Although the dominance of New York, Los Angeles and Nashville as centers of the American music business remains firm after more than a half-century, a few pockets of independent resistance have developed and thrived over the last 30 years or so, sometimes in surprising places.

San Francisco and Austin have long been known as havens for alternative musicians, while both Washington, D.C. and Boston have even longer histories as hotbeds of bluegrass music.

In Colorado, the lure of the Rocky Mountain lifestyle has made towns like Denver, Boulder and Fort Collins magnets not only for up-and-coming bluegrassers, but for aspiring jam bands and singer-songwriters as well.

With the release of their third studio album "Old Hands" on their own Frog Pad label (they also have two previous live releases), the Nederland, Col.-based Yonder Mountain String Band continues to merge respect for tradition with their own "Gen-X" take on bluegrass, this time using it to showcase and salute the singing and songwriting of a man they consider a mentor and, more importantly, a friend, Benny "Burle" Galloway.

All 13 tracks on the new disc were written or co-written by Galloway, and his rough-hewn voice adorns several of the songs as he sings and plays with the regular Yonder Mountain quartet - Adam Aijala on guitar, Jeff Austin on mandolin, Dave Johnston on banjo and Ben Kaufmann on bass.

Curiously, although the band came together in the late 90s, they each met and came to know Galloway under more or less different circumstances.

Austin, a graduate of the University of Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, had joined Johnston's band there, the Bluegrassholes, before they both decided to move to Colorado.

"I met Benny Galloway with Dave, our banjo player. There was this festival, this kind of underground festival. They call it the 'Tell You What' Festival. It's kind of a spoof of (the) Telluride (Bluegrass Festival), in a good way, not in any kind of demeaning way. It was bands like Leftover Salmon and the String Cheese Incident. They would kind of come and play under a different name. It cost like five bucks to get in, all the beer you want to drink, that kind of thing. It was this great little scene where all the local musicians would get together and hang out at this underground festival. Dave and I pulled in the first year that we lived here, in '98...and literally got out of the truck, pulled the gate down and started picking, started just playing music. We were playing for probably half an hour, and all of a sudden, up walks this guy with this big mustache and this guitar and proclaims himself the Fire Marshal of 'Tell You What,' and he wanted to see what was going on. So he came over, and that was basically how we met Benny. We sat there and played music for the next hour and a half. We hung out the rest of the weekend and played music the rest of the weekend. We had such a great time with him. We just kept in touch. I said 'let me grab your number, let's play more.' That's how our friendship started."

As the tracks cycle through on "Old Hands", the listener is tempted to draw comparisons between Galloway and another singer-songwriter known for transmitting sensitive and intelligent music through an otherwise gruff exterior - Kris Kristofferson.

Galloway's "Wind Thru The Willows" certainly conveys the same sort of tender feeling as Kristofferson's "Help Me Make It Through The Night," for example, and "The Pride O' Alabama" shows off Galloway's ability to tell a good tale as well.

It is a remarkable gesture then, considering that each of the Yonder Mountain quartet has contributed their own share of original material to their live shows and studio recordings, that the band would devote an entire album to the work of someone they consider more than just a friend and peer.

Austin says that it's simply the desire to share and spread their appreciation for these same qualities of Galloway's work that has inspired "Old Hands."

"The main reason we wanted to do this project is just because we admire him. He's one of my favorite songwriters of all time. The reason being, he has the ability to write a love song, and it's not schmaltzy. He has the ability to tell a story in a song, but it's not clichéd...When he tells these stories, and he writes these words, it takes you there, immediately. You are there. You are taken to the place he is writing about. It truly grabs your emotions, whether it's about loss, or love or life. He truly has an amazing way to take you by the hand and lead you into these tunes. We just admire the hell out of him, and he's such a great guy, a dear friend of ours."

In addition to the vocal and guitar contributions of Galloway himself, the album is also bolstered by a multi-talented supporting cast that includes two top-level Dobro talents, Jerry Douglas and Sally Van Meter (who also produced), along with four outstanding fiddlers, although only three of them - Tim O'Brien, Darol Anger and Casey Driessen - actually play the fiddle on ' "Old Hands." The fourth, Dirk Powell, brings the Cajun accordion work he's been doing with Balfa Toujours the last few years to the mix.

