{"id":2333542,"date":"2026-03-17T18:26:51","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T18:26:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2333542"},"modified":"2026-03-17T18:26:51","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T18:26:51","slug":"aspen-adopts-easy-jim-as-its-own-arts-entertainment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/aspen-adopts-easy-jim-as-its-own-arts-entertainment\/","title":{"rendered":"Aspen adopts Easy Jim as its own | Arts & Entertainment"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Easy Jim, which performed in January at Belly Up Aspen, consists of Dwayne Dodson, Kevin Reinert, Tyler Lucas, Chris Chalmers and Ben Wright.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n Courtesy of Kevin Reinert <\/span>
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In July 1995, 14-year-old Tyler Lucas had scored tickets to see the Grateful Dead play at Riverport Amphitheater, 20 miles outside of his hometown of St. Louis. At the last moment, his parents pulled the plug on the adventure.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can see the Grateful Dead when you\u2019re older,\u201d Lucas remembers his mother saying.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That show turned out to be one of the last few shows the Grateful Dead would ever play. Garcia died a little over a month later of heart failure at a rehab facility in California.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI was so close to seeing Jerry play but it never happened,\u201d Lucas said. \u201cBut it created this intrigue for me. It was this mysterious thing that I never really got to capture and it only heightened my interest in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three decades later, Lucas is helping to keep the Garcia mystery alive as guitarist and vocalist for Easy Jim, the Crested Butte-Gunnison band that has quietly become something of a house band for mountain towns across Colorado, including Belly Up Aspen, where the band will play on Tuesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Learning the old-school way<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Lucas began taking piano lessons at age 6 and picked up his first guitar around 9. He studied scales, modes and classical techniques with teachers, but his real musical education came in the basement, listening to tapes of live music by the Grateful Dead.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would send off two blank tapes in the mail and they would come back weeks later with Grateful Dead concerts on them,\u201d he recalls. \u201cI\u2019d play them on my stereo and play along.\u201d Lucas collected shows from the Dead as well as from bands like Phish, The String Cheese Incident and Moe.<\/p>\n

Lucas attended the University of Colorado at Boulder where he played in various kinds of rock-oriented bands, including a West African ensemble. The group focused on Ghanaian music but also explored Afro-pop, Afro-reggae and Afrobeat.<\/p>\n

After graduating, Lucas traveled to Ghana to study music more deeply. The trip led to performances across the country, including one memorable event hosted by Rita Marley. \u201cWe played her 60th birthday party,\u201d Lucas said. \u201cThat was a pretty amazing experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lucas moved to the Gunnison Valley in 2005 and began playing in local bands, but the realities of the music business eventually wore him down.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt can be kind of defeating,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s not enough money in it to eat.\u201d<\/p>\n

By 2008, he had largely stepped away from performing regularly, focusing instead on occasional solo gigs while advocating for fair pay for musicians in the Crested Butte and Gunnison scene.<\/p>\n

Birth of Easy Jim<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Easy Jim was born as a one-off gig at a 2016 anniversary party for KBUT Community Radio in Crested Butte (where Lucas is currently the development director). Because the station had no real budget for entertainment, several DJs formed a house band called Faces Made for Radio.<\/p>\n

Lucas, bassist Kevin Reinert and drummer and KBUT founder Jim Michael played a few Grateful Dead songs during the event. After a great reception, they contemplated forming a Dead cover band, with dual percussion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to keep the two-drummer approach,\u201d Lucas said, referring to the classic Dead lineup of Billy Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart behind the drum kits.<\/p>\n

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Tyler Lucas is one of the founding members of the band Easy Jim, whose members hail from Crested Butte and Gunnison. He and fellow guitar player Dwayne Dodson trade off playing lead and rhythm guitar.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n Courtesy of Kevin Reinert<\/span>
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Easy Jim\u2019s first official show was in August 2019 at the I Bar Ranch in Gunnison. Lucas, Reinert and Michael were joined by drummer Ben Wright, guitarist and vocalist Dwayne Dodson and keyboardist Zach Gorsuch. The band had rehearsed for months and wasn\u2019t sure if the project would continue beyond that one night. But again, the reaction to the band was incredibly enthusiastic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

