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Photos: Megan K. Friedel

The exterior of the Denver Folklore Center.

The CU Boulder American Music Research Center (AMRC) has acquired the , a central fixture in the Colorado folk music scene.

—lead archivist and head of distinctive collections & institutional memory for the University Libraries—has known Tuft for over a decade.

“When he reached out and said he was interested in working with us to preserve his collection, I was super excited,” says Friedel. “I can't think of a better place than the AMRC for Harry Tuft's papers.”

Tuft is the founder of the Denver Folklore Center (DFC) and is credited with helping Colorado become a significant destination in the folk music revival of the 1960s. ��

At the DFC—originally opened as a commercial venture selling guitars, banjos, strings and sheet music—Tuft regularly hosted jams and hootenannys, eventually producing area concerts as well.

“The bulk of the collection documents Harry's founding of the Denver Folklore Center in 1962, all the way up until he closed the store the first time in 1979,” Friedel says. “This period was a really fertile time in Colorado music, and Harry is so responsible for starting the folk music scene here locally and also making it a real stopping point for traveling musicians.”

The collection holds financial and business records for the DFC, correspondence between Tuft and local and nationally renowned musicians, recordings of concerts held in the store, ticket stubs of concerts he was attending and producing, and even a collection of folk music newsletters from around the country.

AMRC Director Michael Sy Uy calls the collection “a remarkable addition” to the AMRC collections and says it advances the goal of commemorating and archiving music of the American West.

A schedule of DFC events.

“There are incredible treasures in these materials which music lovers and historians will delight in for many years,” he says. “We can't wait to begin processing them and making them fully accessible to the public.”

Blues legend Otis Taylor and rock ‘n’ roll photographer Dan Fong, who have collections in the AMRC already, both know Tuft personally and overlapped in their musical journeys; encouragement from Taylor and Fong ultimately brought Tuft to the AMRC.

“They each represent a different point of view,” Tuft says. “Dan has one of the most incredible collections of music photographs in the country. Otis has an international reputation as a performer. I’ve known Otis since he first came into the store when he was 14, so I cherish my relationship with Otis—and I’ve known Dan for decades, he is an incredibly generous man.

“They’re both fun to be around. To be associated with them is very special to me.”

Friedel says all three collections help the libraries and the AMRC in their quest to document the historical significance of the local popular music scene.

“It's not been well documented in archives in our region, but we'd already started to build a really nice foundation with Dan Fong's collection and then Otis Taylor's collection. And Harry's was kind of the next stepping stone,” she explains.

Much of the collection is currently undiscovered, as Tuft himself admits he hasn’t listened to the bulk of the recordings he made. The libraries team plans to continue processing and organizing the collection, to be opened for research in summer 2026.

“I’m sort of an amateur archivist because I just love taping people—not with any big thing in mind, it just seemed appropriate somehow,” Tuft reflects. “But actually I’ve never listened to any of the recordings that I did.”

DFC photos on a notebook Tuft used to produce a Pete Seeger/Arlo Guthrie show.

Tuft is also a musician himself, playing guitar and singing in concerts to this day. His collection includes documents from concerts he organized and played in with various groups including Grubstake, formed in the early 70s and still performing together. Most recently, Tuft performed at Swallow Hill Music in one of his .

“I just love songs and I love making music for people, and I love it when they like it,” he adds. “Being a retired guy, what is not retired in me is performing. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to perform until I can’t sing any more.”

The AMRC also recently acquired new material for the as well as materials connected to American bluegrass band Hot Rize, inducted into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 2025.��