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Raitt, and then a Case study at Telluride

John Lehndorff, Rocky Mountain News

Published June 16, 2006 at midnight

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TELLURIDE - Bonnie Raitt was the star headliner Thursday, the opening day of the 33rd Telluride Bluegrass Festival, but singer-songwriter Neko Case may be the voice lingering in memories long after the event is over.

The festival runs through Sunday at Town Park in this southwest Colorado mountain resort town.

The audience and performers experienced finger-numbing midday temperatures and a showery afternoon, punctuated by brief dust storms, blazing sun, a rainbow and a freezin' evening - another typical four-seasons-in-a-day experience.

Raitt had sung a few songs here a few years back, but this was the first time she'd done her own set. It was also the opening show of her summer tour, which meant the energy level was high, and the performance was far from rote.

Backed by a crack rock-blues band, Raitt earned cheers the moment she cut loose with that trademarked, unmistakable slide guitar - her second voice in addition to her own bluesy, raspy singing voice.

The emotional highlight of Raitt's set turned out to be her blues-meets- bluegrass encore of Thing Called Love with Bela Fleck and Jerry Douglas sitting in.

Neko Case went from Late Show with David Letterman in New York on Wednesday to her inaugural set Thursday evening with borrowed of equipment and instruments because of a bus breakdown.

The travel travail seemed to spark a powerhouse performance. She applied that majestic set of pipes to her own wonderfully quirky and quite poetic lyrics as well as Bob Dylan's Buckets of Rain and the chestnut Wayfaring Stranger.

This singular performance earns Case a place among the superior women songsmiths who have sent a chill up the collective spines of Telluride's hard-to-impress veteran audience, notably Sean Colvin and Mary Chapin Carpenter.

The festival commenced Thursday with the simple folk beauty of Tim and Mollie O'Brien, siblings seamlessly wrapping their voices around one another. They gave a nod to some of those who have passed since that first festival, including Charles Sawtelle (Hot Rize), Fred Shellman (original Telluride promoter) and John Hartford.

The drum-powered power jam music of Ryan Shupe and the Rubberband reminded everyone in attendance that this still is not a bluegrass festival, per se.

Boulder-raised Drew Emmitt, late of Leftover Salmon, called in a fiddling Sam Bush and singer John Cowan for bluegrass rock originals and a fine cover of Dylan's Meet Me in the Morning.

The components of the Telluride-born fusion "sound" were there in Tim O'Brien's voice, Bush's mandolin stylings, Jerry Douglas' genre- stretching dobro gymnastics, Bryan Sutton's blistering flatpicking, plus Edgar Meyer doing remarkable and sometimes hilarious things with his double bass.

Then there's Bela Fleck, boy wonder of the banjo, marking 25 consecutive years of festival performance.

This initial warm-up day pounded home the prevailing Telluride festival philosophy. It's not about stage dress, snappy between songs patter - it's all about extraordinary singing, picking and collaboration. Call it the ultimate anti-American Idol.

This critic and the crowd are looking forward to today's Telluride debuts of the Greencards, the Decemberists, the Drive-By Truckers and the return, after a year's absence, of Bela Fleck and the Flecktones.

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