CULTURAMA: 'Complete (Abridged)' a triple-decker hoot at CSF

From left to right: Stephen Weitz, Geoffrey Kent and Matt Mueller in the Colorado Shakespeare Festival production of "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)." (Photo by Casey A. Cass for CU Communications)

If laughs are needed anywhere, it’s at a Shakespeare festival. “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)” is an idea whose time has come.

Oh, wait, it was created in 1987.

Well, it’s an idea . . . let’s see . . . an idea. Yes. It is. A good idea!

And where better than to stage it at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival!

Oh, wait, they put it on there last year.

Well, good job bringing it back!

As long as there’s been Bardolatry, there has been Bardophobia. Shakespeare is our sacred monster, and he provokes as much fear as awe. And much more sheer boredom.

Even the most ardent, arrogant iambic-pentameter-spouting smarty-pants gets tired of the Canon in his or her face from time to time. We have all toiled through mind-numbing English courses on Shakespeare, endured productions of his work so horrible that they warped space and made clocks run backward.

“Complete (Abridged)” is a cure for this condition. It’s a hilarious, breakneck dash through all 37 plays (OK, some merit only a mention) (and is it 38? Did he really write them? No time press on) staged by three fine clowns, Geoffrey Kent, Stephen Weitz and Matthew Mueller. That each is handling a role or roles in other CSF productions – hey, Stephen’s only playing Hamlet – is a testament to Rebecca Ramaly’s direction, their energy and the power of creative scheduling.

The Reduced Shakespeare Comedy started out at California Renaissance Faires in 1981, outclassing by a wide margin anything else that ever came out of a Renaissance Faire. Daniel Singer, Jess Borgeson and Adam Long condensed “Hamlet,” then gradually added “Romeo and Juliet” – then got greedy and dumped the rest in as well.

Years of touring and tweaking led to “overnight” success, and the brave adumbrators have since moved on to distill the Bible, American history, the Great Books, and so forth for a paying public.

The results are a riot. Whether you are the apotheosis of the cognoscenti or completely troglodytic, you will enjoy this show. The players tell you all you need to know (such as: Shakespeare invaded Poland in 1939?) and then illustrate their points with brio, a dash of insouciance and a big slice of ham.

And, to paraphrase Bobby Terrance, it’s the ham of truth. Like any cultural monument, Shakespeare needs the pigeon poop power-hosed off him from time to time. It’s centuries past the time a fresh conception of what Shakespeare was about existed. In many ways, we know him through a distorted, dirty lens. The buffoons of “Complete” pull out the funhouse mirrors instead. They have no agenda; they don’t care about analysis, criticism, or comment. They want us to have fun. They succeed.

Even the program’s funny. Make sure to read their section before the lights go down.

Kent’s clueless confidence, Weitz’s staggeringly long takes, and Mueller’s loony string of female roles (and antic vomiting sprees) mix with rapid-fire comic combat, puns, drag and more to keep things hopping. (There are a few jokes for the older set, so young children might feel left out of the fun at times, unless they are already dating and getting high.)

That being said, “Complete (Abridged)” IS fun, guaranteed. Go see it!

“The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged)” is presented by the Colorado Shakespeare Festival on the campus of the University of Colorado in Boulder through Aug. 15. Ticket prices range from $14 to $54 each; however, there are discounts for multi-show purchases, CU students, staff and faculty; and those under 18. For more info, please visit www.coloradoshakes.org or call 303-492-0554.

CULTURAMA: ‘Two Gents’ fails to satisfy at CSF

Jamie Ann Romero as Julia and Karyn Casl as Lucetta in the Colorado Shakespeare Festival's production of "The Two Gentlemen of Verona." (Photo by Kira Horvath for CU Communications)

OK, there are these two guys from Verona . . .

Not an inspiring opening. OK, guys, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” is, by critical consensus, Shakespeare’s first play. As such, it doesn’t rate very highly on the Bardometer.

