Harry Tuft saw such an organization as a way to bring the best in folk artists to Colorado, while Julie Davis, a well-respected autoharp performer and teacher, added a music school to the equation.

Swallow Hill was established in 1979 at Tuft’s Denver Folklore Center in the Swallow Hill neighborhood just east of downtown. Now celebrating its fortieth anniversary, Swallow Hill has grown into the nation’s second-largest roots-music concert organization and music school. But the road to success wasn’t always easy: Interest in the organization suffered in the 1980s.

In the 1960s, Bob Greenlee graduated from Iowa State with dreams of owning a radio station. His search led him to Boulder, where in 1975, he and his wife, Diane, bought KADE-AM. But Bob knew FM radio was the place to be, and by the end of 1976, the Greenlees had purchased KRNW, a 1,000-watt FM station with a loyal following and a Class C license, which allowed an upgrade to 100,000 watts.

The original vision was to create a music station that reflected the town’s unique population, and the call letters were changed accordingly. It was dubbed “Boulder Radio” and played a mix of soft, acoustic “Colorado music.”

By the mid-1980s, KBCO boasted an antenna that could reach across the Front Range. Programming changed with the larger audience; KBCO could now embrace the entire Denver market and beyond, expanding the original acoustic-music playlist while keeping the Boulder image. By the winter of 1988, KBCO was the No. 1-rated station in the Denver market.

KBCO has always embraced the Colorado lifestyle. In 1980, the station launched the Kinetic Sculpture Challenge, a competition of human-powered amphibious crafts made from whatever materials were available. The teams raced through mud, down dirt roads and over water at the Boulder Reservoir. In the winter, there was the Cardboard Derby: Contestants created crafts out of cardboard boxes and raced them down local ski slopes. The “I Ski With KBCO” program offered discount ski weekends, bringing KBCO listeners together to ski and ride. And the station has hosted hundreds of live concerts, at venues ranging from small clubs to Folsom Field to Red Rocks, Fiddler’s Green and the Pepsi Center.

KBCO showed its dedication to Colorado music for over three decades with the weekly Local Edition program. In 2004, sales of a Local Edition CD benefited music education in the Denver Public Schools. And a vinyl recording of Colorado bands playing live at KBCO supported the Colorado Music Hall of Fame’s move to Red Rocks.

Radio has changed. In 1977 there was no Internet, streaming or cell phones. Today, radio is taking on new roles in the digital world. The business of radio has changed, too. When the Greenlees bought KBCO, they could only own two stations in any given marketplace. Companies today can own up to eight stations per market in many different markets.

KBCO navigated the waters of corporate buyouts and management changes to keep the station relevant and supportive of the local community. It remains an essential outlet for artists looking to build a base of fans and supporters.

The Triple A format has morphed into a collection of mostly non-commercial radio stations across the country. But through the loyalty and dedication of its staff and the Colorado fans who feel a personal connection to the station, KBCO remains by far the most successful of them. The Colorado Music Hall of Fame was proud to induct 97.3 KBCO in 2018 for its incredible contribution to Colorado music.

Morris moved beyond Boulder in the early 1970s, when he began a long partnership with powerhouse Denver concert promoter Barry Fey.

Morris, Fey and Fey’s wife, Cindy, launched Ebbets Field, an intimate club named after the fabled Brooklyn Dodgers stadium. Though Ebbets lasted just a few years, it was regularly filled beyond capacity as Morris snagged then-burgeoning music superstars like Lynyrd Skynyrd, Little Feat and Herbie Hancock, plus rising comedians like Richard Pryor and Steve Martin. Morris joined Feyline Presents as senior VP of booking and promotion and helped facilitate the rise of that juggernaut concert company into one of the biggest in the country; he also helped turn Red Rocks Amphitheatre into the country’s most popular outdoor venue. In the 1980s, Morris and Fey collaborated on the Rainbow Music Hall, a 1,458-seat space in Denver that allowed Morris to lure bigger bands and established performers like AC/DC, Bob Dylan and Metallica, plus new artists U2, Blondie and Pat Benatar.

As the Front Range music scene grew, Morris turned his talents to artist management. The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Big Head Todd & the Monsters, Leftover Salmon and Lyle Lovett are among those who benefited from his guidance. In the late 1980s, Morris began a long and fruitful friendship with entrepreneur Philip Anschutz when Anschutz approached Morris about having the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band perform at the opening of Anschutz’s Western art collection exhibition in what was then the Soviet Union.

Ready to strike out on his own, Morris left Feyline Presents (while remaining a consultant for several years) and allied his promotion expertise with the company founded by the legendary Bill Graham. In the late 1990s, they purchased and redeveloped Denver’s Fillmore Auditorium, which shares its name with the storied San Francisco venue that Graham helped make famous. Bill Graham Presents/Chuck Morris Presents was eventually acquired by SFX Entertainment and ultimately became Live Nation, which Morris continued to run.