Although O'Brien produced the band's previous studio effort "Town By Town," it's Van Meter's hand that sets the tone and leads to the end result.

A long-time veteran of California bands, most notably the Good Ol' Persons (with Laurie Lewis and Kathy Kallick), Van Meter moved to Colorado a few years ago and began adding producer credits to her resume, demonstrating the versatility to get the best out of not only young, traditionally-minded bands like Open Road, but also bands that came to bluegrass from an entirely different direction like, well, Yonder Mountain.

Austin acknowledges that while they paid close attention to the other Colorado bands they were hearing (Front Range, Bluegrass Patriots and O'Brien's own Hot Rize being the best-known) that were firmly rooted in bluegrass history and tradition, they didn't exactly set out to recreate the Monroe and Stanley sounds.

'"We were heavily influenced by (Hot Rize, Front Range, et al), and as heavily influenced as we were by them, we were equally as heavily influenced by Frank Zappa...and Bob Dylan and The (Grateful) Dead."

What led to the formation of Yonder Mountain was their common desire to combine the bluegrass they had come to love and excel at with the music they were most comfortable and familiar with in a way that would be completely unique, appealing to an eclectic fan base of their generational peers (Austin notes his own age as 29, while the oldest band member turns 30 this year), yet still attract and hold the attention of the bluegrass purists.

"When we first set out, our main goal was, we wanted to sound like something different. We knew there were people who could play straight-up traditional music way better than we could ever hope to, and that's what they should be doing, that helps the music scene grow. Then, when we got out to Colorado, and when Yonder Mountain got together, the people we were hanging out with were all about being eclectic in their music making, the guys from Leftover Salmon, the guys from the band called the Dukes of Zydeco, this great Zydeco band out here. I'm not even really sure where it happened, I just think we didn't want to sound like anybody else, but we took our influences. We knew we didn't want to be a straight-up traditional band. We do play straight-up, traditional tunes, a great number of them during our show. But the energy we play with, that's what gives it the different kind of twist."

They're still young enough that touring - and lots of it - is still fun, still an adventure, and it's still a rewarding challenge to maintain that high energy level night after night, no matter how long and hard the trip from the previous night's gig was. As he talks between early June shows in their Colorado stomping grounds, Austin seems excited while saying that it only gets more hectic from here on.

"It's the beginning of our summer tour. We're done Sept. 29th. Really, between now and then we have, probably, 15 or 16 days off, we're just go, go, go."

Before October brings a chance to take a few more deep breaths, the road will lead from Colorado up to Oregon, over the water to Ireland, France and Britain, back across to the Blue Ridge, Texas, Georgia and the Winfield, Kansas festival before it all ends, at least for this go-round.

For a recorded sampler of the sort of live, arena-rock energy that a Yonder Mountain show strives to attain, either of their live "Mountain Tracks" discs will do. "Volume 2", for example, which was recorded during the fall of 2001 in Colorado and Oregon, includes spirited versions of traditional fare like "Raleigh And Spencer" along with salutes to John Hartford ("Two Hits And The Joint Turned Brown"), Waylon Jennings ("Good Hearted Woman") and the Stones ("No Expectations"), capped off by a 26-minute medley/reprise of tunes by Austin, "Peace Of Mind" and "Follow Me Down To The Riverside."

No doubt, they like to push the envelope, at least when it comes to bluegrass, but they do it on a solid foundation of vocal and instrumental musicianship. Aijala, in particular, is a flatpicker with the ability to make the listener sit up and notice, yet not get so flashy that it overpowers or distracts from the song.

In the end, Austin agrees, it's the band as a whole, an ensemble, and not as individuals, that has made Yonder Mountain a success over the course of their relatively short existence. It helps, of course, that they respect and enjoy each other's friendship as much as musical ability. He pauses a moment and laughs.

"We're also the 'TV Generation', you know, we can't go 10 minutes without getting bored and flipping the channel, so the way that we kind of approached our music is almost with that mentality, you know, keep it moving, keep it changing, keep different things happening and hopefully you'll capture people's attention. Like I said, if we played straight-up, traditional stuff, I'd go see Open Road before I'd come see us because they're a great band, and I love what they do when they play that...But the main goal, from day one, was to do something completely different, while not ignoring any of our influences, no matter how far from bluegrass they may come."