|
North Dakota rancher, poet, writer, and Senior Pro
Rodeo champion
Rodney Nelson 's
regular
Up Sims Creek
column appears bi-weekly in the
Country Living section of
Farm
and Ranch Guide.
The current column is " Annual
'Prairie Surprise' tour a highlight for out-of-staters."
Find links to previous columns
here
at the
Farm and Ranch Guide
site.
Rodney is a popular performer at many events,
frequently invited to the
Western Folklife Center's
National Cowboy Poetry Gathering and other gatherings and events across the
West.
His poem, "Gift Rift," is featured on
The BAR-D Roundup: Volume Six; "Good Clean Fun," is featured on
The BAR-D Roundup: Volume
Five, and his "Cowboy Laundry" is one of the most-played radio
tracks, included on The
BAR-D Roundup: Volume Four. He has written several chapbooks, has a
collection of his
Up Sims Creek
columns, and a Christmas tale,
Wilbur's Gift.
Read some of his poetry and more
about him in our feature
here.
[photo by Jeri L. Dobrowski; see
her gallery of western performers and others
here]
Posted 8/29
Heidi M. Thomas' novel,
Follow the Dream,
has received the Willa Award from
Women Writing the
West.
Follow the Dream ,
a sequel to her 2009 novel, Cowgirl Dreams (described
here in our 2009
announcements) is described:
Nettie Moser’s dreams are coming true. She’s married to her
cowboy, Jake, they have plans for a busy rodeo season, and she has
a once in a lifetime opportunity to rodeo in London with the Tex
Austin Wild West Troupe.
But life during the Great Depression brings unrelenting hardships
and unexpected family responsibilities. Nettie must overcome
challenges to her lifelong rodeo dreams, cope with personal
tragedy, survive drought, and help Jake keep their horse herd from
disaster.
Will these challenges break this strong woman?
This sequel to
Cowgirl Dreams is based on the life of the
author’s grandmother, a real Montana cowgirl.
Read an excerpt from the book's first
chapter here at Heidi M. Thomas' web site,
www.heidimthomas.com, and
find more about her grandmother
here
and elsewhere in her blog,
heidiwriter.wordpress.com.
See Picture the West entries with family photos
related to her books here and
here.
Posted 8/25
South Dakota ranchwife and top poet
Yvonne Hollenbeck
writes about her mother-in-law,
Dema McMurtry Hollenbeck,
age 90, in
Range Magazine's
popular "Confessions of Red Meat Survivors" feature. The Fall, 2011 issue
includes the story of Dema McMurtry Hollenbeck's life, starting with her birth
in a sod house in Nebraska. She has lived on the Hollenbeck ranch for 70 years,
and comments, "It has been a good life..."
Yvonne Hollenbeck performs regularly at the
Western Folklife Center's
National Cowboy Gathering and at many events across the West. She's been
featured on each volume of
The BAR-D Roundup.
She has won many awards for her poetry, recordings, and books and she's also a
champion quilter. Find more about her and some of her poetry in our feature
here and visit her site at
www.yvonnehollenbeck.com.
At least two other poets who are also writers have articles in the Fall, 2011
issue of
Range Magazine:
Rod McQueary
and
Gwen Petersen.
Find the entire table of contents of the Fall, 2011
Range Magazine
and many new and archived stories at
www.rangemagazine.com.
Posted 8/24
Texas poet, reciter, writer, and local historian
Linda Kirkpatrick's
most recent article at the
Leakey Star
(Texas) is "
Sweetheart in a Sunbonnet,"
which she describes as, "...the story of Sarah Jane Newman aka Sally Skull.
Sally's family, one the original "Old Three Hundred" settlers to Texas, left a
life of luxury in the East...The family had to regroup and adjust to a new way
of life, but Sally went a little overboard. She went through husbands like
water through a sieve and had the backbone to take on anything."
Read the article
here.
Find links to other articles from her
Somewhere in the West
series
here
at the
Leakey Star.
Linda Kirkpatrick recites Berta Harte Nance's classic poem,
"Cattle," on
The BAR-D Roundup: Volume Six and appears on
other volumes of
The BAR-D Roundup.
Find more about Linda Kirkpatrick in our feature
here.
[photo by Jeri L. Dobrowski; see
her gallery of western performers and others
here.]
Posted 8/24
Indiana poet
Dale Page's poem, " Brush
Poppers,"
is
featured as the
Poem of the
Week
for the week of August 17, 2011 at the newly-designed
Cowboys & Indians
magazine web site.
This is Dale Page's fourth poem to be accepted as the magazine's
Poem of the Week.
Read
the poem
here.
Find links to all of the magazine's poems
here.
Cowboys & Indians has a weekly poem posting. Find information about
submissions here.
Read about Dale Page and find some of his
poetry here at the BAR-D.
