Ice Caps: Peaks of Telluride (CD - 2000)

Personnel: Sam Bush (vocals, electric guitar, acoustic & electric mandolins, fiddle); Jon Randall (vocals, guitar); Jeffro Beck (vocals, electric mandolin); John Cowan (vocals, bass); Dan Sadowski, Pastor Mustard (spoken vocals); Darrell Scott (guitar); Bela Fleck (banjo); Jerry Douglas (lap steel guitar, dobro); John Magnie (accordion); Larry Atamunik (drums).

Engineers include: Kooster McAllister, David Sinko.

Recorded at Telluride Bluegrass Festival, Telludire, Colorado between June 1992 & June 1999. Includes liner notes by Dan Sadowski and Pastor Mustard.

If bluegrass is folk music on steroids, then ICE CAPS: PEAKS OF TELLURIDE is bluegrass on rocket fuel and kickapoo joy juice. Nashville mandolin ace Sam Bush is joined by other legendary pickers on this set of performances culled from 25 years of concerts at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival.

Bob Dylan's "Girl From the North Country," a bluegrass favorite, is offered as a joyous, strumabilly romp. Bush tosses off the vocals in his fine, reedy tenor, then engages dobro master Jerry Douglas in a thrilling exchange of solos. Bush shows off his award winning fiddle chops, leading banjoist Bela Fleck, Douglas, and others on an incendiary stomp through "Big Mon," the Bill Monroe standard. This is fun music, and the crowd hollers itself hoarse with approval on Bush's hit "Same Ol' River," John Hiatt's "Memphis in the Meantime," and even a surprisingly apt reading of Kool And The Gang's "Celebrate." Bluegrass purists may look askance, but the virtuosity and huge good time captured here make this collection ideal for all lovers of rocking acoustic music. minimize