I was asked by a loyal reader for another Caribou story, so here goes.

Supertramp recorded at Caribou. They are an English band and, in the seventies, and much of the eighties, their bass player was Dougie Thompson. His brother Ali Thompson recorded at Caribou too. (Take a Little Rhythm in 1980). Take A Little Rhythm opens with that soulful yet upbeat sax riff. The Thompsons are Scottish.

Honestly, I don’t recall which one of the brothers or band members asked but I remember a morning request to make a traditional English Breakfast. This included cooking tomatoes on the grill. I was good at most things cooked on the grill but having never eaten tomatoes prepared this way, I failed miserably.

The sunny side up eggs were beautiful. The bacon, sausage and toast were perfect. But the tomatoes were an ugly, inedible blob of red mush. We belly laughed at my failure. My effort was admired.

It was probably Ali or one of his band members. They were all incredibly friendly and truly nice; they gave me a beautiful handmade Scottish wool, roll-neck jumper, aka; sweater. (They called sweaters jumpers.)

In 1977, Supertramp recorded Even in the Quietest Moments (Give a Little Bit) at Caribou.

The cover of this album is the one with a piano covered in snow. A gutted grand piano was very carefully hauled up one of the slopes at Eldora Ski Area. Caribou and Eldora are not that far away; maybe 8 miles. It was left there overnight to get the perfect look of freshly fallen snow. The sheet music shown in the photo is actually The Star-Spangled Banner, but the title reads Fools Overture. Fools Overture opens with a beautiful piano solo. (Side note: I eventually cooked at Eldora too.)

Even in the Quietest Moments sold more than 500,000 copies within few months of its release making it Supertramp’s first Gold Album. They eventually had 6 of their albums go Gold or Platinum.

In 1979 they released Breakfast in America. (Goodbye Stranger, Take the Long Way Home.) Supertramp’s Breakfast in America was nominated for a Grammy Award for Album of the Year. That one was a Quadruple Platinum winner. (Platinum status indicates sales of 1,000,000).

My Traditional English breakfast with the terrible tomatoes would never be an award winner but I successfully prepared many ordinary “no tomato” breakfasts in America for some extraordinarily successful musicians.

I have been writing about some of the stars I encountered while working at Caribou Ranch in Nederland, Colorado. For my loyal readers, here is another one.

I just got off the phone with a good friend. She and I are going to meet in Hawaii in early January for a reunion. We’ve not seen one another for a few years. She lived in Hawaii for several years and I had the incredible fortune of getting to visit her there many times. I love Hawaii!

But back to Caribou; one morning I was assigned the breakfast shift. The morning routine always started with making pots of coffee in the Bunn O-Matic. Next step, fire up the 8-burner Wolf grill.

A note was taped to the hood of the grill. The note simply said “Gone to Hawaii. Will be back in one week.” (I won’t divulge any names here.)

Apparently, one of the servers from the dinner shift had flown off to Hawaii with a member of the band that was at the Ranch. That band was America.

We’d all been humming some of America’s songs in anticipation of their visit. I Need You, Ventura Highway, A Horse with No Name, Sister Golder Hair. There were so many songs that we all loved. They were easy to hum and some of the lyrics really resonated. I am a big fan of bands that can harmonize.

I don’t remember which album they were there to record when this escapade happened.

In 1977, America released Harbor, Silent Letter in 1979, and in 1982, View from the Ground (You Can Do Magic). It could have been any of those. And, in June of 1978, they played at Red Rocks. Many stars came to stay at the Ranch when they were playing at Red Rocks.

The band was easy to for me to work with; they didn’t have any unusual food requirements or requests.

I think it was while they were there that another one of the kitchen staff accidentally used a wooden spoon to scrape down the contents of the blender (while the blender was fully operating) for that night’s dessert. The chocolate mousse had an extra “woody” taste that night. (The very first day I worked the kitchen shift, I flooded the floor with doing something wrong with the commercial coffee machine. Mistakes happened.)