Posted 8/22
Music historian, author, and performer
Mark L. Gardner comments on the recent
Cowboys & Aliens
film
in a review, "Expert
Opinion: 'Cowboys & Aliens' vs. Wild West Expert," in Box Office
Magazine. He addresses the movie's authenticity and also comments:
I have a buddy who's actually in the movie: Rex
Rideout—he plays Charlie the fiddler who keeps getting told to play
more cheerfully. He always looks like that with the big beard. And that's his
birth name—it's really Rex Rideout. We play music together a lot, all of the
historic music of the American West, everything from "Little Joe the
Wrangler" to "Git Along Little Dogies." I just wish they needed a banjo
player.
Read the review
here.
Mark Gardner is the
author of the recent book,
To Hell on a Fast Horse: Billy the Kid, Pat
Garrett, and the Epic Chase to Justice in the Old West. Among his many
other publications, he is also the editor of
Jack Thorp's Songs of the Cowboys
(Museum of New Mexico Press, 2005), a book that is accompanied by a CD recording
with performances by Mark L. Gardner
and
Rex Rideout.
Mark L. Gardner's performance of "What's Become of the Punchers" from that CD is
included on the first volume of
The BAR-D Roundup.
Gardner
and
Rideout's
popular "Songs of the Cowboys"
concert and program on "Jack" Thorp (N. Howard Thorp, 1867-1940) has
been recognized as an
Official New Mexico Centennial Project.
Find more
at
Mark L. Gardner's web site,
www.songofthewest.com.
[image from a photo by Steve Butler]
Posted 8/16
From the
Western
Folklife Center:
Our latest
Deep
West Radio
documentary aired August 5, on NPR’s
All Things Considered.
Prison Songs: The Angola Blues
is about music created and sung by inmates at the Louisiana State
Penitentiary at Angola. In 1931 the famous folklorist John A. Lomax visited
Angola in his quest to find African American music that reached back to the
days of slavery. At Angola and at other prisons in the South, he discovered
that many traditions of music were preserved behind prison walls where
inmates sang for entertainment and to accompany their labor in the fields.
Producers
Hal Cannon
and
Taki Telonidis,
along with collaborator Steve Zeitlin of City Lore wanted to discover what
role music plays for prisoners today at Angola, and prepared this story as
part of a project funded by the National Endowment of the Arts.
Listen
to the program
here on the Western Folklife Center site. Find Hal Cannon's commentary
here at the NPR site, where you can also listen to the program.
The Art of the Rural site has a posting about the program
here.
Hal Cannon is the Founding Director of the Western Folklife Center and the
National Cowboy Poetry Gathering. He and Media Producer Taki Telonidis
oversee the many Western Fokllife Center
audio and video programs.
[photo of Hal Cannon and Taki Telonidis courtesy of Hal Cannon, 2002]
Posted 8/11
Horseman, songwriter, singer, and musician
Mike Beck
is featured in an article, "Cowboy Musician is the Read Deal," by John Francis
in the Summer/Fall 2011 edition of
Carmel Magazine.
View the article
here.
The article tells about Mike's early inspirations: his work with horses, under
Bill Dorrance; the Monterey Pop Festival; and music legends Ramblin' Jack
Elliott and Ian Tyson.
In 2009,
Western Horseman
included two of Mike Beck's songs among the "13 Best Cowboy Songs of All Time"
("Don't Tell Me" and "In Old California").
Mike Beck and his band, The Bohemian Saints, will appear at the 2012
National Cowboy Poetry Gathering. Find more about Mike and the band at
www.MikeBeck.com and more about Mike in
our feature here.
Posted 8/10
Rex Rideout,
musician and student of 19th century music, songs and trades of the American
West, plays a barroom fiddler in the new
Cowboys & Aliens
film, which has its theatrical release on July 29, 2011.
Cowboys & Aliens
is described, "1873. Arizona Territory. A stranger with no memory of his past
stumbles into
the hard desert town of Absolution.The only hint to his history is a mysterious
shackle that encircles one wrist. What he discovers is that the people of
Absolution don't welcome strangers, and nobody makes a move on its
streets unless ordered to do so by the iron-fisted Colonel Dolarhyde..." The
film stars Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde, Sam Rockwell, Adam
Beach, Paul Dano, and Noah Ringer. Find more information at the
official website:
www.cowboysandaliensmovie.com.
Rex Rideout and Mark L.
Gardner's
popular "Songs of the Cowboys"
concert and program on "Jack" Thorp (N. Howard Thorp, 1867-1940) has
been recognized as an
Official New Mexico Centennial Project.
Rex Rideout performs "When Bob Got Throwed"
on The BAR-D Roundup: Volume 5.
Visit his website at
www.timetravelmusic.com.
[photo by Mark Gardner]
Posted 7/28
|
Poets, Musicians and Others with News in Print, on the Web, and Beyond