The Colorado Shakespeare Festival’s production of the play suffers from a desperate sense of shame. Sure, “Two Gentlemen” . . . well . . . the script kinda stinks. In his introduction to the play in the Oxford edition of Shakespeare’s Complete Works, Stanley Wells even admits that “the play has succeeded best when subjected to adaptation.”

So the team for “Two Gents,” led by director Tom Markus, constructed conceptual scaffolding for it. Beyond that, they built an entire play about doing the play around it. With extraneous characters, loads of extra dialogue, and digressions that involve limericks, the hokey-pokey, insights, and such.

It’s a late rehearsal of a CSF production of “The Two Gentlemen of Verona.” (Bruce Bergner’s set works well.) The actors are in a mix of costume pieces and street clothes. The production’s haughty English director outlines his concept, the actors grumble, drink, and talk on their cell phones. These scenes are interspersed with those from the play. The result is not so enjoyable.

Now, I don’t mind anyone monkeying with Shakespeare. Not any more. I have seen “The Tempest” in outer space, “King Lear” as a Western, “Titus Andronicus! The Musical,” a Desert Storm “Julius Caesar.” I have seen 10-minute, and 8-hour, “Hamlet”s. Adapt away.

But make it work. CSF’s “Two Gents” doesn’t work because a) it doesn’t trust the material and b) it gives us something worse in supplement to it. A good try, but let’s move on.

Everyone does their best with what they’ve given to work with. Actually, the “Two Gentleman” scenes are fine, with moments of comic invention and pathos. Despite the constant interruptions, Matt Mueller makes something out of Proteus, and Jamie Ann Romero proves as adept comically as Julia as she did dramatically as Ophelia in the concurrently-running CSF “Hamlet.”

Alexandra C. Lewis is a perfect figure of grace as Silvia, Sam Sandoe has some fun as her father, the duke of Milan . . . and of course who doesn’t love those kooky outlaws.

Listen: we’re Shakespeare fans, we’re tough, we can take it. Let’s face it, not every word out of him was of the highest caliber. But hey! This is a Shakespeare festival and sometimes you just have to suck it up and do it.

For instance, I’m sure we’ll have to run into “King John” again someday. Just don’t bring him in at the end, when he’s dying, on a surfboard or a giant French fry or anything like that. Unless it works.

“The Two Gentlemen of Verona” is presented by the Colorado Shakespeare Festival on the campus of the University of Colorado in Boulder through Aug. 9. Ticket prices range from $14 to $54 each; however, there are discounts for multi-show purchases, CU students, staff and faculty; and those under 18. For more info, please visit www.coloradoshakes.org or call 303-492-0554.

CULTURAMA: Tenderness and tragedy -- "To Kill a Mockingbird" at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival

Sam Gregory as Atticus Finch and Ellie Schwartz as Scout in the Colorado Shakespeare Festival's production of "To Kill a Mockingbird." (Photo by Glenn Asakawa for CU Communications)

One definition of a classic is something that rewards repeated encounters with new meanings.

Such is Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1960 novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Its first-person evocation of a childhood in the American South, its gripping tale of prejudice, courage and empathy, struck a chord with readers immediately.

Since then, its impact has never diminished. The 1962 Oscar-winning film adaptation is itself a deeply affecting work. The book is taught in our schools, and sometimes it’s banned in our libraries (use of the ‘n’ word and frank talk about rape cited as reasons).

It should be no surprise that the Colorado Shakespeare Festival might see it as a fit work to stage. The current production, under the direction of the incredibly gifted Jane Page, is strong and compelling, a classic in every sense of the word.

Firstly, the story itself is brilliant – compelling and insightful. Christopher Sergel’s adaptation of the play, first staged in London in 1988, is a skillful translation of the work’s essence.

Over her career, Page has demonstrated her ability to summon the best out of both the materials and the ensemble at hand, on and backstage. This “Mockingbird” is no different. The pace and tone fit the piece perfectly, and the cast seems sprung from its pages.