Judy Collins claims Colorado as her home state, as her family moved from Seattle to Denver in 1949, when she was 10. Her father was a singer, composer and broadcasting personality, and she appeared as a youngster on his KOA radio program, Chuck Collins Calling. Shortly after arriving in Colorado, Collins began the study of classical piano with Dr. Antonia Brico, a conductor and pianist who devoted her life to fighting prejudice against women in the orchestral world, and she debuted with the Denver Businessmen’s Orchestra when she was just a teenager.

By the time she was a student at Denver’s East High School, Collins had traded the classical piano for a secondhand guitar, a gift from her father. Turning to folk music, she combined her father’s love of popular Irish tunes with the influence of Lingo the Drifter (T.D. Lingo), an enigmatic Lookout Mountain resident who taught her the songs of Woody Guthrie and Josh White. At 20, the new mother and wife won an audition for a job at Michael’s Pub in Boulder, earning $100 a week plus pizza and 3.2 beer. She launched her singing career performing at the Satire Lounge and the Green Spider, as well as various mountain bistros such as the Gilded Garter in Central City and the Limelite in Aspen. The Exodus was Denver’s focal point for local Beats, artists, poets and a sprinkling of button-down college kids; Collins and folksinger Walt Conley were asked to be opening acts, and they were featured on the Folk Festival at the Exodus LP.

For as long as human beings have occupied the land where the Great Plains meet the Rocky Mountains, they have marveled at the aesthetics and acoustics of Red Rocks Amphitheatre. The Folsom people are believed to be the first to discover the geologic marvel, which was a subsequent gathering place for the Ute, Southern Cheyenne and Southern Arapaho tribes. In the years since, Red Rocks has hosted the biggest names in music while gaining fame in its own right as one of the Natural Wonders of the World. A pair of 300-foot monoliths, known as Ship Rock (stage right) and Creation Rock (stage left), help produce the site’s pristine sound.

In the years since, Red Rocks has hosted the biggest names in music while gaining fame in its own right as one of the Natural Wonders of the World. A geological event 40-70 million years ago known as the Laramide orogeny pushed into place the pieces that absorb sound, rather than reflect it. A pair of 300-foot monoliths, known as Ship Rock (stage right) and Creation Rock (stage left), help produce the site’s pristine sound.

An iconic destination recording studio nestled among the Rocky Mountains, Caribou Ranch welcomed industry greats such as Elton John, Chicago, the Beach Boys, Earth, Wind & Fire, Billy Joel, Chad & Jeremy, Frank Zappa and Amy Grant. In just over a decade of operation, the studio served as witness to a diverse songbook of American classics, making an indelible mark on both Colorado and national musical history.Tucked away in a converted barn just outside the Colorado ghost town of Caribou, Caribou Ranch was a one-of-a-kind recording studio that captured the distinct spirit of the American West. Constructed by music producer James William Guercio in 1972, the studio was at the height of its success during the 1970s and early 1980s.

In 1971, Guercio invested in a ranch property that stretched across more than 4,000 acres near Nederland, Colorado. Guercio’s early career featured a series of professional successes, including work with pop band the Buckinghams and a position as staff producer at Columbia Records. But during his years as a producer in New York and Los Angeles, he found his creativity limited by restrictive union regulations. It was this frustration that inspired him to create a recording studio where he could play by his own rules, leading to the purchase of Caribou Ranch. Redesigned to cater to the biggest stars in the music industry, the barn-turned-studio emerged as a wildly popular spot for new and established artists alike.

The year after Guercio had begun work on the studio, Joe Walsh and Bill Szymczyk were starting Barnstorm, which would be the band’s inaugural studio album. Although they had planned to record the album at Walsh’s home, a blown-out mixer halted their efforts on the very first day. After hearing about Guercio’s new studio, they decided to visit the build site. Walsh and Szymczyk immediately agreed that Caribou Ranch was a perfect fit for their project, and Barnstorm became the first album recorded at the studio. Not long after, Szymczyk revisited Caribou Ranch to work on Rick Derringer’s All American Boy, which included the hit “Rock & Roll, Hoochie Koo.”

Just two years later, in 1974, the Colorado recording studio made its debut on the international music stage. Elton John recorded his eighth studio album there, naming it Caribou after the Rocky Mountain studio as a way to say thanks. John recorded several other projects at Caribou Ranch, including his version of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” and albums such as Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy and Rock of the Westies. From ’74 to ’76, Caribou studio produced more hits than Abbey Road Studios.

The long list of artists who recorded at Caribou Ranch reads like a who’s who of legendary music history, featuring household names such as Dan Fogelberg, Chicago, the Beach Boys, Joe Walsh, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Jeff Beck, Rick Derringer, Billy Joel, Rod Stewart, Sheena Easton, Michael Jackson, War, Eddie Rabbit, Jerry Lee Lewis, Al De Meola, America, Michael W. Smith, Chick Corea and Earth, Wind & Fire. Throughout the late 1970s, the studio cemented its place as one of the most in-demand recording destinations for the world’s most elite popular musicians.