Sunday, November 8, 2026

Bonnie Raitt is born in Burbank and eventually treats Red Rocks like a second living room

1949 · Burbank, California / Red Rocks, Morrison

Born November 8, 1949, the slide-guitar and blues singer becomes a Colorado regular: dozens of Red Rocks nights, Fort Collins clubs, Snowmass stages, and the kind of voice that makes “I Can’t Make You Love Me” sound like it was written for the foothills at golden hour.

Bonnie Lynn Raitt arrived on November 8, 1949, in Burbank. Her father was Broadway’s John Raitt; her mother played piano. She picked up a Stella guitar at eight, skipped the lessons, and went looking for the high, lonesome slide players instead.

By the early 1970s she was sharing stages with the blues people who had already lived the songs. Critical love arrived faster than radio. Then 1989’s Nick of Time turned the long apprenticeship into Grammys and platinum. Thirteen competitive Grammys later, plus a Rock Hall induction and a Kennedy Center Honor, the slide still sounds like it belongs to the person who refused to sand the edges off.

Colorado has claimed her for decades. Red Rocks lists her among its frequent returners; one count had her past twenty shows there by the mid-2000s. She has played the old Fort Ram in Fort Collins, the Snowmass Music Pavilion, Macky Auditorium in Boulder, and enough other rooms that locals stop being surprised when the date is announced. In 2016 she used a Red Rocks birthday show to point people at voter registration. The mountains did not mind.

She is 77 today. The voice still bends a lyric the way the rest of us only wish we could. If you have ever stood in the Red Rocks seats while she worked a bottleneck across the frets, you already know why the calendar keeps putting her on a Colorado page.

Sources: Wikipedia: Bonnie Raitt · Britannica: Bonnie Raitt · Red Rocks Hall of Fame note · Denver Post: Bonnie Raitt at Red Rocks

Metro Denver votes three-to-one for a penny on culture during the recession, and SCFD is born

1988 · Denver metro area

On November 8, 1988, voters in the six-county metro area approve a 0.1 percent sales tax for scientific and cultural facilities by roughly a three-to-one margin. The Scientific and Cultural Facilities District begins funding the Zoo, the Art Museum, the Botanic Gardens, and hundreds of smaller organizations the following year.

The mid-1980s oil bust had already taken state money away from Denver’s big cultural institutions. Trustees and organizers spent years in the legislature and then in living rooms selling the idea of a dedicated regional tax. One penny on every ten dollars spent. Ten percent reserved for small local nonprofits so the suburbs would have something to point at.

On election day 1988, with the region still in the worst economic stretch in decades, more than half a million people voted yes. The margin was about 75 percent. Raymond Burr even cut a public-service announcement. The Scientific and Cultural Facilities District started collecting on January 1, 1989.

The tax has been renewed three times since. It now covers seven counties and sends tens of millions a year to nearly 300 organizations. Tier I still names the Denver Art Museum, Botanic Gardens, Museum of Nature and Science, the Zoo, and the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. The rest of the money moves through county cultural councils to theaters, history groups, dance companies, and science programs that would otherwise live on bake sales and hope.

It remains one of the few times a metro region voted itself a cultural endowment while the economy was still on its knees. The penny is still there every time someone buys a coffee or a concert ticket.

Also on that same November 8, Colorado voted for George H. W. Bush, made English the official language, and rejected a broader tax-limitation measure. The cultural tax was the one that stuck.

Sources: Colorado Encyclopedia: Scientific and Cultural Facilities District · Wikipedia: Scientific and Cultural Facilities District · SCFD About · A Penny for Your Arts (AAM)

Denver hits 80 degrees on November 8 and the calendar files a formal complaint

2006 · Denver

On November 8, 2006, Denver records a high of 80 °F. It is the first time since records began in 1872 that the city has ever reached 80 in the month of November. The old November monthly record was 79.

Normal high for the date is in the mid-50s. The low is usually in the upper 20s. On this Wednesday the thermometer kept climbing until it hit 80 at about 1:23 p.m. Weather Service records that go back to 1872 had never seen an 80 in November before. The previous monthly high for the whole month was 79, reached four times.

Pueblo hit 85 that day. Colorado Springs reached 78. A warm air mass had parked itself over the Front Range and decided the calendar was optional. By the next day the high was already back in the 40s.

Later Novembers would produce more 80s (November 16, 2016, and November 27, 2017, among them), but 2006 owns the first one. The date still holds the official record high of 80 °F. The record low for the day is 14 °F in 1966. Most snow on the date is 9.3 inches in 2024. Average high remains about 56.

November 8 is therefore the day Denver proved it can still wear shorts after the clocks have fallen back, and the day everyone else is reminded to keep the snow shovel within reach anyway.

Sources: Denver Post: 80-degree November day · Extreme Weather Watch: Denver November 8 · NWS / ThorntonWeather week-in-history