,” “Passing Through” and “John Henry.”

Around this time, Conley was asked to take over booking at the Satire Lounge; he reportedly booked the Smothers Brothers for their first Denver appearance and gave Bob Dylan a place to stay at his house near the club.

Back in Denver, he opened Conley’s Nostalgia on South Broadway in 1983. He believed there was a place for the music of the past. “Everyone in Denver is serving food, but no one else is serving folk music,” he observed.

At Conley’s, he created a group dedicated to traditional Irish music. “If the band U2 from Ireland can sing American blues,” he noted, “then I sure as hell can sing Irish folk songs!”

He closed the venue in 1987 and released After All These Years under the name Walt Conley & Company. In 1995, he held a fundraiser at the Mercury Cafe for the Rocky Mountain Music Association, a nonprofit group that promoted original music.

The following year, he made his third trip to Denver, which included a stay at Walt Conley’s house.

“Walt was booking the Satire Lounge, and I ended up as one of the opening acts,” remembers Weissman. “The Satire was a pretty wild and woolly place in those days.”

When he returned to New York, Weissman met John Phillips and Scott McKenzie. The three formed the Journeymen; they were eventually signed to Capitol Records, and toured for almost four years before parting ways.

From 1975 to the early ’80s, Weissman played in bands, raised a family, taught at Colorado Women’s College and composed music for films and commercials. In 1979 he recorded an album titled Modern Banjo – Mountain Style. He also wrote a biography about Wesley Westbrook, a black songwriter from Arkansas who wrote several songs for the Staple Singers.

Weissman’s writing career produced over 22 titles, among them instruction books for guitar and banjo. His Folk Music Sourcebook won an ASCAP Music Critics Award. During this time, he also taught at Swallow Hill, performed when he could and began teaching at UCD. He recorded seven more albums between 1990 and 2019.

Read Paul Epstein’s, CMHOF Co-Chair and Owner of Twist & Shout Records, interview with Dick Weissman here.