FEATURING: Annie Mackenzie, Waddie Mitchell, Terry Nash, Gail Steiger, Forrest VanTuyl.

Attributing their words to those they admire, and contributing their wit to those who inspire, this group pays tribute to the poets and people who have influenced them. Poets Annie Mackenzie, Waddie Mitchell, and Terry Nash join musical poets Gail Steiger and Forrest VanTuyl to mix the cornerstones of their repertoire with an homage to the people who breathed life into them, from Gail I. Gardner to Drum Hadley. Whether retelling a classic poem or reminiscing about a classic person, this bunch brings you an evening of classics shaped by the voices of their families, their communities, and their muses.

From the 39th National Cowboy Poetry Gathering.

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PLAYLIST
"Pride Goeth" - Waddie Mitchell
"A Cowboy's Prayer" - Annie Mackenzie (poem by Badger Clarke)
"Life Advice" - Gail Steiger (words by Waddie Mitchell, music by Gail Steiger)
"Johnny Clare" - Terry Nash (poem by Larry McWhorter)
"The Turning" - Forrest VanTuyl (poem by Drum Hadley)
"The Wolf" - Forrest VanTuyl (poem by Drum Hadley)
"Shorty" - Waddie Mitchell
"To Be a Top Hand" - Annie Mackenzie (poem by Georgie Sicking)
"Old Edgar Martin" - Terry Nash (poem by Carlos Ashley)
"In These Flying Seconds" - Forrest VanTuyl (poem by Drum Hadley)
"The Compassionate Teachings of Billy Brown" - Forrest Van Tuyl (poem by Drum Hadley)
"Belle of the Ball" - Waddie Mitchell
"Unsung Heroes" - Annie Mackenzie (poem by Yvonne Hollenbeck)
"Ridin' Fence" - Gail Steiger (poem by Bruce Kiskaddon)
"Sunburned Men on Tired Horses" - Terry Nash (poem by Darrell Arnold)
"Riding Utah Home, the Seven Saddles for the Colt Utah and Billy Brown" - Forrest VanTuyl (poem by Drum Hadley)
"Commutin'"- Waddie Mitchell
"High Chin Bob" - Annie Mackenzie (poem by Badger Clark)
"Old Cowboys Don't Die" - Gail Steiger (words by Gail I. Gardner, to the tune of "Git Along Little Dogies")
"Ridin'" - Terry Nash (Poem by Badger Clark)
"A Lotta Class, or, Mexico Steer Buyer Billy Brown in Love in the Springtime, on a Street Corner, in Front of the Gadsden Hotel" - Forrest VanTuyl (poem by Drum Hadley)
"Evening Chat" - Waddie Mitchell
"Top Hand" - Annie Mackenzie (poem by Georgie Sicking)

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Annie Mackenzie
Jordan Valley, OR
While known as the family rambler, Annie Mackenzie has her roots planted firmly at the fourth-generation family ranch in southeast Oregon. Thirty miles north of the small town of Jordan Valley, she spends her days helping her family tend cattle, start horses, and manage the unruly pack of border collies that inhabit the place. Annie has held a variety of jobs over the years but found herself continually returning home to help out, and now she's back where she feels she belongs—out on the range with her family. Her love of the land and way of life has inspired many a poem and song about the animals and people that live in her beloved High Desert.

Waddie Mitchell
Jiggs, NV
Waddie Mitchell was immersed in the cowboy way of entertaining as a boy on the Nevada ranches where his father worked. The art of spinning tales in rhyme and meter about a rich lifestyle of pushing cows and living off the land came to be called cowboy poetry. Waddie recites the older classics as well as his own works, eloquently expressing moments grand and common, humorous and tragic. In 1985, Waddie helped organize Elko’s first Cowboy Poetry Gathering. Waddie has been inducted into the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame and has received the Nevada Heritage Award from the Nevada Arts Council. In 2017, he released Cohorts & Collaborators, an album featuring nine top western artists who have co-written songs with Waddie. He keeps busy writing, publishing, and recording.

Terry Nash
Loma, CO
Western Colorado beef producer Terry Nash knows how to draw you into his poetry. His tales are of the West not seen from the highway or rodeo bleachers. Terry lives the life he writes about and he’s a master at showing it to you. He and his wife, Kathy, raise horses, hay, and beef, and spend as much time on the mountain horseback as possible. Terry performs in gatherings from Alpine to Elko, Abilene to Prescott, and all points between. He does private performances and banquet speaking and loves to emcee any event. Along with writing and reciting his original cowboy poems, Terry brings classics to the stage and has recently co-written a couple songs. Note: Don’t ask him to sing!

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 and A Matter of Believin’.

Forrest VanTuyl
Goldendale, WA
Forrest VanTuyl is a songwriter and poet from Goldendale, Washington. Much of his work is based on years spent packing mules and cowboying in the steep, remote, alpine and canyon country of Wallowa County, Oregon. Early on, he paid for his songwriting and wandering addiction with all sorts of jobs, from tugboat deckhand to sheep dairyman, lawn mower to potato harvester operator, but when he got on a horse in the Wallowa Mountains, he never left. No Depression said of his music, “These are the real cowboy blues–long stretches of road, loneliness, inscrutable feelings and people.” Forrest has toured the United States and Europe extensively, performed at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, written music for the US Forest Service, and been published in the New York Times.

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Filmed in front of a live audience with help from the E. L. Wiegand Foundation at the Western Folklife Center’s G Three Bar Theater on Feb. 2, 2024.

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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