BOWREGARD from Page 12
just visiting from their home in Savannah, Georgia. “I remember this moment exactly,” Kabat says, “because somebody at the bluegrass pick leaned over to me and was like, ‘Somebody’s gonna swoop these guys up and start a really awesome bluegrass band.’ And I just remember thinking, oh yeah, that person is me.” The final piece of the band was dobro player Justin Konrad, who Kabat and Armington had known for years, but who had always been busy with other projects. “When we asked him, he was like, ‘Well, what took you so long? I’ve been waiting; I’ve been waiting for like four months,’” Kabat says. “So it was really cool to hear him say that.” While the pandemic may have upended some plans for Bowregard, Kabat says the band is ready to turn to creative formats to share the new album. They’ll be using some of the money from the Kickstarter campaign to purchase the
ON THE BILL: equipment they ‘Arrows,’ by need to produce Bowregard, is now high-quality vidavailable, bowregard. eos and conduct com socially distant performances. As for missing Telluride this year, it’s a bummer, but there’s no looking back. “We’re all trying to make light of the situation and stay in good spirits,” he says. “We’re going to have this opportunity next year. We’ve already spoken with Planet Bluegrass and we know we’ll be in the same slot at next year’s festival — as long as it happens. Every musical artist and production agency and booking agency is affected by this. So it’s been really helpful for us to kind of put ourselves in that alignment and realize that we’re all kind of suffering right now.” For now, these five archers have sent Arrows out into the world.
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Max Kabat’s Heavy Rotation JAKE BLOUNT
Banjo player and fiddler Jake Blount is a scholar of ethnomusicology, specializing in the music of black and Native American communities in the southeastern United States. In 2016, Blount became the first black person to make the finals at the prestigious Appalachian String Band Music Festival, and the first to win in the traditional band category. Blount’s latest record, Spider Tales, gives voice to the black musicians whose art and voices have been co-opted and shunned from the American roots music industry. “When I listened to [Blount’s record] I was like, holy shit, this is good,” Kabat says.
BRYAN SUTTON
A flatpicking legend who first came into prominence as the lead guitarist for Ricky Skagg’s band Kentucky Thunder, Ryan Sutton has played with the (formerly known as Dixie) Chicks, Jerry Douglas, Sam Bush, Béla Fleck, Chris Thile, and currently Hot Rize. “He’s one of my favorite guitar players,” Kabat says. “He’s probably been on 100 records.”
JOHN HARTFORD
Nobody knew Mississippi lore better than John Crawan Hartford, the singing/dancing/string-playing firecracker of an entertainer whose hit “Gentle On My Mind” went on to be covered by artists as disparate as Glen Campbell, Frank Sinatra and Aretha Franklin. “You didn’t want to follow John,” Ricky Skaggs once said of Hartford. “If John was playing from 9 to 10, you could forget about playing after that because the crowd was his.” Kabat says band members Zach Smith and Colleen Heine gave their son the middle name Hartford after the late, great entertainer.
BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE
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