Swallow Hill is proud to present the second annual Denver Folk & Roots Music Festival at Ellie Caulkins Opera House on Friday, March 28, 2008. Our inaugural festival last March proved that Denver’s elegant new opera venue is just as comfortable with bluegrass as it is with La Bohème. This year we are presenting legendary singer-songwriters Bruce Cockburn and Nanci Griffith as our headliners, preceded by a series of showcase performances by musicians whose work spans the gamut of folk and roots music.
For nearly 30 years, Swallow Hill has been Denver’s home for folk, roots and acoustic music. Like the symphony and the opera, we are a nonprofit organization devoted to the performing arts. We teach over 3,000 students in our music school, and every year we present over 200 concerts. Most of this activity is conducted at our two small venues at 71 East Yale Avenue in Denver. Once a year we venture down to the 2,200 seat Ellie Caulkins Opera House to present an evening of music unique to Denver’s cultural scene.
The evening will begin at 6 p.m. with a series of five showcases. Southern Journey featuring Emily Morgan Bates and Marta Burton, a tribute to Alan Lomax and those dedicated to recording the folk music of the American South, will be the first showcase, followed by Fifth World, a Native peoples trio comprised of Dine flute player Andrew Begay, Saamoke percussionist Will Clipman, and Laarakia didgeridoo player Ash Dargan. Next we'll make a run to the southern border with Tuscon, Ariz.-based Santa Cruz River Band, who will entertain the crowd with an array of Mexican folk songs and southwest spice. Steppin' In It with Rachael Davis will then deliver some rocking newgrass peppered with jazz and folk influences. Our final showcase will be Colorado favorites Dakota Blonde, an acoustic trio whose combination of folk, bluegrass, and country with a little Celtic tinge keep audiences coming back for more.
Following the showcases there will be a brief intermission as the stage changes are made for our headliners for this special event, Nanci Griffith and Bruce Cockburn.
Bruce Cockburn's esteemed career includes 29 albums, numerous international awards (including an induction to the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 2001) and countless concert performances. His highly personal finger picking guitar style merges Mississippi John Hurt blues with modal jazz harmony as well as melodic lyricism and cycling rhythms that suggest an ear for Indian, Asian, and African music. His songwriting has also reflected the turmoil of our times, with anti-globalism manifestos, a reflective coda on his experiences with the poor and downtrodden in Nicaragua, and environmentalist anthems. His latest album, Life Short Call Now, is the 29th album in a career that's midway through its fourth decade, and is wide-ranging, playful, and adventurous, eager to take chances and happy to push limits.
Nanci Griffith's admirers are legion (Bob Dylan specifically requested that she sing "Boots of Spanish Leather" at his historic Madison Square Garden anniversary concert), and she has penned some of country music's most enduring compositions, including Emmylou Harris' and Willie Nelson's "Gulf Coast Highway," Kathy Mattea's "Love at the Five and Dime" and "Listen to the Radio," and Suzy Bogguss' "Outbound Plane." She was the first to record Julie Gold's Grammy-winning classic, "From a Distance," which found wider commercial success with Bette Middler. Whether performing her own poetically evocative material or the compositions of her influences, friends, and peers, Griffith possesses a powerful gift for inhabiting the songs she sings. Her career spans nearly three decades with numerous accolades, including numerous Grammy nominations as well as a win in 1994 for her album, Other Voices, Other Rooms.
The emcee for the evening will be Denver's Godfather of Folk, Harry Tuft. Tuft is responsible for sowing the seeds of Swallow Hill through his establishment of the Denver Folklore Center, an staple of not only Denver's folk and music community, but of the entire Western region of the United States.