Once again, Andrea Bechert’s set design gets the job done with elegant efficiency, and Kevin Brainerd’s costumes and Victor En Yu Tan’s lighting collaborate admirably with Page’s intentions.

The production frames the tale as a memory play, narrated by the now-grown Jean Louise Finch (played gracefully here by Tammy Meneghini). In truth, the story is so familiar to most that it could be played on a bare stage. The actors are key here, and a particular difficulty is finding the right child actors to play the young Jean Louise – the scruffy, feisty “Scout” – and her older brother Jem.

Fortunately, Ellie Schwartz and Connor Schearrer are great as Scout and Jem, respectively. Alex Rosenthal does similarly as their temporary neighbor and friend, Dill. The three children refract the events of Scout’s remembered 1935 summer in their tiny, dusty Alabama town through their personalities, and the actors let those lights shine through.

The most daunting role of all, of course, is that of Atticus Finch, the children’s father. A principled, modest hero who takes on the hopeless case of a black man charged with the rape of a white woman, the role is tough enough to begin with.

Then, consider that every actor who takes on the role must contend with the enormous shadow cast by Gregory Peck’s indelible portrayal in the film. It’s difficult to cast that interpretation out of your mind and make the role your own.

Sam Gregory, who also essays a great Leonato in CSF’s current production of “Much Ado About Nothing,” is an exemplary Atticus. He takes an impossibly good character and gives him humanity. The same is true for Doug Bynum as Tom Robinson, the condemned man who faces no chance of acquittal from the all-white jury judging him.

Other standouts include Steven Patterson as the conflicted sheriff Heck Tate, Kristen Adele’s Calpurnia, Michael Kane in the small but crucial role of “Boo” Radley, and Chip Persons and Emily Schmidt-Beuchat as Robinson’s accusers, the dastardly Ewells.

One of the big beefs with “Mockingbird” is that its characters are flat and, morally, black and white, and there’s some truth to that. But part of that comes from the unequivocal gaze of its child narrator. Part of it comes from the fact that “Mockingbird” is something of a fable, a morality play.

But Harper Lee imbued it with a magical, unforgettable quality, and it is with us now, for better or for worse. I think we are the better for it. Thanks to the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, that vision lives onstage as well.

“To Kill a Mockingbird” is presented by the Colorado Shakespeare Festival on the campus of the University of Colorado in Boulder through Aug. 5. Ticket prices range from $14 to $54 each; however, there are discounts for multi-show purchases, CU students, staff and faculty; and those under 18. For more info, please visit www.coloradoshakes.org or call 303-492-0554.

OLDFANGLED: Buffalo Bill's unquiet grave

(An expanded version of an article originally published in 5280 magazine in 2007.)

“Buffalo Bill’s
defunct
who used to
ride a watersmooth-silver
stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
Jesus
he was a handsome man
and what i want to know is
how do you like your blueeyed boy
Mister Death”

e.e. cummings

Ninety-two years after his burial on the top of Lookout Mountain, does the spirit of Buffalo Bill still rest unquietly?

William F. Cody lived many lives in one. He was a Pony Express rider, trapper, prospector, Civil War soldier, Army scout, Indian fighter and, of course, buffalo hunter. What distinguished him from his frontier contemporaries such as Will Bill Hickock was his flair for self-promotion.

“He was known as the most handsome man in America, and was the best-known American in the world,” says prominent Denver historian Thomas J. Noel.

Beginning in 1872 with stage appearances in adaptations of the dime novels that brought him national fame, Cody established himself as the archetype of the bold plainsman, complete with fringed buckskin jacket, flowing locks and signature goatee.

Remarkably, he also set in stone the popular vision of the American West. Having hatched the idea of an “Old Glory Blow-Out” in his home town of North Platte, Nebraska on July 4, 1882, which is often cited as the origin of the rodeo, Cody (with the able assistance of manager Nate Salsbury and pioneering press agent John M. Burke) created Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show.

