Featuring: Mike Beck with Flapjack, Juni Fisher, Dick Gibford, Gail Steiger.

There's just something about horses. And the rhyming, singing caballeros and caballeras that they inspire. Mike Beck wields skill with horses off-stage and songs on-stage, fronting with his new folk rock band Flapjack. Singer-songwriter Juni Fisher is a lot of things, but she's a horsewoman first and foremost. Resourceful cowhand and poet Dick Gibford knows how to filck a tale or two. And, Gail Steiger has guitars, horses, ranch poems in his bones. There's just something about Flapjack. And Juni. And Dick. And Gail. And an afternoon given to a horse and a tale.

From the 38th National Cowboy Poetry Gathering.

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PLAYLIST
"Lone Cowboy" - Dick Gibford
"Horse Like You" - Juni Fisher
"Willie" - Gail Steiger
"That Little Blue Roan" - Dick Gibford (poem by Bruce Kiskaddon)
"Patrick" - Juni Fisher (words + music by Mike Beck)
"There's Nothin' Like" - Gail Steiger
"Man From Snowy River" - Dick Gibford (poem by Banjo Patterson)
"Fillanic" - Juni Fisher
"Whistle" - Gail Steiger
"By the Painted Gate" - Dick Gibford
"Listen" - Juni Fisher
"Color of the Hide" - Gail Steiger
"Nevada is King" - Mike Beck with Flapjack
"Don't Hurt My Heart" - Mike Beck with Flapjack
"Summer Wages" - Mike Beck with Flapjack (words + music by Ian Tyson)

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ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Mike Beck
Manhattan, MT
Mike Beck is a professional musician and working cowboy whose songs reflect his experiences in California, Oregon, Montana, and Nevada. Born and raised in Monterey County, California, he studied with legendary horseman Bill Dorrance and now travels the United States and Europe conducting horsemanship clinics and making music. Mike’s mellow sound combines real cowboy experience with a unique blend of western, rock, and Americana styles. Mike is joined by Flapjack bandmembers Ron Craighead, John Sanders, and Ric Steinke, who create a sound reminiscent of Sonoma County, 1971.

Juni Fisher
Strathmore, CA
Don’t call Juni Fisher a cowgirl. What she is, is a horseman. Training horses paid the bills. She played music with her sisters as a child, formed a bluegrass band as a teen, then fronted a dance orchestra and sang Big Band standards while captaining her winning college horse show team. As an assistant cow horse trainer, then a cutting horse trainer’s assistant near Santa Barbara, she played in country bands on weekends. In 1990, she moved to Tennessee to foxhunt professionally, ride point-to-point races, gallop steeplechase horses, and hone her songwriting chops among the Nashville crowd. Nowadays, Fisher is a multi-award-winning singer, songwriter, and entertainer who finds peace and connection training and showing her cutting horse, Reydio Airplay.

Dick Gibford
New Cuyama, CA
Dick Gibford was raised on a small cow outfit on the central coast of California and, at age 13, began starting two-year-old colts for his dad. Upon graduation from high school in 1968, Dick left for Tuscarora, Nevada, where he rode for Willis Packer as a “rep” on the 25 Wagon. He has been influenced in every facet of his life by that first experience as a “sagebrush buckaroo.” These days, he cowboys out of an isolated cow camp for the Walking R Ranch in Maricopa, California. He also makes slick fork saddles, braids rawhide, paints, and starts an occasional colt. In 2013, Dick released Trail Dust, a limited-edition, hand-bound book of poetry and real-life stories about his packing experiences.

Gail Steiger
Prescott, AZ
Gail Steiger is a songwriter, filmmaker, and cowboy, and since 1995, foreman of the remote Spider Ranch in Yavapai County, Arizona. He has been playing guitar and writing songs for over 30 years and often recites works by his grandparents, Delia Gist Gardner and Gail I. Gardner. Gail also collaborates with his brother, Lew, on various film and media projects, including the acclaimed documentary Ranch Album. He has released two CDs: The Romance of Western Life (1999) and A Matter of Believin’ (2015).

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Filmed in front of a live audience at the Elko Convention Center’s Laurena Moren Theater on Feb. 2, 2023.

Made possible by the multitude of staff, artists, volunteers, and community members working behind the scenes to make this show happen.

Brought to you by the Western Folklife Center, using story and cultural expression to connect the American West to the world.
www.westernfolklife.org

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