Part 1 of 6: Meet our surprising first class of first-class artists as we build toward Colorado’s 150th birthday

Philip K. Dick, Blinky the Clown and the String Cheese incident walk into a bar …

As Colorado approaches its 150th birthday, we at The Denver Gazette wanted to attempt something both impossible and irresistible: identifying 150 cultural pathmakers who helped shape the way Colorado sees itself — and the way the world sees Colorado.

Welcome to “The 150 Faces of Colorado Culture.”

This isn’t simply a list of the most famous Coloradans. Fame helps, but influence and legacy matter more. It’s meant to be more of a cultural mirror than a list. The names you see here over the next six weeks will include writers, performers, artists, architects, creators, builders and tastemakers — people who have left fingerprints on our culture in ways large and small.

That tense is important – “have left” – because a great many of them are still alive and active. Like muralist Pat Milbery. Or the DJ known as Illenium, one of the biggest names in global electronic dance music.

You don’t have to have been born here to make our list. But you do have to have lived here, and mattered here. That’s why you will see some of the biggest names in show business here (spoiler: Bob Dylan) – just not necessarily at the top of the list.

The goal wasn’t to build a Mount Rushmore of the Rockies. It was to create a cultural map. That means the list is intentionally varied. It makes room for high art and pop culture, household names and beloved local legends, literary giants and oddballs. Sometimes the person changed the world. Sometimes they simply changed Colorado. Or maybe they just weirded us out in the most wonderful of ways. This list will jump around without apology. That’s by design. Colorado itself has never fit neatly into one box. Why should a list celebrating it?

We’re counting upward from 150 over the next six Sundays, and we encourage you to send us comments, complaints and your own personal top 10 Colorado names to [email protected].

Now: The countdown begins. Here’s to 150 years of Colorado entertainers!

Spotlight on No. 141: Andrew Novick

Andrew Novick simply makes Colorado more fun. He’s an artist, a punk rocker and a filmmaker, but that description is so vastly inadequate. Westword’s Susan Froyd once called him “an enthusiast of the highest order for just about anything: weird food, goth culture, Japanglish, Casa Bonita, horror films, lowbrow art, minigolf and collecting nearly everything.” (Indeed, his website is called isaveeverything.com.)

I have called Novick “a cultural provocateur.” But let’s just call him what he really is: an electrical engineer.

Seriously, he works by day for the National Institute of Standards and Technology. And you know what that means:

He’s a fed!

He’s also a guy who has been provoking, poking and providing Denverites with more than three decades of cultural zaniness, starting with the comically obscene T-shirts he made as a student at Cherry Creek High School. In the 1990s, it was all about roller-skating parties. Last month, Novick staged his annual Easter “PeepsBQ” – an eccentric culinary pop-up where participants bring their own dioramas and Peeps are grilled and roasted.

Me? I remember eating Fruit Loops at one of Novick’s legendary “Extreme Pancake Breakfasts” at the Denver County Fair and immediately running into Blinky the Clown (see No. 126). Novick’s next doc focuses on Boulder’s Joel Haerling (son of renowned architect Charles A. Haertling) and his obsession with Stephen King’s time living in Boulder. (He’s on our list, too.)

From the start, Novick’s ethos has been simple: Give ’em something to talk about. Something unexpected. Whether they “get it” or not doesn’t matter.

“If you know how the movie ends, you don’t have to watch it,” Novick said. “That’s why people watch sports: There’s no known outcome going in. It’s a mystery.”

Novick made waves in 2018 with his documentary “JonBenét’s Tricycle,” which explores his fascination with the notoriously unsolved murder in part by placing the victim’s actual bike in strategic locations and documenting how strangers respond to it.

He’s also a softie who turned his 300th visit to Casa Bonita into a fundraiser that raised $1,800 for a now-closed local marketplace.

Bottom line is: Where Novick leads, his acolytes follow. And where he leads is always off the beaten path.

This week’s 25 Colorado entertainers:

126. Blinky the Clown (1921-2012): TV institution Russell Scott famously hosted “Blinky’s Fun Club” for children in the Denver and Colorado Springs markets for more than 40 years. In the words of History Colorado: “Blinky the Clown brought joy, comfort and unforgettable safety tips to generations of children every weekday.” And if you were born between 1958-98, chances are you tuned in to hear Blinky sing “Happy Birfday” to you.

