2024 Tickets On Sale Tuesday, February 13 At 10 AM (MST)
The onset of summer in the mountain town of Durango, Colorado inches a bit closer with the announcement of the artist lineup for the Durango Blues Train on August 22, 24 & 25, 2024. The Durango Blues Train is excited to kick off it's 12th year rockin' and rollin' aboard the the historic Durango Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad with Alastair Greene, Ben Rice & The PDX Hustle, Levi Platero, Jesse Cotton Stone, Joe Waters and Marcus Trummer.
Alastair Greene
Alastair Greene is a multi-charting Top 10 Billboard artist. The Alastair Greene Band, which has drawn comparisons to Gov’t Mule, ZZ Top and Cream, recently celebrated their 20th anniversary with a two-disc live album. Alastair’s 2023 album Alive In The New World was produced by Tab Benoit for Whiskey Bayou Records. Alastair will be releasing a brand new studio record in 2024 on RUF Records.
Alastair Greene’s rock credentials include eight years of international touring on guitar and vocals with the Alan Parsons Project (2010-2017), and major dates with Starship featuring Mickey Thomas; as a blues player he is a longtime regular and host at the Memphis-based Blues Foundation events, performances and showcases, has been a featured performer at the Big Blues Bender and the Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise, and criss-crossed the globe touring with Sugaray Rayford’s band, which was nominated for a 2020 Blues Music Award with Greene.
Most recently, Greene has been touring cross-country in support of Tab Benoit, and also with his own power trio, the Alastair Greene Band. Alastair also supported Walter Trout on recent tours of Europe and the UK.
Ben Rice & The PDX Hustle
Ben Rice's music is deeply rooted in traditional blues, yet at the same time fiercely original. His guitar playing earns labels like "fearless," "inventive" and "powerful," and he routinly brings audiences to their feet with his stunning and emotionally honest vocal delivery. Ben is as much at home fronting his electric band as he is captivating a crowd solo with nothing but his voice and his acoustic resonator guitar.
The PDX Hustle is an expansion of the trio that Rice has been playing with for the last decade. Adding instruments and singers offers up an expansion of the sonic palette Rice works with. He tapped Portland's legendary arranger Dave Mills to help orchestrate his originals. The collaboration has yielded a huge sound that is powerful and compelling. The new name, instrumentation, and sound has been a giant leap in excitement and anticipation at shows.
Levi Platero
Levi Platero is an example of a musician with the gift of intuition of a much more experienced guitar player. The strength and passion beneath his quiet disposition is unleashed in a style that mixes Texas blues and vintage rock, influenced by modern guitar heroes such as Eric Johnson and Steve Vai. Levi’s live shows captivate with bursts of intricate guitar acrobatics all the way down to soulful expressions woven from the four strings of his guitar. Though already a formidable talent, as he continues to grow and develop, he is grounding himself and standing in his own space as an artist.
Native American by birth, Levi Platero is a member of the Navajo Nation in the Southwest United States. His family’s band “The Plateros” emerged on the music scene in 2004 as a blues rock power trio with a sound that drew those who followed the link of Stevie Ray Vaughan, Los Lonely Boys and ZZ Top. After touring the US for a decade with his family band and a year run as member of Indigenous, he decided it was time to focus on his own music. Stepping out without his brothers as they continued with Indigenous was both unsettling and exhilarating. It was time to stretch himself, go solo and form a new band under his own name. He recruited new band members and launched a series of shows. Levi recorded and released a self-titled EP in the fall of 2016. The single cut from the EP, “Take Me Back” won the 2016 New Mexico Music award for best blues. With a new sound, new material and new band members, Levi is progressing as a solo artist as well as continuing to collaborate with those musicians he is fortunate to call family.
