Named
Academy of Western Artists' (AWA)
Top Male Poet
2004

2009 photo by Jeri L. Dobrowski

About Andy Hedges
 Poetry and Lyrics
Recordings 
Contacting Andy Hedges

About Andy Hedges 

Hailing from Lubbock, Texas, Andy Hedges is a reciter, singer and guitarist. For the last dozen years or so he has entertained audiences all over the West with his classic cowboy poetry recitations, clean guitar work, and cowboy folk music.

Andy has been a featured performer at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada, the Texas Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Alpine, Texas, and countless cowboy gatherings, theaters, festivals, and concert venues around the West.

He has released two albums of cowboy poetry recitations, and in 2004 debuted his first music album, City Boys.

Andy has recently teamed-up with songwriter, Andy Wilkinson on a joint album project, Welcome to the Tribe (Yellowhouse Music, 2009). With old songs rediscovered by Hedges and new songs written by Wilkinson and the whole arranged by them both, the new recording explores "who is and who ain’t in the cowboy life."

"Andy Hedges makes no claim to being a cowboy but he has the cowboy spirit, integrity, and the heart that makes his music so undeniably real. Andy could very well carry on the traditions when all us old guys are gone. I'd feel assured in knowing the music of our great American West was in good hands."  Don Edwards

 

Poetry and Lyrics

Texas Braggin'
City Boys

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Texas Braggin’

On a roundup in the spring way back in eighty-two,
A Texas man was ridin’ with some northern buckaroos.
Now this Lone star cowboy was just what you'd expect,
From any Texas puncher with a lick of self respect.

He’d say "In Texas everything’s a whole lot better and bigger,
The punchers all are punchier and as near as I can figure,
The horses all run faster, the cattle all are tougher,
The rivers all run wider and the work’s a whole lot rougher."

Well, he commenced to braggin’ everyday of every week
Till it riled them buckaroos just to hear him speak.
And after talkin’ it over they came to decide,
They’d have to somehow damage this braggin’ cowboy’s pride.

And since he’d said them Texans were so tough,
They’d have to pull a trick to call this puncher’s bluff.
So one day while they was fordin’ a river, they happened to come across
A bunch of snappin’ turtles a hidin’ in the moss.

Well, they put them turtles in his bedroll and thru it back in the wagon,
Figured that’d stop his never ending braggin’.
So that night when he got his bedroll out and laid it on the ground,
Them buckaroos all walked over and they kinda gathered ‘round

To watch him stick his feet down in that roll,
A thinkin’ it would be a pretty funny show.
And sure enough he stuck his feet in and he jerked ’em right back out,
And he kinda had a surprised look upon his snout,

When he flipped the bedroll open and he yelled out to the crew,
"Well, looky there boys... Bedbugs! And little bitty ones too!"

© 2001, Andy Hedges 
This poem may not be reprinted or reposted without the author's written permission.

 

City Boys 

On a big spread in Wyoming
Before the break of day
That's where you'll find him
Ridin' for his pay
He loves the life he's livin'
And he knows no other way
And, he'll be punchin' cattle
Until his dyin' day

chorus:
I'll sing for the cowboy
Ridin' on the range
I'll sing for the traditions
That aint never gonna change
I'll sing for the top hands
Who've stood the test
And, I'll sing for the city boys
Who'd love to head out west

In a office down on main street
In his suit and tie
He works hard all week
Puttin' in his nine to fives
You know he loves them cowboy movies
It's all that gets him by
Cause he longs to be a cowboy
And leave that city life behind

chorus

Tonight I'm up here singin'
An old cowboy tune
But I wish I was out there ridin'
Underneath that prairie moon
But I play this guitar
Day after day
Singin' songs and tellin' stories
About the old time ways

chorus

© 2004, Andy Hedges from City Boys
This poem may not be reprinted or reposted without the author's written permission.

 

Recordings

Welcome to the Tribe

2009

Andy Wilkinson and Andy Hedges

Includes:

Welcome to the Tribe (for Buck, Buster, and Bob) by Andy Wilkinson
Wild West Rambler  traditional
The Dreary, Dreary Life  traditional
Diamond Joe  traditional
The Lost Lonesome High by Andy Wilkinson
The Cowboy's Soliloquy by Allen McCandless
Old Paint Medley multiple songwriters
The Keepers of the Code (for Jack and Peter)
Palm-Leaf Lid by Andy Wilkinson and Andy Hedges
The Lost Lonesome High by Andy Wilkinson
The Glitterbus by Andy Wilkinson and Andy Hedges
Pop Reed by Peter LaFarge
The Great Escape by Andy Wilkinson

Available for $15.98 plus postage from Yellowhouse Music

Welcome to the Tribe, real cowboy folk music by Andy Hedges and Andy Wilkinson (www.andywilkinson.net) marries tradition and the present in an important, masterful album that celebrates the "keepers of the code" and the "members of the tribe." With a mix of classic cowboy songs and fresh originals—some written by Andy Wilkinson and some collaborations by the two—it's not about exclusion, but it's about principle. The songs on Welcome to the Tribe are sometimes frank, sometimes funny, and always entertaining.

