Colorado Music Hall of Fame, Presented by Comfort Dental
The Class of 2018 Induction Celebration “LIVE AND ON THE AIR”
97.3 KBCO and Chuck Morris with A Cavalcade of Musical Appearances
DENVER, CO 10/15/18 – The Colorado Music Hall of Fame presented by Comfort Dental will host its next induction event, Monday, December 3, 2018 at the historic Paramount Theatre. The induction of 97.3 KBCO and legendary concert promoter and artist manager Chuck Morris will be accompanied by a cavalcade of musical appearances from, Amos Lee, Todd Park Mohr (Big Head Todd), Isaac Slade and Ben Wysocki of The Fray, Bill Nershi and members of The String Cheese Incident, Vince Herman and Drew Emmitt from Leftover Salmon, Jeff Hanna and some members of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Leo Kottke along with backing band Chris Daniels & The Kings, plus more surprises to be announced.
This seminal evening will include a “Chuck Roast” of inductee Chuck Morris hosted by The Honorable Governor John Hickenlooper, who commented, “Chuck Morris is one of those prominent figures who helped transform the Colorado music and concert scene into one of the biggest and finest music worlds in the country.”
Tickets go on sale Friday, October 19 at 10am MDT through www.AltitudeTickets.com
Inductee 97.3 KBCO went on the air in 1977 creating an alternative to standard rock and pop radio. Programmers and DJs were given freedom to go beyond the “hit singles” playing “album” tracks and music from artists as diverse as The Grateful Dead, Bonnie Raitt, Talking Heads, and Lyle Lovett. 97.3 KBCO, along with a handful of stations around the country, created a format now called “Adult-Album-Alternative” (or Triple A) radio. The format was so successful that Billboard added a Triple A Chart in 2005 and every year the Triple A Radio Convention is held in Boulder hosted by KBCO.
Along with the countless awards and innovative programming like “KBCO Sunday Sunrise” and “KBCO Local Edition” this year the station is celebrating its 30th Anniversary with “KBCO Studio C, CD” thirty years of live recordings benefiting The Boulder County Aids Project and Food Bank of the Rockies. Countless artists like Amos Lee, Dave Matthews and Big Head Todd & The Monsters owe their careers to the men and women who programmed and played their music long before pop radio gave them a chance.
Inductee Chuck Morris was born in Brooklyn, New York, and graduated from Queens college at the age of 20. After graduation, Morris started a PhD program in Political Science at CU Boulder in 1965. In 1968 Morris decided to drop out of graduate school to follow his love of music.
First at the Sink and then at Tulagi’s (that he co-owned) on the hill in Boulder, Morris made his mark at booking up and coming talent that would become the stars of tomorrow.
Hosting artists from the Eagles, Bonnie Raitt, The Doobie Brothers, ZZ Top to Linda Ronstadt, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band to Muddy Waters and hundreds more, Tulagi’s was the launching pad for Morris’s 48-year career as Colorado’s most prolific concert promoter and artist manager.
Morris opened Ebbets Field in Denver that included a New Year’s Eve performance by Steve Martin who took the entire audience out for coffee in a snowstorm. Following Ebbets Field which brought in first tours of Dan Fogelberg, Jimmy Buffet, Emmylou Harris, Tommy Bolin and Energy, among others, Chuck joined Feyline as Senior vice President of Promotion for 10 years.
Next Morris joined forces with the company of famed concert promoter Bill Graham to create a Morris/SFX company that re-imagined the old Mammoth Gardens into The Fillmore. Through Morris’s management work for the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and their tour of Russia in support of the Anschutz Western Art Collection debut, Chuck developed a close working relationship with Colorado’s Phil Anschutz.
That friendship resulted in AEG Rocky Mountains, with Morris at the helm. It has become the largest concert promotion company in our State’s history putting on more than 800 shows per year at venues from the Pepsi Center to Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre and more than 110 shows at Red Rocks in the summer of 2018.
Morris also built one of Colorado’s most successful artist management firms with clients that included Lyle Lovett, Big Head Todd & The Monsters, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Leo Kottke, to name only a few.
This CMHOF evening will feature video tributes, interviews and performances. The pre-concert gala (a dinner and meet-and-greet with the performers) will also include a historic array of exhibits and archival photographs, to be relocated in the CMHOF’s home at the world-renowned Red Rocks Amphitheatre Trading Post.
The Colorado Music Hall of Fame, presented by Comfort Dental, is a non-profit organization. Its mission is to honor those individuals who have made outstanding contributions, to preserve and protect historical artifacts, and to educate the public regarding everything that is great about our Colorado music.
Previous inductees include John Denver and Red Rocks Amphitheatre; Harry Tuft of the Denver Folklore Center and promoter Barry Fey of Family Dog fame; the Astronauts, Sugarloaf, Flash Cadillac and KIMN radio; folk legend Judy Collins, the Serendipity Singers, Bob Lind and Chris Daniels; Stephen Stills/Manassas, Firefall, Poco and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and more.
This induction concert is produced by AEG Presents and the historic Paramount Theatre. Reserved tickets and premium gala seating with pre-show hors d’oeuvres & cocktails available through AltitudeTickets.com - additional information can be obtained on the Hall’s website, https://cmhof.org/