BOULDER, Colo.—Businesses, politicians and environmentalists are promoting “being green” to Democratic National Convention-goers in Denver. Just up the road in Boulder, Nick and Helen Forster have been singing and talking about the environment for a nationwide audience the last 17 years.
On Tuesday, the Forsters bring their show to Denver’s Temple Buell Theater. David Crosby, Graham Nash, James Taylor, Ani DiFranco and Tom Morello will be musical guests on their variety show, “Etown,” which airs on 240 public, commercial and community radio stations.
Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter and Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper plan to attend the sold-out performance. Environmentalist Robert Kennedy Jr. will receive the show’s “E-chievement,” recognizing his environmental and community work.
The Forsters—he, a founding member of the premier bluegrass band Hot Rize, and she, a founder of the Telluride Bluegrass Festival—launched “Etown” in 1991 from the stage of a movie-house-turned-concert-hall in Boulder, a picturesque city against the Rocky Mountain foothills.
“It’s really interesting to capture some of the energy of the DNC and it’s an opportunity to work with the city of Denver,” Nick Forster said. “We’ve been at this a long time, mixing music and entertainment with a message of environmental sustainability and community sustainability.”
“We started at a time when it wasn’t in fashion at all,” added Helen Forster.
As environmentalism has become more mainstream, people become better informed and are more likely to make better decisions, Nick Forster said.
“The down side is that it’s pretty easy to become complacent and think, ‘I’m recycling, I’m, cool. Hey, I bought a Prius, we’re fine,'” he said. “And that’s not the case. That’s not enough.”
Forster would like to see the next U.S. president create a Manhattan Project committed to renewable energy.
Individually, the Forsters became environmentally aware at early ages. Nick Forster grew up in New York’s Hudson River Valley, near folk singer and activist Pete Seeger.
“I got to see him use music to effect social change and do environmental work, protecting the Hudson River,” Forster said.
Helen Forster said she took the first environmental studies course offered at the University of Minnesota and read books by Rachel Carson and others that “completely turned me on my head.”
Each migrated to Colorado. He took a job fixing guitars at a Denver folk music enter where he met the musicians with whom he would form the Grammy-nominated Hot Rize. Helen Forster moved to Telluride in western Colorado where she lived in a cabin and helped start the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, which draws thousands each summer.
After retiring from Hot Rize, Nick Forster accepted an invitation from the State Department to travel with other musicians through Eastern Europe and Turkey. He saw close-up the environmental degradation there and returned home eager to combine music with an environmental message.
Nick Forster decided a radio variety program was the way to go, and he was sure National Public Radio would snap up the idea. Helen Forster, the show’s co-host and co-producer, took over the editing. Her $25,000 inheritance provided the seed money.
“I sometimes say we were sort of like Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland in those old movies where it’s sort of like, ‘Hey, let’s do a show and save the school,'” Helen Forster said. “We’re like, ‘Let’s do a show and help the planet.'”
After years in the music business, Nick Forster called in favors and spent his first season “cruising the Rolodex,” landing such guests as Lyle Lovett, Shawn Colvin, James Taylor, Nanci Griffith and Michelle Shocked.
A demonstration tape piqued NPR’s interest. Public radio distributed the show for a few years before the Forsters started syndicating the program, allowing them to distribute it to commercial as well as public radio stations. The staff tapes 30 programs a year, mostly from the Boulder Theater and a few on the road.
Etown’s format has evolved through the years with the addition of the E-chievement award and speakers. But the Forsters say listeners, now at more than 1 million and growing by the thousands on podcasts, remain devoted to its blend of music, commentary and interviews.
Everyone comes on stage for the musical finale.
“There’s something very romantic and immediate about live radio on front of an audience, and I think that as a performance vehicle, it is really exciting because it creates just an extra element of danger,” Nick Forster said. “You’re playing in front of a crowd, but it’s also being heard nationwide. It’s a big deal.”
