Artist Spot Light: T-Model Ford

Main Stage: Sunday, September 19

Blues singer and guitarist T-Model Ford was born as James Lewis Carter Ford in 1924 in the small rural town of Forest, Mississippi. By age eleven T-Model was plowing a field behind a mule on his family's farm. Ford got a job at a local saw mill in his early teens. T-Model eventually secured an even better job as a truck driver for a bigger lumber company. Moreover, Ford was sentenced to a chain gang for ten years for murder. Luckily, he was released after serving only two years of his sentence. In addition, T-Model also worked at a logging camp. He has recorded four fabulously lowdown rough and dirty albums for Fat Possum Records: "Pee-Wee Get My Gun," "You Better Keep Still," "She Ain't None of Your'n," and "Bad Man." With his savage moan of a ragged voice and gritty guitar playing style, Ford brings a gloriously raw and blunt ferocity to Mississippi Delta blues music that's both passionate and powerful in equal measure. T-Model appears as himself in the charming comedy short feature "Lohues Gets the Blues" and the excellent documentary "You See Me Laughin'." T-Model Ford lives in Greenville, Mississippi with his girlfriend Stella.

George Thorogood & the Destroyers Added to the 2010 Festival Line-Up!

George is proud to have a stellar line-up join him on the road, including original Destroyer drummer Jeff Simon, who has been in the band since 1973. Also sharing the stage, longtime Destroyer bassist Bill Blough, lead guitarist Jim Suhler and sax player Buddy Leach. "I do the tour for all my fans," Thorogood says, "so we will be doing both the fan favorites and ‘George’s favorites’ -- and we will all have a great time."
Formed in Delaware in the early 1970s, George Thorogood & The Destroyers slew audiences across the country with their raucous take on classic urban rock and blues. The band broke big with the immortal rocker "Bad to the Bone," the title track from their gold-certified 1982 album. That song has been a perennial favorite, featured in everything from James Camreon’s "The Terminator" to the recent Wrangler’s commercial starring Bret Favre.
The wind has been at Thorogood’s back ever since. The Destroyers were the first, and perhaps the only, band to perform in 50 states in 50 days (accomplished in the early 1980s), and gained wide exposure in those early glory days of MTV.
The 2004 gold-certified compilation, "Greatest Hits: 30 Years of Rock," went gold and was Billboard’s Blues Album of the Year two years running. Just last year, the band released "The Dirty Dozen," which paired six new studio recordings with six classic fan favorites, including three popular tracks that had been out-of-print in the U.S.
Even with all his success, Thorogood is nothing if not thoroughly modest. Says the legendary rocker, "I’m just trying to hold my gig. I just want to make sure that at the end of the night the promoter comes up and says, ‘I want to book you again.’"

Looking for festival lodging?

Telluride Alpine Lodging offers the widest selection of hotel rooms, condos and private homes in Telluride and Mountain Village. We still have availability for the Blues & Brews festival.

Artist Spot Light: Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears.

Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears have soul! We are so excited to have on the Main Stage on Sunday, September 19 & at the Sheridan Opera House on Saturday, September 18. They are a festival "must see"!

Anatomy texts might not show it, but the greatest soul and blues music leaves no doubt that the hip bone is directly connected to the heart -- a fact that’s driven home in every note laid down by Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears. As they prove on their Lost Highway debut, Tell ‘Em What Your Name Is, the Austin-based combo has the kind of gritty attitude and deliciously greasy groove-consciousness that’d pass muster in the toughest juke joint. 

To paraphrase Ike and Tina Turner, Tell ‘Em What Your Name Is gives Lewis the chance to play nice and easy as well as nice and rough. He and his band mates take the latter route more often -- as on the fiery, brass-laced opener “Gunpowder” and the unabashedly horn dog anthem “Big Booty Woman.” But there’s far more than one trick up their collective sleeve, as borne out by the dark New Orleans march “Master Sold My Baby.” That from-the-gut stream-of-consciousness permeates the disc, with Lewis wailing wildly -- in a voice that’s one part Joe Tex, one part Tyrone Davis -- through sweat-soaked offerings like the gut bucket “I’m Broke” and “Please, Part Two” as his band mates turn up the heat, taking a low simmer to a full boil with turn-on-a-dime precision.

Photos of the week!

Artist Spot Light: JJ Grey & Mofro

We are so excited to have JJ Grey & Mofro back in the line-up this year. With a new album (Georgia Warhorse) out August 24, you don't want to miss thsese guys on the Main Stage Saturday, September 18 or thier Juke Joint performance at the Telluride Conference Center. 

Like Florida’s state flower, the orange blossom, musician JJ Grey’s songs are fascinating, beautiful, and complex. Both are products of the same ground: the rich, fertile and ancient soil of the Sunshine State. Born and raised just outside of Jacksonville, Florida, Grey comes from a long tradition of Southern musical storytellers and, like the best of the great Southern writers; he fills his songs with details that are at once vivid and personal, political and universal. His multi-textured music overflows with dynamic rhythms and thought-provoking lyrics. From raw funk to deep soul, blues and rock, JJ and his band Mofro deliver devastating live and recorded performances.

JJ Grey’s songs blend front porch realism with the best musical and literary traditions of the South. Whether it is a narrative passed down to him from his grandmother or the tribulations of a childhood friend, Grey’s ear for detail rings through in true storytelling fashion. His voice delivers with an unflinching strength that makes the personal universal and paints a vivid portrait of an exact time or place. Like his songs, Grey’s rich, soulful vocals are forceful and commanding, seemingly wise and experienced beyond his years.

From gritty funk and juke joint romps to contemplative country soul and blistering rockers, Grey’s music is in a class by itself, at once contemporary and classic.