From 1883 to 1913, it traveled the world, crafting out of a collection of riding, roping and sharpshooting exhibitions and a band of cowboys, Native Americans, and vaqueros a “national entertainment” that appealed to all classes and ages alike, and delivered the legend of Manifest Destiny as a historical pageant. “Re-enactments” of the Pony Express, Indian attacks, stagecoach robberies, and even Custer’s Last Stand kept crowds that ranged from, literally, the crowned heads of Europe to throngs of orphans, enthralled. Packaged as living memories of a disappearing era, it taught two generations ways of thinking about the West that are still passed along in the media today. “Pahaska” (the Sioux name for Bill, meaning “Long Hair”) was one of the first international celebrities.

It’s ironic, then, that the frontier scout whose reputation as a pathfinder was justly unparalleled should find himself so far from home. In 1907, Cody’s will dictated that he be buried near his namesake town of Cody, Wyoming. However, as the years passed, so did Cody’s business acumen. The debt-ridden showman had placed himself in the power of the unscrupulous co-owner of the Denver Post, Henry Tammen, who auctioned off the assets of the Wild West show in Denver in 1913, and used Cody’s indebtedness to him to force him to act as master of ceremonies for his Sells-Floto Circus from 1914 on.

By the time the 70-year-old Cody died in the home of his sister at 2932 Lafayette St. on Jan. 9, 1917, of uremic poisoning brought on by kidney failure, his will was no longer his own.

It has long been rumored that Tammen, with the aid of a $10,000 bribe to Cody’s estranged widow Louisa, conspired to have him interred against his wishes in Colorado, the better to profit from the late scout’s corporeal presence. Both Cody and North Platte clamored for the right to bury him.

“Everybody realized that it would be great tourist attraction,” says Noel.

Cody’s funeral was held in Denver on a freezing Jan. 15, 1917, with thousands filing past his body in state at the capitol building. His body was then placed in the Olinger Mortuary at 2600 16th St., supposedly under armed guard, for six months, while the authorities waited for the dirt roads that led up the mountain west of Golden to become passable. (The body was re-embalmed six more times.)

On June 3, 1917, a motorcade ferried what was estimated as between 7,000 and 20,000 mourners to the summit of the peak to pay final homage to the “knight of the saddle,” as News correspondent Meredith Davis floridly referred to him. The widow ordered the casket opened, and poems, songs and trumpet fanfares stirred the summer air as attendees filed past the coffin for a final glimpse of their hero. At 3 p.m., the coffin was lowered into the concrete-lined vault; a photograph shows the words “BURGLAR PROOF GRAVE VAULT” embossed on its side.

Just to make sure, several tons of concrete, reinforced with iron rails, eventually topped the gravesite. The undertaker is said to have stated that grave robbers “would have to blow the top off Lookout Mountain” to get at the body. In fact, when his wife Louisa died in 1921, it proved impossible to dig down to his level – so they buried her on top of him, sealing them both in with more concrete.

Meanwhile, Cody’s adopted son and Wild West sharpshooter Johnny Baker proposed in 1920 that the city of Denver allow him to construct a building adjacent to the grave to house Buffalo Bill memorabilia, as well as “the sale of the Colonel’s books, postcards, photographic views, candies, and light refreshments.” The deal was struck, and the “Pahaska Tepee” was built.

Still, the controversy wasn’t over. Serious calls for the repatriation of Cody’s corpse continued as late as 1948, once prompting the National Guard to drive a tank up Lariat Trail Road to stand guard over Bill’s remains.

The museum/gift shop’s rag-tag assemblage was presided over by Baker until 1931, and by his widow until 1956. The city took over the site, and a freestanding museum building was finally completed nearby in 1979. Today, it is presided over by director Steve Friesen, who in 12 years has crafted a more interesting and even-handed display of Cody’s life and legacy than visitors have ever before enjoyed.

