Listen: Billy Strings and Chris Thile Kick Off Telluride Bluegrass Festival with Traditionals and Treatments of The Beatles and Radiohead
Image via YouTube.
On June 20, Telluride Bluegrass Festival returned with another memorable weekend of world-class performances and community celebration for Centennial State bluegrass fans. This year, the festival went off with a bang as giants of the genre Chris Thile and Billy Strings teamed up onstage for a thrilling of traditional classics with a modern twist.
Thile and Strings–both renowned for their vision and virtuosic instrumental technique–connected earlier this year for a set at New York’s Geffen Hall for the final installment of Thile’s The 65th Street Session series, then again for a public appearance on CBS Saturday Morning. Much like that masterful match-up, the progressive bluegrass forerunners’ set at Telluride Bluegrass Festival exhibited their strong familiarity with the roots of their style, treating thoroughly-honed genre staples like “Wild Bill Jones,” “Little White Church,” “Groundhog,” “There’s More Pretty Girls Than One” and the set-opener “I Am A Pilgrim.”
After issuing the first track of the set, Strings cheerfully addressed the crowd on the roots of the appearance, stating, “After about, I don’t know, two or three years of seeing these festival lineups come out and me not being on it… I said ‘I don’t care, I’m coming anyways!’ [I’m] so happy to be here and that they decided they’d put me to work… I’m grateful for it.” Through the downright thrilling, Strings continued to demonstrate the depth of his influences and complex picking style with an eclectic range of covers, including The Beatles’ “Rocky Raccoon,” The Moody Blues’ “Nights in White Satin” and Radiohead’s deceptively polyrhythmic “Videotape.” After it all, Thile took a moment for gratitude, sharing, “This has been an absolute joy,” adding, “Billy you’re a marvel.” The duo then closed out the show with the classic “I’ve Been All Around This World.”
Listen to Strings and Thile’s kickoff set via Internet Archive, recorded from a radio broadcast courtesy of fan Bootsy Jacobs. For more information on Telluride Bluegrass Festival, visit bluegrass.com/telluride.
