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Music of Denver

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Red Rocks, Denver's most famous music venue

While Denver may not be as recognized for historical musical prominence like such cities as Los Angeles, Detroit, or New York City, it still manages to have a very active popular, jazz, and classical music scene, which has nurtured many artists and genres to regional, national, and even international attention. Though nearby Boulder, Colorado has its own very distinct music scene, they are intertwined and often artists based there also play in Denver.

History

Going back to the early twentieth century, Denver has played an important part in the history of music, greatly because of its central location in the United States; between New York and Los Angeles. During the thirties jazz boom, such legendary vocalists as Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis and others resided.[citation needed]

Folk revolution and "Denver Pop"

Later on in the sixties, the city's location again played a pivotal role in its musical success. As folk music gained extreme popularity, a number of Denver's old folk clubs began to fill with then-unknown stars like Bob Dylan and Judy Collins. Along with a population boom, the city gained much press for its rising music scene. By the late sixties, such stars as Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix had proclaimed Denver one of their favorite cities to perform in, and Hendrix often spoke of his tours with special admiration for the Red Rocks venue. The 1969 Denver Pop Festival was often compared to Woodstock for its status as "an end of an era".

As the seventies dawned, Denver's position in the country music genre began to take shape. While Colorado's reputation for mountain bluegrass, traditional folk, western, and country music had never been in question, the state's largest city was now playing a more important part in the advancement of local artists. In the wake of the folk boom of the sixties came a country music boom in the early seventies, with such country-folk superstars like John Denver making names for themselves with songs inspired by the region. Denver himself was most famous for this, often becoming a great spokesman for the state and region.

Heavy Metal scene and Country scene

In the late seventies, as the country music scene in Denver began to peak for that era, a number of hard rock and heavy metal bands began to spring up in the international rise in popularity for their respected genres. While mostly underground and still in existence today, Denver's metal scene has often been noted as one of the most neglected by the press, and just as well prized by national cult rock scenes. The metal and hard rock bands of that time would later play an important part in Denver's hugely popular stoner metal and jam band scenes of the nineties.

By the eighties, Denver had progressed further from its role as a "Nashville West" town and turned more towards the growing pop music of the decade. While the metal scene grew notably during the early eighties in the city, more so did the local funk, R&B, jazz-fusion and hip hop scenes. Without great exposure for a number of years, excluding the occasional hit in the seventies, the Denver soul scene gained great momentum among locals, with area jazz clubs selling out the record audiences. Always a city never far from the trendy, Denver also saw a rise in power metal groups which hit the mainstream with little trouble.

Recent decades

As the eighties ended, the same was not true for Denver's once again lively jazz scene which still holds prominence today. But, with a new decade came a new generation of music; grunge, thrash and nineties pop. Denver embraced all of these genres without trouble, most notably grunge. Like Seattle and a number of other cities who experienced the grunge boom, Denver fostered the genre in the early nineties before it quickly died out after the fall of the band Nirvana.

During the nineties, Denver received more music press than the previous decade, with a number of notable events happening in the city as opposed to an erupting scene. A number of festivals gained record attendance during the tenure of Mayor Wellington Webb, who worked to revamp the art community during his time as mayor. A small shock rock and Industrial metal scene developed in south Denver during the mid-nineties as a product of the vast underground metal and thrash scenes left over from the local hard rock up rise of the late seventies. As a result of the melting pot of styles being exhibited in the music scene at the time, a new revolution came to light: jam bands.

Jam and Stoner

A direct result of many local metal fans fusing together with the vibrant jazz/funk and indie communities, the "jam band" style was formed in Denver during the late nineties. Using methods common in sixties psychedelic groups and fusion artists like Frank Zappa and Jimi Hendrix, jam bands were composed of a group "jamming" for extended periods; as to which many genres were attributed. Local country music even entered the jam scene, allowing the music to go full-circle. In addition to the jam bands, stoner metal exploded in late nineties Denver as a response and as a complement to the jam scene. Using similar methods and popularized in trendy underground LoDo pubs, stoner metal was what many local hard rockers referred to as "the real product" of their endeavors. Legendary Desert rock acts such as Kyuss, Fu Manchu, and earthlings? frequently made numerous stops in Denver during the Palm Scene renaissance of the 1990's.

