by Jen Zollner, President MHCP
To me (and at Medicine Hat Cowboy Poetry), Cowboy Poetry and Western Music is about stories. It started with cowboys telling their stories around the campfire. We all have a story, and I think Cowboy Poetry is (you) telling it in song or poem (usually in rhyme). Yes, it’s often about horses, cows, the landscape and/or your encounter with nature, but it can also be about something else you experienced or witnessed or can relate to. The preamble before the song (or poem) gives your personal connection to it.
Our request is that the songs or poems you choose to perform relate to you, that in some way they tell something about your experience. It can easily be reciting someone else’s poem or singing the song written by another (always acknowledging the author). The performances that portray the most feeling are the self-written ones.
What is Western Music? (Is it different from Country and Western music?)
Western music it simply a poem with a melody. When Country songs are about the landscape, country living and farm/ranch themes, etc. then they are also Western Music (but only if you can relate to the theme). It’s not about the song alone but your feeling of connection to it.
That’s the purpose of a short introduction, you telling the audience how the song relates to you and the reason why you chose to sing it (or what prompted you to write it). .
Western Music and Country Songs:
A few examples of cross-over songs are: Auctioneers Song, Four Strong Winds, Country Roads,
God Must be a Cowboy at Heart, Cowboy Logic, The Cowboy Rides Away, Mama Don’t Let Your Babies Grow up, Dusty Old Farmer, etc.
Western Music artists: Ian Tyson, Michael Martin Murphy, Corb Lund, Red Seagal, Chris LeDoux
Oldies: Wilf Carter, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Chuckwagon Gang, Carter Family, etc.
Guidelines in Choosing Material (Does it have to be about cowboys?)
Cowboy Poetry topics are ones that are ‘close to home’ and what the teller feels a definite connection to. It helps to have had some acquaintance with ranch or rural life, but topics can vary as much as interests are different. If you are passionate about something; those are the vibes that connect the performer with the audience. That’s what story is about, what makes Cowboy Poetry what it is: sharing your story, and the audience being able to relate to what they know and have felt or done. It’s not reading the poem but rather telling it like you’re talking to someone (your audience).
Note: Remember, our event is family friendly and performer dress code is western. Also tailor your time on stage to the amount of time alotted to you, watch for the MC’s cues.
Cowboy Poets:
There are professionals, and we must be careful not to compare them to us amateurs.
Google is one way to view Cowboy Poets who have perfected the art of writing and are experts in the presentation. Every year the National Cowboy Gathering at Elko posts sampling of their performers like Baxter Black, Waddie Mitchell, Wallace McCrae, Andy Hedges, etc. I love the videos of Thatch Elmer, especially when he was reciting as a young ‘un.
Old Classics: Back in the Saddle, Bury me Not on the Lone Prairie, Cattle Call, Cool Water, Don’t Fence me In,
Git Along Little Dogies, Ghost Riders in the Sky, Happy Trails, Home on the Range, I Ride Old Paint, I Want to be a Cowboy’s Sweetheart, Little Joe the Wrangler, Night Rider’s Lament, Strawberry Roan, Streets of Laredo, Tumbling Tumbleweeds, When the Work’s All Done This Fall,
What Is Cowboy Poetry?
What is Cowboy Poetry? What is all the fuss?
How in the world could it ever have anything to do with us?
Well, it all started with stories ‘round campfires at end of day
And though it can take many forms, it’s still the story that matters today.
Sure, it often has a country theme like horses or cows
But modern cowboy poetry has gone way beyond that now:
What’s going on inside you? What all did you learn?
Tell us about summits reached and bridges you have burned.
Paint us a picture of a newborn calf.
Explain how that dog outsmarted you by half.
Describe the fragrance of the garden after rain.
When that cow trampled you, help us feel your pain.
Your observances of nature make interesting fodder:
Like that tornado that touched down at the wedding of your daughter,
And the stories of your ancestors who settled this place:
How they faced so many hardships with courage and with grace.
If you wish, you can add music or rhythm and rhyme
But no matter how you share it, remember every time:
It’s all about the passion; the stuff that makes singing in your heart.
You can dress it up in hat and boots, but with a story you must start.
By Shelley Goldbeck 2023
Based on an article by Jen Zollner