Both Hedges and Wilkinson are songwriters, poets, and performers—and folk historians. In the liner notes for the opening track, "Welcome to the Tribe (for Buck, Buster, and Bob)," Andy Wilkinson writes about his inspiration for the song and sets up all that is to come, "While making an introduction of Bob Moorhouse, Buster Welch listed the three things that it takes to make a cowboy....the very best, most succinct description of the cowboy code I've heard since Buck Ramsey defined it as 'being in the right place at the right time....'"

Welcome to the Tribe offers one sterling performance after another.

Traditional selections shine with carefully crafted arrangements. They include "The Cowboy's Soliloquy," "Diamond Joe," the lesser known "Wild West Rambler," and a resonant a cappella performance of "The Dreary Dreary Life" by Andy Wilkinson. Their "Old Paint Medley" is an entrancing study of the familiar cowboy standard, with an infrequently-sung verse by Woody Guthrie and the inspired incorporation of "The Horse With a Union Label."

The original songs are filled with novel, smart lyrics. "The Palm Leaf Lid" pokes fun at the "all hat" types ("Now if you never break a sweat nor pitch into a wreck, it's logical to wear a Silver Belly 100X...but if you mix it up outside an air-conditioned rig..."). Their amusing, catchy, and absolutely sparkling "The Glitterbus" says all there is to say about "fame" (the liner notes simply caution, "It's best to stay off this bus."). Andy Wilkinson's "The Lost Lonesome High" is a plain-truth story of today's cowboy "All day in the pickup runnin' errands to town, when I shoulda been horseback, prowlin' some ground, what once was the orders for a half-dozen hands is now the to-do list for a single camp man."

Another standout is Wilkinson's "The Keepers of the Code" (for Jack and Peter)." Again, the liner notes make an important statement, "Some of us think that Tin Pan Alley and Hollywood oaters would have completely gutted cowboy music if it hadn't been for the folk revival of the 1950s, in particular the work of Ramblin' Jack Elliott and Peter LaFarge. This song is for them." The lyrics make their case and offer lines for an enduring cowboy music philosophy and anthem: "It don't matter where you're from, it's just where you're goin', it don't matter what you've done, it's just what you do, sing where you live, live where you're singin', it don't matter who's listenin' to you."

Amanda Shires, Lloyd Maines, Bob Livingston, and other top musicians join Hedges and Wilkinson with a level of excellence that holds throughout the entire project, from the songwriting, singing, and continuity to the package design.

If they are spinning CDs in the Great Beyond, the likes of Buck Ramsey, Jack Thorp, Alan Lomax, and other members of the tribe and keepers of the code will have Welcome to the Tribe on their top shelves.

CowboyPoetry.com
 

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Read Rick Huff's review here.

 

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City Boys

City Boys includes:

The Tribe of the Forty and Found  by Andy Wilkinson
Wild Buckeroo  by Curley Fletcher
City Boys  by Andy Hedges
Jamie Raeborn's Farewell  traditional
Mustang Gray  traditional
Dreams Drive the Brazos  by Andy Wilkinson
Bronco Bill's Lament  by Don McLean
More Pretty Girls  traditional
 Dust and Horns  by Rod Taylor
Ye Objects of Sense/Song of Texas  traditional
Jody  by Andy Wilkinson
Girl From the North Country  by Bob Dylan
Roving Gambler  traditional

 

Andy Hedges: vocals, acoustic guitar
Kyle Abernathie: harmonium
Cary Banks: piano, bottleneck guitar
Joe Carr: mandolin
Steve Cooper: penny whistle, wooden flute
Sean Frankenhouser: double-bass
Rusty Huddleson: accordion
Kenny Maines: harmony vocals
Brian McRae: wood blocks, electric guitar, harmony vocals, tambourine, congas
Alan Munde: banjo
John Perrin: bodhran
Amanda Shires: fiddle
Rod Taylor: harmony vocals
Andy Wilkinson: harmony vocals
Sacred Harp Shape Note Singers: Joe Taylor, Tom Taylor, Kathy Taylor, and Mary Alice Latimer
 

From the liner notes by Andy Wilkinson:

A dozen or so years ago, through the graces of Buck Ramsey—who was never averse to strays or mavericks—I was first drawn into the cowpunch culture of the American West. There was at that time much discussion of exactly who belonged to the cowboy tribe, and of what constituted the music and poetry of the clan. As influenced by Mel Torme and Albert Camus as by Slim Critchlow and Gene Rhodes, Buck chose to err on the side of inclusiveness, for her understand, in ways that none of the rest of us ever could, that it was the spirit that made the cowboy, not the other way around.

