Hello Festivarians.
I run the Archives in Cowtown, dedicated to the touring history of Béla Fleck & the Flecktones and the (many) side projects of each Flecktone.
We’ve been around for over 20 years, and we are currently doing a deep dive on Béla Fleck’s touring history. So far we have about 4,800 Fleck shows in our database. It’s a massive project, but we are making progress. Here’s a link to Béla’s page if you want to check it out: Archives in Cowtown
We’ve combed through the internet and hundreds (maybe thousands?) of newspaper articles to piece together the current history we have. Now we are reaching out to the various fan communities to see if we can get some help filling in the gaps.
Obviously recordings are our number one target since they give setlist information, but we are interested in anything really. Ticket stubs, stage setlists, posters, flyers, even just memories of shows that might point us in the direction of where to look.
If you have anything, you can share it here in this thread, or sometimes its easier to email us directly: cowtownarchives@gmail.com.
As for recordings, we have almost 1000 Fleck/Flecktone recordings so far, but there are so many more out there that we are missing. If you have a recording of a show that isn’t listed on the site, or a show that does not have a setlist, we probably do not have a copy and would appreciate any assistance in getting it to us.
A few key performances we are hoping to find (we know some of the older ones are longshots, but what the heck):
- Anything from Telluride last year (2025), BEATrio & Telluride House Band, plus any of his guest appearances
- Fleck, Meyer, Marshall from Rockygrass 2022
- Telluride House Band from 2017
- Strength in Numbers from Telluride 1991
- The full Strength in Numbers (aka Telluride Allstars) set from Telluride 1987 - we currently only have a partial recording
- Bela & Jerry from Telluride 1986
- New Grass Revival from 1985
- New Grass Revival from Telluride 1983 (we can’t even confirm what day they played on)
These are just a few off the top of my head that I hope are out there, but we are obviously looking for whatever we can get!
We just recently added dates for some of Bela’s earliest bands: Tasty Licks & Spectrum. And we now have almost 550 New Grass Revival shows documented over 80 of them with setlists.
I hope some of you who aren’t familiar with us enjoy digging through the archives. Even though it’s Bela/Flecktones focused, there is a lot of festival/bluegrass history there.
Thanks for your time! And if you want updates, follow us on Facebook, BlueSky, or YouTube (for video archives)