“Every once in a while somebody up in Wyoming gets a wild hair going,” he says of disgruntlement over Buffalo Bill’s final resting place. As recently as last year, he states, consultants in Cody recommended a renewed effort to disinter the pioneer.

“They said, ‘You need to get Buffalo Bill’s body here,’” he chuckles, and goes on to characterize the repositories of Buffalo Billiana as sharing “a good-natured rivalry.”

So Buffalo Bill still sleeps ‘neath Colorado skies, trapped under the wife he avoided in life, catching the pitched pennies tossed on his tomb for luck by travelers, still a moneymaker through the auspices of the nearby gift shop, still a showman in death.

“It’s pretty up there,” Louisa Cody reported her husband saying of Lookout Mountain shortly before his death.

Tom Noel chimes in with a wry quote from Voltaire -- “History is a pack of tricks the living play upon the dead.”

CULTURAMA: Mighty 'Big River' at the Arvada Center

Alan H. Green (left) as Jim and Alan Shaw as Huck in the Arvada Center's production of "Big River." (Photo by P. Switzer/Courtesy Arvada Center)

Good theater springs up in unlikely places.

When the Arvada Center opened in 1976, no one thought that it might one day become a regional center for professional-quality theatrical productions. The main stage, for instance, was poorly designed and had extreme technical limitations. Ambitions, likewise, didn’t extend much past the community-theater level.

After decades of patient effort, and thanks largely to the vision of Artistic Producer Rod Lansberry, the Center is a success story. Case in point: its current production of “Big River,” the award-winning musical adaptation of Mark Twain’s classic novel “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”

Of course, it would be difficult for an adapter to ruin the original’s charm, but what makes the work soar is its score. Roger Miller’s brilliant roster of songs is reason enough to attend a performance, and “River in the Rain” is already a standard.

Before “Big River,” there was country sound on the Broadway stage – at least faux country. The Gershwins used Nevada as a gimmick setting in “Girl Crazy” in 1930, and shows such as “Oklahoma!”, “Shenandoah” and “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” gave nods to the flavor and instrumentation of rural acoustic music.

But Miller, the country composer/performer who had already won more Grammy awards than anyone would until Michael Jackson came along, was the real deal. He was more than equal to the occasion, using the genre in an effective, expressive way. In “Big River,” for which he won a Tony award, he crafted songs that not only capture but augment and supplement the original material.

William Hauptman’s book aptly condenses its sprawling source, shaping it into a swift-moving, entertaining evening with – gasp! – actual content.

Despite the adolescent high jinks, the emotional center of the piece is Jim, the escaped slave and Huck’s bosom companion who travels down the Mississippi with him. (Twain’s Jim was the first instance of a white writer coming within spitting distance of portraying a black character as a dimensional human being.)

Hauptman and Miller use “Big River” to open up the work past Huck’s first-person perspective, illuminating Jim’s suffering. Passages such as “The Crossing” and “Free at Last” show the underside of Twain’s universe – institutionalized slavery as a poison that ruined the souls of the enslaved and the enslavers.

Director/choreographer Stephen Bourneuf knows how to put a show across. Brian Mallgrave’s efficient, versatile set helps the action move along seamlessly, helped along by Nicole Harrison’s beautiful period costumes, Gail Gober’s lighting plot and Steve Stevens’ sound design.

Vocally, the cast sparkles – in particular, Gabrielle Goyette and Valisia Lekae pull out all the stops during their solos. Alan Shaw’s Huck, though ingratiating, is overshadowed by the immense presence of Alan H. Green as Jim. Other standouts include Kitty Skillman Hilsabeck as the sour and proper Miss Watson, and Emily van Fleet as Mary Jane Wilkes.

