Pull out your cowboy boots and don your nostalgia.

The defunct Western Jubilee, a once-beloved downtown recording studio and intimate concert venue known for its high-quality sound, is gearing up for a rebirth.

Scott O’Malley’s musical institution, which hosted concerts by big-name Western musicians like Norman Blake, Don Edwards and Waddie Mitchell, opened in 1996 and was shuttered during the pandemic. It never reopened after O’Malley died in 2023.

Wife and husband Suzanne Dillon and Dean Mann intend to hang the Western Jubilee shingle once again. The couple, who owned the building next door to the iconic concert hall and became good friends with the O’Malleys, bought the property at 433 E. Cucharras St. on downtown’s east side from the family in December.

The new owners, who are still working with the city of Colorado Springs to make the historic building code compliant, don’t have a projected opening date.

“When the family was ready to sell the building, we were very worried the value of his legacy would be overlooked in lieu of the value of the underlying real estate,” Dillon said. “We, along with lots of people, would be heartbroken if it disappeared. We worried it would be hard to find someone to take it over and to carry on in Scott’s and the O’Malleys’ footsteps.”

The historic building, a converted 1887 Santa Fe Railroad freight house snuggled near train tracks in a cul-de-sac, also doubled as the Western Jubilee Recording Company. O’Malley, an agent, signed and recorded performers, which led to several Grammy wins for Blake and Edwards.

Smithsonian Folkways, a label within the nonprofit Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, acquired the recording company and its recordings in 2019.

Breathing new life into the Western Jubilee is a passion project for Dillon and her husband. Dillon, a Colorado College graduate, spent 15 years working as a costumer for theater companies, including Opera Colorado. She, Mann and their family moved back to the Springs a dozen years ago.

“Theater people are fearless. We can do anything,” Dillon said. “It’s (Western Jubilee) an extension of a universe I’m comfortable in. I was fortunate enough to sing on the stage one time here and felt so privileged to be part of the O’Malley world. I know how exquisite it is to be in the audience and on the stage.”

In 2017, Dillon and Mann co-produced a show with O’Malley and brought in John Doe, a founding member of the legendary punk band X, to play a sold-out solo acoustic show.

They plan to keep O’Malley’s institution and mission much the same, with no plans to renovate. Dillon can foresee booking a panoply of musicians in genres such as cowboy music, rockabilly, Americana, singer-songwriter, indie and country Western.

“He (O’Malley) said cowboy isn’t a type of music. Cowboy is an attitude,” Dillon said. “I say the same thing about punk rock. Dean and I come out of the punk rock world. It’s not just a style of music but an attitude. There’s a lot of crossover. Cowboy is an attitude. Scott specialized in cowboy music, but he booked musicians who were cowboy adjacent and far from cowboy. It was more about the relationship with the music and performer and the space.”