‘Blues from the Red Rooster Lounge’ celebrates 30 years this month

“Blues from the Red Rooster Lounge,” heard Sunday nights from 9 to 10 p.m.  on 97.3 KBCO, celebrates its 30 anniversary this month.

Producer Cary Wolfson, aka the Red Rooster, came to Boulder in the early ’70s beginning his radio career at local community Boulder radio station KGNU. He served as a DJ, music director and director of the station’s radio training program. While possessed of wildly eclectic musical knowledge, Cary made his mark on behalf of the blues, the bedrock of most of America’s best popular music. He helped found KGNU’s still-running “Blues Legacy” where he created the character of the Red Rooster, a music-loving hipster who spins the hottest and duskiest discs.

In May of 1985 Wolfson moved the program to 97.3 KBCO. Soon, the program was picked up by the Longhorn Radio Network which distributed it to a small group of stations scattered around the country.  Produced for KBCO every week, today “Blues from the Red Rooster Lounge” can also be heard on stations around the country.

KBCO Program Director Scott Arbough said, “Cary Wolfson comes by his blues cred honestly. He was the publisher and editor of the highly acclaimed BLUES ACCESS magazine for 12 years, beginning in 1990. He is a two-time winner of W.C. Handy Keeping the Blues Alive Awards, presented by the Blues Foundation in Memphis. He created “What Do You Know About the Blues?” which is a set of “knowledge cards” distributed by Pomegranate Publishing.  He has emceed countless live blues shows and has taught a class about the blues every summer since 1997 at Common Ground on the Hill which is a music and arts camp in Maryland”.

“Blues from the Red Rooster Lounge” will be celebrating its 30th anniversary on 97.3 KBCO on Sunday with an hour of highlights from Rooster Music: The First 2000 Years, a collection that the Rooster originally compiled for BLUES ACCESS in 2000. You can find out more at www.bluesaccess.com/No_40/rooster.html.