Colorado’s First Jam Band to reunite at Swallow Hill on November 18

By C.W. Molesworth

It was raining as Sam Bush from New Grass Revival, Will Luckey from Magic Music and Tim O’Brien of the Ophelia Swing Band dashed across the two wood planks that comprised a makeshift bridge to the old green tool shed that served as the backstage dressing room for the 2nd Annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival. New Grass was headlining the 1974 festival and Sam was working out a closing song for all the bands to get together and play as a grand finale. New Grass and it’s star members Bela Fleck, John Cowan and Sam Bush would go on to individual recognition as well as securing the title of founders of the ‘new grass’ and jam band music scene. But on that bill was Colorado’s first jam band, Magic Music, who played the 2nd and 3rd festivals along with touring from New York to Nashville and LA in search of recognition for their ground breaking acoustic sound. MM had any number of brushes with success, but like the acts you don’t remember from Woodstock, they never got that major push to stardom.

Now 35 years after their last show in Colorado, this region’s first jam band returns to the stage for a one-night-only performance at Swallow Hill on November 18th.  “We were managed by Barry Fey at one point. We played the Village Vanguard for the top names in the industry and had record deal offers from some of the best companies out there, but the business side just never came together. They wanted us to change, to stand and sing instead of sitting, to add trap drums and big production stuff with strings and shit, and that just wasn’t us. We wrote and played the music we loved and it was inspired by the hills we lived in, and the elves and pirates we lived with, and we smoked a lot of weed so the songs and the music developed in very non-commercial ways, at least according to the industry,” laughs George Cahill (aka Tode) the band’s flute player. “And Magic Music had this big extended family of musicians and school busses and dogs and merry pranksters that included these amazing musicians like Tim Goodman (RCA and Warner Brothers recording artist and lead singer of the country-rock band Southern Pacific) and Rosewood Canyon and Michael Covington all hanging around the Hummingbird Café in Allenspark” said the band’s lead guitar, banjo and mandolin player Chris Daniels (yes, that Chris Daniels of Chris Daniels & the Kings).

Magic Music was a bi-coastal band started in Boulder by Lynn Poyer, Marty Trigg and George Cahill in 1970. At the same time on Martha’s Vineyard, Will Luckey, Bill Makepeace and Tim Goodman all played together at various venues on the island. When Luckey, the lead high voice, and lighthearted spirit of Magic Music, moved to Colorado he joined up with Poyer (nicknamed Flatbush) after Trigg left the band. They added Rob Galloway to the group and that completed the early line up of four vocals, two guitars bass and flute. (Galloway would go on to play bass with Navarro who backed Carol King and he was one of the original members of Leftover Salmon.) MM opened for Richie Havens, The Youngbloods and Cat Stevens, which brought them to the attention of Barry Fey who sent them to New York for fame and fortune. Both eluded the band and they spent a cold winter living in two school busses and a doughnut truck in Eldorado Canyon, “because the campground guy would let us stay there for $25 a month and the outhouse was not that far away,” Cahill explained.

In 1971 the band moved up to a commune in Allenspark where they held court at the Hummingbird Café for almost a year as the house band and played numerous shows for Chuck Morris at Tulagi’s in Boulder, and various trips to Nashville and New York to showcase the band. When Flatbush tired of the road and Galloway got the chance to play with Tim Goodman, who had just moved to Colorado from San Francisco, the band hired Bill Makepeace from the Vineyard on bass (nicked named Das by Luckey), Chris Daniels (nicknamed Spoons by Luckey) and Kevin Millburn, a percussionist playing mostly tabla.

That was the essential configuration of the band as they started touring the country from late 1972 to 1976.  MM played Telluride shows, colleges in the Midwest, roadhouses in New Mexico, art festivals in Phoenix, Ebbits Field,  “and we even played for 100 lbs of beans one winter when times were tough at the San Louis Colorado high school” Daniels said shaking his head and laughing, “I can truly say I’ve played for beans.”

Tim Goodman was a part of that “Magic Music family” though his path would take him first to a record deal with Feyline/RCA records and then as the lead singer for Warner Brother’s country act, Southern Pacific, whose songs were used in the film Pink Cadillac starring Clint Eastwood.

According to Daniels, “This was not so much a band as a musical family. And we had all this crazy stuff going on with shows with everybody from Freddi Henchi to David Bromberg at places that ranged from the old Denver Folklore Center to Ebbits Field to gigs at some of the best arts and music festivals in the country.”  But the times were changing and it would take the music scene another 10 years before the jam bands really got a foothold. “When disco came in ’76, we were pretty much done.” said Makepeace.

Thanks to Tim Goodman, the band reunited for two shows this summer on the east coast, and Daniels talked with the folks at Swallow Hill to give them a shot at playing again in Colorado. “I even talked to Chuck Morris the other day and he said, ‘Man… I would love to see that…put me down for it … I’ll be there!” All the founding members with the exception of Flatbush will be there along with long time Colorado favorite Tim Goodman who said, “I haven’t played Colorado since Southern Pacific played Red Rocks and there are so many great memories of touring here.”

The show is on Friday, November 18 at Swallow Hill.  Go to www.swallowhillmusic.org for more information and tickets. “This is a rare one. A lot of these bands from the ‘60s and ‘70s are all beat up and some are not around at all, ya know what I mean? But these guys sound better than ever!” said Bill Murray the famed Hollywood actor and friend of the musicians who saw them perform this summer on the Vineyard and who was a former fan of both Magic Music and Rosewood Canyon when he attended Regis

Tags: Swallow Hill Music Hall

Category: Planet Buzz