Every dinner included the standards, a soup, a salad, the mains and a dessert. Of course, a very good wine was an essential part of every meal. Dessert was served with the after-dinner Courvoisier in ceremonial cognac snifters.

Maybe it was just the abundant cognac or maybe it was the extra special mousse but not every dinner ended up with one of the staff flying off to Hawaii. But that on one night, magic really, truly happened.

And in January, I myself will be magically “Gone to Hawaii.”

I recently posted about John Denver and the 50th anniversary of “Rocky Mountain High.” It seems just as important to honor this sad date too, the day John Denver died. This was 25 years ago.

Backstory- Around 1977, I met Rickie Furay at Caribou Ranch when he was there with Souther and Hillman recording their 2nd album. Richie asked me to go to a church in Boulder that was affiliated with what had once been called the Boulder Colorado Sanitarium and Hospital. After their services, they had a potluck. Richie was avoiding meat and he wanted me to learn to prepare some of the nut loafs and other things that a plant-based diet included.

Richie Furay had played with Stephen Stills and Neil Young in 1966 (Buffalo Springfield) and then with Poco, who included Randy Meisner (who later played with the Eagles) and Jim Messina of Loggins and Messina. (The second concert I ever went to featured Loggins and Messina, but back to my story.)

Richie Furay sang with John Denver and with scores of other musicians that created many of the songs and melodies that are still very popular today. I did learn more about vegetarian cooking after I went to the potluck.

Full disclosure- my nut loaf was a not very good, but Richie Furay was another one of the good guys.

It is the 50th anniversary of the release of “Rocky Mountain High.” I love the Rocky Mountains.

I met John Deutschendorf Jr. (John Denver) in Huntsville, Texas in the early 1970’s. I was a college student at Sam Houston State University, and he hired my neighbor Claudia to make a shirt for him.

Go look at some of John Denver’s old album covers. You will see the shirts I am talking about.

Claudia had moved into the house next to mine with a husband and two little kids. I would see the kids outside playing all the time but never saw any grown-ups. The kids were friendly, and I so was I, so we talked whenever I was coming or going to and from class or work. I wondered where the parents were.

Claudia was watching all this from the bedroom. She was confined to bed because she had broken her back in a car accident. She’d been watching and listening to all the conversations I was having with her kids. She knew I was good hearted. We became good friends.

When she recovered and was well enough to work, she got a job in the fabric section of the local five and dime. It was at this store that she met John Denver and he hired her to create a special shirt for him.

He liked the shirt so much he ordered several more. When she needed to deliver them to him, she asked me to drive her out to the remote ranch where he was staying. That is when I met him. We spent the day out at the ranch with him. We rode horses, had lunch, he played some music. Good times. He was very kind to both of us. He was the first star I ever met. Little did I know that I would meet many more.

After I graduated from college, I ended up moving to Nederland Colorado and working at Caribou Ranch Recording Studio. I worked there on and off beginning in 1977. You can look up Caribou Ranch and see all the stars that recorded there. John Denver is on the list. (So is John Lennon and Elton John but I did not meet these two Johns.) 150 artists recorded there.

Caribou Ranch was an amazing place to work. 45 top ten albums, 18 Grammy awards and 20 number one Billboard hits were recorded there at the beautiful beyond words recording studio.

While I was working there, I was asked to drive Willie Nelson around.

Willie had been up at the Ranch to hang out with Kris Kristofferson. Kris was there to record an album. At his request, I made TexMex Chicken Enchiladas for him. My aunt had gone to school with Kris in Brownsville, Texas. He asked if I could make TexMex and so I did. He was pleased.

Willie and Kris played at Rock Rocks in a concert while Willie was there. I got to drive Willie to Red Rocks.

The concert was one of many I got to drive stars to. If you have a chance, go to a concert at Red Rocks.

It truly is a Rocky Mountain High.