From there, momentum built quickly. They were invited to open for Leftover Salmon and before long, the band began selling out shows in the valley.<\/p>\n

Then the COVID-19 pandemic arrived.<\/p>\n

For many bands the pandemic was a momentum killer. But for some outfits it had the opposite effect. Easy Jim saw their popularity skyrocket during COVID.<\/p>\n

During the summer of 2020, no bands were touring. But the outdoor setting at I Bar Ranch allowed concerts to continue with social distancing. Easy Jim ended up playing 11 shows in the summer of 2020. Their concerts became something of a cathartic release \u2014 a place where audiences could rediscover the shared experience of live music.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur shows touched a nerve with people,\u201d Lucas said. \u201cCOVID really had people thirsty for live music and connection and rediscovering the magic of going to shows. And we got super tight along the way. COVID was our biggest launching pad. We knew coming out of it we had the foundation for a band.\u201d<\/p>\n

Making a novel experience<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Today, Easy Jim approaches the music differently than many tribute acts. Instead of assigning one member to play the role of Garcia or Bob Weir, Lucas shares guitar leads and vocal duties along with Dodson. Lucas and Dodson both approach the music as lead players, often trading solos within the same song.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always been a lead guitar player and so is Dwayne and neither one of us wanted to give up the appeal of playing Jerry\u2019s parts and soloing and that kind of led to, \u2018Well, we\u2019ll just split up the songs, and we\u2019ll even split up the parts within the songs.\u2019 And we\u2019ve done the same with the vocals,\u201d Lucas said.<\/p>\n

Even longtime fans often don\u2019t know which band member will take the lead vocal or solo on a given night. That\u2019s what makes Easy Jim so unpredictable and exciting. Add to that the ferocity with which the band plays the music and every Easy Jim show is a throw-down dance party.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Since the first show at I Bar Ranch in 2019, Lucas, Reinert, Dodson and Wright have remained the stalwarts of Easy Jim. There has been somewhat of a revolving door in the second drummer spot and keyboards. Chris Chalmers is currently doing his second stint with Easy Jim on drums and the band is now rotating four keyboardists until they find a more permanent replacement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe keyboard situation has been super fun because we have four different guys that are all monster musicians,\u201d Lucas said. \u201cAnd each one brings their own flavor to it and it makes it really interesting and fresh.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Easy Jim is based in Crested Butte and Gunnison, Aspen audiences have embraced the band as one of their own. Lucas believes that connection comes from a shared mountain-town mindset.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s an adventurous attitude in these mountain communities,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople prioritize the outdoors, quality of life and physical and mental health above the corporate template. And we keep the prices down. There\u2019s only two affordable things in Aspen \u2014 The Public House and Easy Jim. Our shows are hopefully something that people can afford to go to, it\u2019s inclusive for the people that live and work in Aspen and the Roaring Fork Valley.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lucas admits the band\u2019s rise has exceeded anything the members imagined when they first rehearsed together.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the very beginning, we made a list of venues we hoped to play someday in Colorado,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd we\u2019ve checked off all the boxes.\u201d At the top of that list was Belly Up Aspen.<\/p>\n

Now, after multiple sold-out appearances at Belly Up, Lucas savors every minute of every show.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf this thing ended today,\u201d he said, \u201cit would still be a high-water mark in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lucas said the band\u2019s goal is to keep the music evolving \u2014 just as the Grateful Dead did.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe question for us now is how do we not only make it nostalgic, but make it novel every time,\u201d he said. \u201cHow do we keep it a living experience? We just want people to feel good and to remember what music and community can do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Visit bellyupaspen.com<\/a> for information and tickets.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.aspendailynews.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Easy Jim, which performed in January at Belly Up Aspen, consists of Dwayne Dodson, Kevin Reinert, Tyler Lucas, Chris Chalmers and Ben Wright.\u00a0 Courtesy of Kevin Reinert In July 1995, 14-year-old Tyler Lucas had scored tickets to see the Grateful Dead play at Riverport Amphitheater, 20 miles outside of his hometown of St. Louis. At […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2333543,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2333542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Aspen-adopts-Easy-Jim-as-its-own-Arts.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2333542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2333542"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2333542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2333544,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2333542\/revisions\/2333544"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2333543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2333542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2333542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2333542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}