Forrest VanTuyl takes a hard-scrabble tour of Nevada's small towns. Forrest VanTuyl performs "Winnemucca" during the "Free Life & Fresh Air" show at the 39th National Cowboy Poetry Gathering.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

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.

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 in Elko, NV, on Feb. 3, 2024.

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