Buck Ramsey is gone, too soon and, now it seems, too long, but that same question lingers. And like so much of contemporary American discourse, the sides have grown hardened and unyielding. Traditionalists have beaten their swords from the scholarship of ethnomusicology, while Nashville wannabes have armed themselves with ambition and glitz. Between the two camps is a tricky minefield, littered with the remains of those who'd like to have it both ways.

That is why the music of Andy Hedges is so refreshing. Claiming to be neither cowboy nor cowboy singer, his work plainly shows the heritage of each. His voice is honest and unpretentious, his guitar work and effortless and unconscious blend of folk and modern styles, both set to work on material that crosses the turns of two centuries.

For if the spirit makes the cowboy—as Buck Ramsey demonstrated—then surely it is that same spirit that makes cowboy music, for cowboy music was always like the cowboy: unsuitable for fencing, impossible to corral, unwilling to go any way but its own.  Which pretty well describes the music of Andy Hedges.

Andy Wilkinson
Lubbock, Texas
August, 2004

Andy Hedges describes his recording: 

City Boys is a collection of both traditional and contemporary cowboy and folk tunes. It includes my original song "City Boys," new songs by Andy Wilkinson (who also produced the album!), a Rod Taylor song, obscure cowboy tunes, Celtic songs, old folk tunes, Sacred Harp Shape Note music, and songs by Bob Dylan and Don McLean.

You can order the album directly from me by sending a check or money order for $17 (postpaid) to: 5707 90th St., Lubbock, TX 79424 806-790-5555 or from Yellowhouse Music.

 

Andy Hedges manages to be both pioneering and traditional in City Boys. He approaches these eclectic folk tunes with a purity and a venerable wisdom. His music is straightforward, his voice fresh and confident, and there is an unassailable integrity and intelligence in the choices and the arrangements. Some tunes have been around for a hundred years, and some are modern. His interpretations make this collection burst with the excitement of something that's never been done before. Like the people he writes and sings about, Andy Hedges straddles an old world and a new.  He is comfortably and deeply seated in the tradition, and at the same time, he soars into the  bright future with this remarkable recording.  I hope everyone takes the opportunity to hear his music.

Margo Metegrano, CowboyPoetry.com

Don Edwards comments, "Andy  Hedges makes no claim to being a cowboy but he has the Cowboy Spirit, integrity, and the heart that makes his music so undeniably Real.  Andy could very well carry on the traditions when all us old guys are gone. I'd feel assured in knowing the music of our great American West was in good hands."

O. J. Sikes, in Rope Burns, writes, "From the very first notes you know you are in for a real treat..."

See a review here by Brad Carter of Yellowhouse Music, who calls City Boys "one of the most refreshing pieces of work I have heard in a long time."  

Read a review by Linda Kirkpatrick here.

Read a review by Lauralee Northcott here.  

And read many more comments from others at Andy Hedges' web site

 

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Days and Nights in the Saddle 

Days and Nights in the Saddle includes:

Introduction by  Bruce Kiskaddon (from Rhymes of the Ranges) 
The Riders by S. Omar Barker
The Red Cow by Larry McWhorter
Purt Near by S. Omar Barker
The Hell Bound Train anonymous
The Broncho Twister's Prayer  by Bruce Kiskaddon
The Return of the Bronco Twister by Mike Querner
Boomer Johnson by Henry Herbert Knibbs
Texas Braggin'' by Andy Hedges
Charlie and the Calumet Can by Charley Hendren
Bruin Wooin' by S. Omar Barker
An Old Western Town by Bruce Kiskaddon
Jack Potter's Courtin' by S. Omar Barker
When They've Finished Shipping Cattle in the Fall by Bruce Kiskaddon

 

Andy Hedges is a master of the classics and his Days and Nights in the Saddle includes classic poems by Bruce Kiskaddon, S. Omar Barker, and Henry Herbert Knibbs. The recording also includes Andy's own "Texas Braggin'" and contemporary poems by Larry McWhorter, Mike Querner, and Charley Hendren.  

Some traditional tunes accompany the poetry, including "Zebra Dunn," "The Little Black Bull," Sweet Betsey from Pike," "Mustang Gray,"  and "When the Work's All Done This Fall."  Andy did all the guitar work on the album and also wrote some of the other background tunes.

Days and Nights in the Saddle is one of the most-often played CDs here at the BAR-D.

You can order Days and Nights in the Saddle on CD or tape (CDs are $17 and tapes are $12, including postage) by email or you can contact Andy at: 5707 90th St., Lubbock, TX 79424 806-790-5555 

 

Contacting Andy Hedges

Visit Andy's web site:  www.AndyHedges.com

MySpace: www.myspace.com/andyhedges

Andy invites people to contact him by email

and:

Andy Hedges
5707 90th St.
Lubbock, TX 79424
806-790-5555

   

 

 

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