The biggest delight of the evening is the duo of rapscallions, the King (Eric Leviton) and the Duke (Jim Newman), two con artists who hijack Jim and Huck, using them to help them fleece the populace as they float downriver. Newman’s hopelessly awful pseudo-Shakespearean pomposity, combined with Leviton’s drawling sarcasms, makes every moment with them on stage a pleasure.

Knowing the story won’t preclude enjoying seeing it in this incarnation. Those who don’t know it will find “Big River” a stirring, entertaining introduction.

“Big River” is presented by the Arvada Center, 6901 Wadsworth Blvd., Arvada, through Aug. 9. For tickets and information, please visit www.arvadacenter.org or call 720-898-7200.

BLUEGRASS: Blue Canyon Boys' new CD a treat

House Full of Sorrow
The Blue Canyon Boys
www.bluecanyonboys.com

A lot of bluegrass bands are slick but lose the soul. The Blue Canyon Boys have both quantities in equal measure.

Winning the Telluride Bluegrass Festival Band Competition is no walk in the park. When The Blue Canyon Boys did so in 2008, it was a tribute to their musicianship and hard work. This, their third album, showcases a blend of keening voices, powerful drive and some of the most brisk picking heard recently.

The quartet – Drew Garrett on bass, Gary Dark on mandolin, Jason Hicks on guitar and Jeff Scroggins on banjo – tackles an astute mix of old and new here. Rollicking instrumentals such as “Daybreak in Dixie” and “New Camptown Races” alternate with strong pieces by Hicks like the melancholy “Wondering What Happened to You” and Dark’s simple, beautiful “Lyin’, Cheatin’, Cryin’”.

A most soulful time is had with standards such as “Winsborough Cotton Mill Blues,” the Stanleys’ “Highway of Regret,” and an enchanting live version of “Jesus on the Mainline.” Sometimes, you get the feeling that a group is covering gospel material because it’s expected; the Boys bring it from the heart.

In the “everything’s a potential bluegrass song” category, Cheap Trick’s “I Want You to Want Me” is hilariously apt. The entire group is lightning-fast on the strings, and possessed of precision. The result is a high-energy, pointillist attack that enlivens the listener and encourages repeat listens.

Catching up with Dr. Banjo: Pete Wernick juggles projects, work with Steve Martin

Pete Wernick is a busy, busy banjo man. (Photo by Kevin Ferguson/Courtesy www.drbanjo.com)

Reprinted from the Colorado Bluegrass Music Society's Pow'r Pickin

Banjo legend Pete Wernick is also one heck of a juggler.

The 62-year-old instrumentalist, composer, singer, bandleader, educator and doctor of sociology (thus the Dr. Banjo monicker) is working in four different musical ensembles these days.

In addition to his own group, Flexigrass, he performs as half of a duo with his wife, guitarist and singer Joan; as an addition to the relatively new local ensemble, Long Road Home; and of course an as integral part of the periodic reunion concerts given by the seminal progressive bluegrass group Hot Rize.

He also spends many weeks a year teaching at bluegrass camps across the country. He is editing two more instructional videos this month (he’s got seven under his belt, plus “about seven books”).

He writes a monthly column for Banjo Newsletter. He works diligently on his Web site, www.DrBanjo.com (over 150 questions answered in his “Ask Dr. Banjo” column to date!).

Oh yeah, did we mention a new Pete & Joan CD is in the works? And, hey, he just finished collaborating on Steve Martin’s new CD The Crow: New Songs for the Five-String Banjo, a departure into serious bluegrass for the famous comedian that has attracted a great deal of popular interest.

“A lot of people seem interested in Steve Martin,” Wernick says in his usual wry, understated way.

The two developed a friendship a few years ago, after Wernick learned that Martin cited him as an inspiration – “it was very strange to hear an icon of American culture saying that he admires me!”

They eventually met, jammed, and started hanging out together. Hot Rize wound up playing at Martin’s wedding in 2007. Martin began to work on some original banjo tunes.