127. Lowell Thomas, Broadcaster (1892-1981): The legendary journalist and adventurer is immortalized both for having anchored the first-ever TV news broadcast in 1940, and for coining the iconic moniker “Lawrence of Arabia.” He launched that global legend while embedded with British intelligence officer T.E. Lawrence in the Arabian Desert during World War I. The Thomas family moved to the mining town of Victor, about 45 miles west of Colorado Springs, when Lowell was 8. He went from paperboy to editor of the Victor Daily Record by age 19 before earning a master’s degree from the University of Denver. He returned to Victor throughout his life, last visiting two weeks before his death at age 89.

128. Maya Lin, Architect (b. 1959): She’s the world-renowned architect of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, making her “one of the most important public artists of this century,” according to the Academy of Achievement. For decades, Lin’s sanctuary has been spending summers on a ranch in the rugged terrain of Telluride. Notable projects have included “Silver River,” an 84-foot piece of reclaimed silver that is cast in the form of the Colorado River for display at the MGM Mirage in Las Vegas.

129. Gene Amole, Radio, Journalism (1923-2003): Amole, who chronicled his own death on the pages of the Rocky Mountain News, was widely considered the definitive voice of Denver — comparable, one obit observed, to what Herb Caen was to San Francisco. Amole was an unprecedented, plainspoken triple threat who didn’t even start writing for the Rocky until he was 54. That only came after he went on the air during the very first week TV broadcasting came to Denver. He later co-founded the classical music station KVOD-FM.

130. String Cheese Incident (1993-): A band that went from ski bums who played live gigs in exchange for lift tickets in Crested Butte and Telluride to one of the most successful jam bands in history “and a foundational pillar of Colorado’s vibrant music culture,” in the words of legendary Colorado Music Experience editor G. Brown. After relocating to Boulder, “they pioneered artist-driven business models by creating their own independent label, paving the way for independent bands,” Brown said.

131. Philip K. Dick, Author (1928-82): The legendary science-fiction writer lived most of his life in California. But he’s buried in Fort Morgan, a curiosity that has inspired many a literary pilgrimage to Riverside Cemetery in Morgan County. There are competing stories as to why, exactly, but when twin sister Jane died in infancy, the family bought a plot for both twins in Fort Morgan, where Philip’s fraternal grandparents lived. (Philip would not join Jane for 53 years.) Dick’s acclaimed novel “The Man in the High Castle” is anchored in a residence in the Colorado Rockies.

132. Tony Garcia, Theater (b. 1953): As a boy, Garcia lived in five houses in the Westside neighborhood that was forcibly displaced to make way for the Auraria campus. For more than 50 years as the executive artistic director of the Su Teatro Cultural and Performing Arts Center, Garcia has transformed a nomadic, student-led activist troupe born of protest into the third-oldest Chicano theater company in the U.S.

133. Irv Brown, Radio (1935-2019): “Well, we lost a good one.” That’s how “the godfather of Denver sports talk radio” would begin just about any broadcast announcing a death in the local sports community. We lost a good one in 2019 with Brown, who shared more than 25 years on the air with Joe Williams on “The Fan.” He also was a longtime sports referee and league commissioner.

134. Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (1966-2026): The legendary pioneers of modern Americana and roots music played their final live show Thursday at Mission Ballroom, wrapping up a remarkable 60-year run. The show marked the end of “All The Good Times: The Farewell Tour,” which began in 2024 but the band extended into 2026 to hit the 60th milestone. Jimmie Fadden and Jeff Hanna been there since the beginning. The band bridged the gap between traditional country music and mainstream rock with massive hits like “Mr. Bojangles.” Spooked by a 1971 earthquake, the band left Los Angeles for the Colorado mountains (with members spread from Idaho Springs to Aspen). Journalist G. Brown called that move “perhaps the single most important element contributing to the band’s rise in stature, both commercially and creatively.” When people talk about “The Colorado Sound” of the era, they’re talking about John Denver, Poco, Firefall – and the nitty-gritties. “What an incredible, emotional night at Mission Ballroom,” the band posted.

