I used to go to a lot of folk and bluegrass music festivals. One of my favorites was the Silverton Jubilee Folk Festival in Sivlerton, Colorado. Loved the high, rare atmosphere, the mountain scenery, the people, the food (especially at the Wyman Hotel), the whistle of the steam engine arriving from and departing to Durango.
Festival organizers booked some amazing professional performers for the festival shows but best of all for me were Impromptu jam sessions which sprang to life in camps set up around the little town. A lot of good amateur musicians frequented the jam sessions, some of them young and brilliant like this group of kids here were. Wandering around in the evenings listening to music ringing out along the banks of the Animas River was a superb experience, especially when young musicians were making the music.
Sadly, the Silverton festival is no longer happening. It seemed to fall apart about the time the greedy banksters and shiftless automobile manufacturers had to be bailed out of the mess they made of their "too big to fail" businesses, throwing the nation into deep recession.
I miss it and hope someday it will be revived.