In 2008, Martin passed around a demo recording of 18 pieces for possible use to Wernick, Tony Trischka and John McEuen, the last a friend of Martin’s since high school. The project jelled into being fairly quickly, with recording sessions last summer in the studio of Dae Bennett, Tony Bennett’s son, in New Jersey, a short distance from Manhattan over the George Washington Bridge.

Over 30 bluegrass and country greats ended up contributing to the recording. Wernick co-wrote one cut, “Words Unspoken.”

“Of those 18 initial pieces, I liked the last one, which was only about 30 seconds long,” he says. “I asked Steve, ‘What are you going to do with it?’” Wernick asked Martin if he minded if Wernick tried to add a second part to it.

“I wrote a second part for it, and we expanded it. Then I said, ‘It sounds like a song.’” The two wrote lyrics separately and then combined them over the course of a lengthy long-distance call.

(The album’s liner notes state that “the lyrics are practically finished,” and as yet it’s still an instrumental piece.)

Wernick doesn’t know if Martin is interested in touring with his music, and he wonders if the quiet, private writer and performer might like resuming the rigorous life of a touring performer.

Wernick certainly does. He is traveling quite a bit with Flexigrass, a heady mix of bluegrass and classic jazz sounds. Wernick is clear that the emphasis is on roots music with unique instrumentation, to wit: clarinet (Bill Pontarelli) in place of a fiddle, vibraphone (Greg Harris) in lieu of guitar, and drums (Kris Ditson) fulfilling what Wernick calls the “pulse function” of a mandolin.

The group, now in its 17th year, “carries the same kind of musical density” as a bluegrass outfit, says Wernick, and it’s been welcomed across the country.

Wernick appreciates events such as Merlefest “giving this kind of music a home.”

On top of that, Wernick recently joined the straight-ahead ensemble Long Road Home, working with Martin Gilmore on guitar, Justin Hoffenberg on fiddle, and Jordan Ramsey on mandolin, as well as Nashville Bluegrass Band vet Gene Libbea on bass.

“‘I’m dying to do (traditional) bluegrass,’” he told Hoffenberg when he was told that the band needed a banjo player. The group has been touring, and recording sessions last month in eTown Hall in Boulder should yield a live album in the near future.

Meanwhile, Hot Rize endures. The groundbreaking group, which stopped touring full-time in 1990, survived the death of guitarist Charles Sawtelle in 1999, reformed in 2002 with Bryan Sutton on guitar.

They return to the RockyGrass festival in Lyons, north of Boulder, in late July – and the rumor that Red Knuckles & the Trailblazers, Hot Rize’s wacky country-swing alter egos, are back is confirmed.

“The Trailblazers will be back this year,” says Wernick, smiling. “They did a long set at the Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival last year – nearly two and a half hours at the dance stage.”

Wernick still sees Hot Rize as his “peak experience,” a life-changing achievement that, in his eyes, “helped make Colorado a center for bluegrass.”

He sees his work as a teacher as his most lasting influence, however.

“You really affect people’s lives when you get them to play with others,” he says. “Many, many people love to play but they play by themselves, they are stuck in this box. We call it ‘closet picking.’ They stay in that stage, they get discouraged, and they give up. Playing well is only half of it – you have to learn to give and take with other musicians. So, hopefully, we save these people from undeserved oblivion.”

Taken all in all, how does he balance all these commitments? He states that he thinks and plans only about three months in advance, staying “pleasantly busy.” When he finds himself with an open week, he’s glad to catch up on things at home, his two acres north of Boulder, which is crossed by Left Hand Creek.

“People ask, ‘Do you have a little studio where you create?’” he says. “And I do – I have a funky little shack I built in the back, down by the creek. It’s strictly functional, not built for looks, and that’s where I work out a lot of my ideas. It’s so nice – a spot by a creek, a pleasant place to be.”

For more information about the Colorado Bluegrass Music Society, please click this link.