135. Luis Alfonso Jiménez Jr., Sculptor (1940-2006): His tragic death was immortalized when a piece of his most famous sculpture – the Blue Mustang with the glowing red eyes – fell on him in his studio. But Jiménez had a full lifetime as a groundbreaking and influential artist who achieved national renown for his large-scale public art pieces that celebrated Chicano identity and working-class communities. His trademark was glossy, airbrushed polychrome fiberglass like the horse that came to be known as “Blucifer,” which has inspired the name of a new music festival in the Baker neighborhood. Talk about influence.

136. Otis Taylor, Musician (b. 1948): Getting kicked out of Denver’s Manual High School 59 years ago for refusing to cut his hair gave this banjo bluesman a two-month head start down a path that led to Tommy Bolin’s legendary Boulder hard-rock band Zephyr, 16 solo albums (including one addressing the lynching of his grandfather); and a stint as founder of one of the first African American U.S. bicycle racing teams. Taylor, who came to Denver from Chicago as a child, essentially created his own genre that came to be known as “Trance Electric Psychedelic Blues.” (P.S.: Manual gave him a diploma in 2023. “It was just the times,” he told me then.)

137. Pete Smythe, Radio (1911-2000): Many of us who grew up in Colorado learned that our schools would be closed by snow from folksy humorist Pete Smythe broadcasting live on KOA Radio from his general store in the mythical town of East Tincup, where Smythe proclaimed himself mayor. (In reality, East Tincup was a short-lived theme park just up the road from Heritage Square in Golden.) As a radio broadcaster, Smythe’s “Meet The Boys In the Band” is believed to have been the city’s first disc jockey radio show (on KMYR). “Pete Smythe’s General Store” transitioned from radio to KOA-TV (Channel 4), running until 1969.

138. Garrett Ammon (b. 1977) and Dawn Fay (b. 1968): The hipster couple moved to Colorado in 2007 to transform Ballet Nouveau Colorado into Wonderbound, a contemporary ballet company “that lives at the convergence of tradition and innovation; of vulnerability and courage; of intimacy and openness.” I love it for its cross-disciplinary collaborations with local musicians like Tom Hagerman and bands like Gasoline Lollipop. Ammon creates the work; Fay figures out how to pay for it. (And designs the occasional costume). Together they have torn down the walls between classical ballet, contemporary dance, pop culture and flat-out rock.  

139. ILLENIUM, DJ (b. 1990): When the erstwhile Nick Miller drew 50,000 “Illenials” to Empower Field on July 23, 2023, it was, according to Billboard, the largest electronic-dance music concert in Colorado history. After surviving a near-fatal heroin overdose in 2012, Miller moved here from Downers Grove, Ill., and enrolled at the University of Colorado Denver to study music. He has said attending a Bassnectar performance at Red Rocks solidified his career path. His emotionally charged dubstep sound has made Illenium one of the most successful crossover electronic acts in the world. He’s been streamed by the billions.

140. Reynelda Muse, TV anchor (b. 1946): In 1969, she made history as the first woman and the first Black news anchor in Colorado TV history, a proud and empowering symbol of Black identity during the height of the civil-rights movement. In 1980, she became one of the 12 original founding anchors of CNN, returning to Denver’s Channel 4 from 1992-97. She was also an initial investor in Shadow, Denver’s only Black theater company.

141. Andrew Novick, Cultural Provocateur (b. 1968): See above.         

142. Lynne Taylor-Corbett, Choreographer (1946-2025): The famed dancer graduated from Littleton High School in 1964 and went on to choreograph seven Broadway musicals and the movie “Footloose.” Her work in “Swing” earned her a 2000 Tony Award nomination. Taylor-Corbett told me in a 2006 interview she’d known exactly what she wanted to do “since I was a fat 5-year-old.” She transferred from South High to Littleton for her final two years. There, she said, “a teacher finally validated my dreams.” She left Colorado at 17 to attend the School of American Ballet in New York, “but Denver is my heart,” she said.