Jesse Cotton Stone
Dustin Arbuckle and Matt Woods have each been hard at work on the blues and roots music scene for nearly two decades. Arbuckle, from Wichita, KS, was a founding member of the critically acclaimed progressive roots rock/blues act Moreland & Arbuckle, with whom he toured internationally and released 7 albums over 15 years before the band parted ways in 2017. Woods, a native of central Iowa, has been a fixture of the midwestern music community, averaging over 100 shows per year and recording 3 albums as a solo artist and 2 with his former band, The Thunderbolts. After years of hearing and admiring each other’s music, Arbuckle and Woods finally connected and began playing together in 2018. The two quickly developed a strong musical chemistry based on their mutual passion for old-school blues, especially the traditional rural styles of Mississippi and the electric Chicago blues sounds of the 1940s and 50s. Their music combines these influences with elements of gospel, country music, and more, while Woods’ fiery voice and tenacious guitar playing blend perfectly with Arbuckle’s more subtly soulful singing and harmonica style to give the duo the ability to deliver it all with power and authenticity.
Joe Waters
Joe Waters is a multitalented musician out of Dayton Ohio who plays Blues, Funk, Folk, and Americana music. Joe is a singer and a songwriter. He writes original music and he also pays homage to original blues artist by singing old blues standards and deep cuts.
His love for playing music started when he was 5 years old after his parents bought him a harmonica from the Cracker Barrel gift shop. Joe dedicated himself to learning not only the harmonica but the guitar, drums, and vocals as well.
Joe’s father, Jack Waters, has been a musician for 35+ years and Joe expresses his gratitude for his father starting him in his music career.
As a duo, Jack and Joe have performed together for 20 years with 4 albums recorded, they have placed 1st in three local Ohio blues contest, and they were semi-finalist in the International Blues Contest. Although Joe’s recent focus has been the new EP he is recording with his band, he still loves to play music with his father any time he can.
The new EP, by Joe Waters and The Back Porch Band, shows off Joe’s skills as a musician as well as his skills as a songwriter.
Joe Waters won the 2022 Telluride Blues Challenge which awarded him a spot on the 2023 Durango Blues Train and the opening show of the 2023 Telluride Blues and Brews Festival. In recent news, Joe won first place in the solo/duo category at the 2024 International Blues Challenge in Memphis, earning him a return performance on the 2024 Durango Blues Train.
Joe Waters is pouring his creative expression into the EP with his band and a Solo Album that he is excited to share with you all! He hopes to have both the EP and Solo Album done by the end of this year and those who have heard this young man are eagerly awaiting his next creation.
Marcus Trummer
Marcus Trummer weaves blues, soul, R&B, and rock into a modern sound steeped in tradition. Dubbed “a precocious guitarist whose vocals possess a wise-beyond-his-years weariness” by the Calgary Herald, the young artist from the Canadian city of Calgary has built a reputation as a compelling live performer off the back of playing shows throughout Western Canada. Trummer’s songwriting has also earned him recognition with his single, Running on My Own, receiving the award for Blues Recording of the Year at Calgary's YYC Music Awards in 2022. That same year, he was also nominated for New Artist of the Year at the Maple Blues Awards in Toronto. As the recent winner of the Telluride Blues Challenge, Trummer continues to establish his place as a prominent emerging artist on the current blues and soul music scenes.
WELCOME ABOARD
The Durango Blues Train is an exciting 3.5 hour moving musical experience providing two consecutive evenings of live blues. The event features six live blues performances on board the Historic Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad’s coal-fired, steam-powered train traveling through the spectacular and breathtaking canyons of the San Juan National Forest.
Each artist performs in their own vintage coach, while passengers are free to dance their way from coach to coach and delight in a variety of musical performances. Four coaches have seats while two are open with no seats to entice and encourage dancing. Enjoy the blues, award-winning craft beer, wine and the beautiful scenery of the famous train featured in the Hollywood production, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid."
To cap it all off, passengers will experience breathtaking sunset views along the "Highline," a world famous section of the railroad, as the train crawls along craggy cliffs 400 feet high above the Wild Animas River, known to be the most beautiful section of the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad.
Tickets
Tickets for the Durango Blues Train on August 22, 23 & 24 go on sale Tuesday, February 22, 2024 at 10 am (MST). Tickets are $149 per person per night, plus a Historic Train Preservation fee. Tickets are limited and will sell out in advance. Purchasers must be 21 years old to participate. Tickets will be available online here.