Chris Kresge gives us the skinny on the most influential Colorado songs of the last years. (Image via the subject).
Now, more than ever, local music has been inspiring people to turn on their radios.
There’s something thrilling about listening to an artist that you might know in person or saw down at the neighborhood venue last week. But it’s really because the majority of Colorado music is good. Like, damn good.
This is what DJ Chris Kresge has been helping listeners understand for 10 years now with his all-local radio program, “Chris K’s Colorado Playlist.”
Back in 2006, when Kresge was a jockey at 88.9 KRFC in Fort Collins, he took over a fledgling program called “The Colorado Sound.” In no time, he shaped it into his own fuzzy FM baby and set out to prove that “local” doesn’t mean lackluster or unprofessional.
“I hate that word,” Kresge says, with a dry laugh. “That term is denigrating and I really fought hard to get rid of it because has a negative connotation. Instead, I realized that I had to expand the notion of what ‘local’ music really was, and looked at the entire big picture going back to the 1950s.”
Speaking of old, Kresge love and dedication to Colorado grew out of a rich and rather disgruntled musical lineage. His dad was a frustrated musician who opened the first jazz club in Anchorage, Alaska and always said there was no money in music.
So, even though Kresge picked up a guitar, hoping to be the next Jeff Beck or Eric Clapton, he ended up joining the United States Air Force and spinning vinyl for airmen instead.
After leaving the military, which he calls the “most boring experience” of his life, Kresge kicked around for a while before choosing to immerse himself in Colorado’s music scene. He’s been wading in it ever since.
“Colorado’s always had a thriving scene,” he explains. “Some of the music from Colorado is what drew me back here. When the Little Bear opened up in Evergreen, for instance, I’d go up there on a Sunday and there’d be Dan Fogelberg and Stephen Stills just doing singer-songwriter sessions in the round, trading songs back and forth. It was really laid back and chill.”
That’s why Kresge has devoted himself to broadcasting a two-hour block of decade-spanning local tunes every month. It’s paid off. In 2010, the show went into syndication and was picked up by a number of small radio stations across Colorado, KBUT-FM in Crested Butte, KDNK-FM in Carbondale, KOTO-FM in Telluride and KUNC-FM in Steamboat.
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By Ian Gassman
Read the whole article here including the list of songs:
http://www.heyreverb.com/blog/2016/08/06/dj-chris-kresge-reminds-us-colorado-music-good/120079/