143. Lonnie Hanzon, Installation Artist (b. 1959): “I was raised by wolves in the Colorado mountains,” Hanzon told me in 2024. (I’m still not sure whether he was joking.) Hanzon has spent three decades dusting Colorado in magic and three-dimensional wonder. He has imagined everything from the city’s original Parade of Lights to the “Evolution of the Ball” sculpture outside Coors Field to the Denver Center’s annual “Camp Christmas’ holiday sensory overload. The Museum of Outdoor Arts calls him their “Wizard in Residence,” and why not? After all, he designed the original, iconic Wizard’s Chest toy store back in the 1980s.

144. Thomas Hornsby Ferril, Poet (1896-1988): Colorado’s first poet laureate was dubbed “The Poet of the Rockies” by Carl Sandburg. The lifelong Denver resident, it was said, “captured the precise intersection of Western history, industrial progress and natural ecology.” His famous residence, which came to be known as “The House on Downing Street” (Address: 2123), served as a regular meet-up point for literary superstars like Sandburg, Robert Frost and Dorothy Parker. And, get this: He started out in P.R.

145. Tig Notaro, Comedian, Actor (b. 1971): The deadpan Emmy and Grammy nominee was named one of the 50 best stand-up comics of all time by Rolling Stone. After dropping out of high school, Notaro moved to Denver in the mid-1990s and managed her girlfriend’s folk-rock band. She moved to L.A. to pursue stand-up, and what do you know? She booked her very first out-of-town gig back here in Colorado at Wit’s End in Westminster. Notaro was featured on “The Morning Show” and was a producer on this year’s Oscar-nominated documentary, “Come See Me in the Good Light.”

146. Ji-young Yoo, Actor (b. 1999): Born in Denver, the Colorado Academy graduate is the voice behind Zoey from “KPop Demon Hunters,” Netflix’s most-watched original movie of all time. She wrote on Instagram that, as a Korean-American star with local roots, she intentionally chose her professional stage name “to remain authentic and challenge traditional Western assimilation, and to proudly elevate the Colorado and Asian-American presence in global media.”

147. Pat Milbery, Visual Artist (b. 1979): The pro snowboarder-turned prolific and popular street muralist is known for massive, high-impact public art installations. He’s the visionary behind Denver’s “Love This City” mural initiative and the massive (there’s that word again) “Interwoven” street mural on Bannock Street (the largest public art project in Denver history.) He’s now working on the 5280 Trail Project that will connect several downtown neighborhoods. Not to mention: He designed the Colorado Rapids’ 2022-24 uniforms. He included a small – but important – signature heart in the lower left, he said, “to represent the love that unites us all.” 

148. Lannie Garrett, Entertainer (b. 1954): The proprietor of Lannie’s Clocktower Cabaret “has brought happiness to the Denver music scene” for more than 40 years, the Colorado Music Hall of Fame said of her 2016 induction. Fired at age 22 from her job as a lunch waitress in Melrose Park, Ill., Garrett headed west on a cross-country road trip with her boyfriend. “We went out to California, and on the way back, I told him to basically drop me off in Denver,” she told Patricia Calhoun of Westword. The “Queen of Cabaret” shaped the region’s nightlife, theater and music landscape.

149. Sandra Dallas, Journalist (b. 1939): In 1969, the barrier-breaking scribe became the first female bureau chief of any national news magazine when she took over the Denver region for Business Week. The longtime Denver Post book reviewer, who now lives in Georgetown and Denver, is herself a bestselling author of more than 35 books and is considered a prominent historian and champion of regional Western literature. Her latest: The Colorado-set “The Hired Man.”

150. Rich Moore (b. 1952) and Mollie O’Brien (b. 1952), Musicians: Both together and as solo artists, this popular married duo has spent decades as beloved luminaries in Denver’s folk scene. He’s a versatile fingerstyle guitarist from Philly; she’s a Grammy Award-winning vocalist from West Virginia. She’s in the Colorado Music Hall of Fame (he should be). They met on 1981 April Fool’s Day at the Denver Folklore Center (where else?) and are both widely celebrated as “masterful interpretations of American roots, folk, blues and jazz.”

Next week: Nos. 101-125.

John Moore is the Denver Gazette’s Senior Arts Journalist. Email him at [email protected].

Editor’s Note: The Denver Gazette used a variety of research tools to determine, compile and compress the Colorado 150 into these capsule summaries, including newspaper databases, news services, the Denver Public Library, History Colorado, and Google, which now integrates AI into its basic functionality.