Telluride Bluegrass Festival is built on tradition, just ask Sam Bush who has played there every year since 1975. But just as the festival welcomes acts like Bush, Chris Thile, and Béla Fleck back year after year, it’s also a place for historic debuts. This past weekend, Telluride Bluegrass Festival hosted the first-ever performance by Toy Factory Project, the all-star tribute to the Marshall Tucker Band led by Marcus King and Blackberry Smoke’s Charlie Starr.
Named in honor of MTB co-founder Toy Caldwell, who died in 1993 at the age of 45, Toy Factory Project also includes Dead & Company bassist Oteil Burbridge, multi-instrumentalist Josh Shilling (Mountain Heart), fiddler Billy Contreras, and original Marshall Tucker Band drummer Paul T. Riddle. As Southern rock torchbearers, the Marshall Tucker Band is near and dear to King and Starr, King more literally near as the Greenville, SC guitarist grew up some 30 miles away from where MTB started in Spartanburg. According to Rolling Stone, King’s dad was also a close friend of the band.
“This is the gold standard,” King told Rolling Stone. “This group of guys that was able to make it out of South Carolina.”
In a tongue-in-cheek move early in the show, Toy Factory Project paired up the Marshall Tucker Band’s “Fire on the Mountain” with the Grateful Dead song of the same name, familiar territory for Burbridge, who is accustomed to singing the song at arenas and the Sphere with Dead & Co. Burbridge is of course no stranger to celebrating Southern rock icons, playing bass with the Allman Brothers Band for its final 17 years together.
Related: Marcus King Covers The Allman Brothers Band For Howard Stern [Watch]
While no complete setlist has surfaced, an on-site report from Saving Country Music notes that, “Some might have been original compositions, or songs inspired by Toy Caldwell as opposed to direct covers.” Of course, the supergroup also included plenty of MTB classics like “This Ol’ Cowboy” featuring Béla Fleck, “In My Own Way”, “Blue Ridge Mountain Sky”, and “Can’t You See”, which interestingly didn’t close out the show, leaving that to “Take the Highway”.
Toy Factory Project, Béla Fleck — “This Ol’ Cowboy” (Marshall Tucker Band) — 6/21/25
[Video: VAN BREEDING]
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
View this post on Instagram
Though Toy Factory Project doesn’t have any other shows scheduled, the members have dropped hints towards a tour, a studio release, and possibly a documentary on its formation. Riddle has reportedly been trying to put together a tribute to Caldwell for 13 years, previously working with Vince Gill and Peter Frampton before cementing the lineup audiences saw at Telluride. A stripped-down version of the group, featuring Marcus King, Charlie Starr, Josh Shilling, and Paul T. Riddle, had previously performed at the Grand Ole Opry, but this festival set marked its first official performance.
Telluride Bluegrass 2025 saw an array of other highlights from a wide variety of artists, including fellow top acts Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Gillian Welch & David Rawlings, Alison Krauss & Union Station featuring Jerry Douglas, Sam Bush Band, Lake Street Dive, Zach Top, Greensky Bluegrass, and many others.
Check out a gallery of images from the 2025 Telluride Bluegrass Festival courtesy of photographer Conrad Meyer, and listen to some full-set recordings by taper Jamie Todd.
Chris Thile — Telluride Bluegrass Festival — 6/19/25 — Full Audio