Punk

Punk rock has always been a favored genre in the local underground Denver music scene, with common hits into mainstream pop music. Since the international punk surge in the late seventies, the style had been common place in the diverse underground, but had not had enough of a boom to gain regional popularity. Mostly known by local college students who had opposition to the metal underground, punk started to gain momentum in the late nineties, while oppressed under the jam/stoner movement.

As the millennium dawned, so did the up rise of east and central Denver punk rock and math rock. Under the same scene, the two styles had labored under different schools in the metro area but found common ground in their late nineties oppression. With Fear Before the March of Flames leading the pack, a local punk boom started and gained national popularity. While still somewhat alienated by the Denver mainstream today, local punk rock remains a staple in the genre's national scene, especially in respects to the metro area's reputation for lively hardcore concerts.

Southern Gothic

One of the largest and most influential scenes in Denver music during the 1990's and early 2000's was "Southern" or "Country" Gothic, a style of dark and brooding Americana comprising elements of Folk, Country, and Southern Gospel. The rise of this style in Denver can be attributed almost single-handedly to 16 Horsepower and the many projects of it's former members, such as Slim Cessna's Auto Club, Woven Hand, The Denver Gentlemen, and Munly & the Lee Lewis Harlots.

Americana

The unexpected emergence of evolved 'roots' music in the last few years has produced a multitude of truly exceptional Denver artists, including: Jeff Finlin (entered charts at #35 week of July 25 2007), Gregory Alan Isakov, Ian Cooke, Roger Green, Bad Weather California, and Joe Sampson, Porlolo among others.

Classical

Denver has many performing ensembles dedicated to the Classical genre including the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, the state’s only full-time professional orchestra. Various community groups include the Denver Philharmonic Orchestra (formerly the Centennial Philharmonic), The Colorado Wind Ensemble, and The Denver Brass. The major youth ensembles are the Denver Young Artists Orchestra, the Colorado Youth Symphony Orchestra, and the Colorado Honor Band.

Famous Denver Bands and Artists

Local bands and musicians as well as those with a strong connection to Denver include:

Famous music venues in Denver

John Denver is eternally memorialized at the park dedicated to him in his nearby hometown of Aspen.

Trivia and Facts

  • John Denver lived both in the Denver metro area and his hometown of Aspen, where he received inspiration for many of his songs depicting life in Colorado. Selecting the surname "Denver" for his favorite city, he rose to worldwide fame with such ballads as Rocky Mountain High , Starwood in Aspen , I Guess He'd Rather Be In Colorado , and Me and my Uncle , in which he lyrically declares "I'm about as honest as a Denver man can be!"
  • Jeff Finlin while living in Fort Collins and gigging in Denver, was thought to be a famous British singer/songwriter until the Pulitzer Prize winning author J.R. Moehringer tracked him down (see [1]
  • The Jimi Hendrix Experience broke up in Denver, after the historic and anticipated Denver Pop Festival of 1969. Hendrix both designed the cover of the Electric Ladyland album and wrote the song Room Full of Mirrors one night at the Cosmopolitan Hotel. A local favorite during their superstardom-reign, the Experience played to often over-crowded audiences at Hendrix' supposed favorite venue, Red Rocks.
  • Judy Collins, another folk singer, was raised in Denver and attended East High School. Conductor Antonia Brico was her childhood piano teacher. Several of her songs feature mentioning of Colorado.
  • Bob Dylan recorded a live album in Denver, and lived in Capitol Hill for several years, where he got his start playing local folk clubs for several dollars. Today he owns a home in Telluride, Colorado.
  • American Idol has scouted Denver on several occasions, and found Ace Young who was a finalist in the fifth season.
  • The Denver Center for the Performing Arts is the second largest performing arts complex in the world, second only to New York's Lincoln Center.
  • Swallow Hill, a music school located in Denver, is the second largest American Roots school in the U.S.[citation needed]
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