Jubilant Bridge Wins at the Independent Music Awards

Jubilant Bridge, a Golden-based folk duo, recently won the Vox Pop award in the Holiday Song category for "A Bird a Bell a Star," at the Independent Music Awards.

By Drew Nasky

April 30, 2018

Image: Jubilant Bridge has been recording folk music since the mid-'80s.

Jubilant Bridge has been recording folk music since the mid-'80s. Jubilant Bridge

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Jubilant Bridge, a Golden-based folk duo, recently won the Vox Pop award in the Holiday Song category for "A Bird a Bell a Star," at the Independent Music Awards. More than 54,000 fans voted on the award.

The act, comprising guitarist and singer Carol Van Alstine and mountain dulcimer player Willie Jaeger, blends intricate vocal harmonies and acoustic instrumentation in poetic songs.

The members of Jubilant Bridge met through mutual friends in Estes Park in the '80s. Van Alstine was working for Rocky Mountain National Park and Jaeger was in town for a dulcimer festival. They played together without a name for a few years; after much deliberation, they settled on "Jubilant Bridge."

The duo's first recording, 1987’s Crazy Like the Wind, helped the two find a place in Colorado's music scene. They have since released four more albums: Under Shattered Skies in 1995, Happenstance in 2003, Power Lines in 2010, and A Bell A Bird A Star in 2016. On these albums, the group performs originals, as well as covers by artists including Bob Dylan, Emmylou Harris, Leonard Cohen, Deep Purple and Bruce Springsteen.

“We like to put our own twist on unexpected covers, songs of any genre we think we could play in a new way," Van Alstine and Jaeger told Westword.

Their latest Christmas-themed album, A Bell a Bird a Star, includes nineteen tracks, five of which are originals, as well as covers in Russian, French, Spanish and Latin.

To find out more about Jubilant Bridge’s music, go to the band's website at jubilantbridge.net.

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