FEATURING: Wylie Gustafson, Sam Platts, Henry Real Bird, M.L. Smoker.

Let Big Sky songs, poems, stories, and ballads carry you away to the wide-open spaces of the West. Montana Poets Laureate Henry Real Bird and M.L. Smoker offer powerful poetry rooted in their Native perspectives. Wylie Gustafson and Sam Platts round out the program with music that captures the spirit of the American West.

From the 41st National Cowboy Poetry Gathering.

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PLAYLIST

Wylie Gustafson
"I Get High"
"Raven on the Wind"
"Cowpoke" (words + music by Stan Jones)

M.L. Smoker
"Birthright for Carl Lithander"
"Meditations at Tabexa Wakpa"
"Heart Butte, Montana"
"Crosscurrent for James Welch"

Henry Real Bird
stories and songs
"The Ballad of Yellow Leggins"

Sam Platts
"Milk Cow Blues" (words + music by Kokomo Arnold)
"Buster"
"Drivin' Nails in My Coffin" (words + music by Jerry Irby)

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ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Wylie Gustafson
Conrad, MT
Born into a fourth-generation ranching family in northern Montana, Wylie Gustafson is an American original. A singer, songwriter, rancher, horseman, and world-famous Yahoo! Yodeler, he has led Wylie & the Wild West for over three decades. With over 50 performances on the Grand Ole Opry, plus appearances on Conan O’Brien and A Prairie Home Companion, Wylie has spread his authentic brand of American music to a broad range of audiences. Raising a family, working with horses, doctoring cattle, changing wheel lines, baling hay, and repairing broken-down equipment keeps him grounded.

Sam Platts
Seguin, TX
Texas-based singer, songwriter, and bandleader Sam Platts grew up in southern Wyoming. His father Scott was a luthier and skilled guitar player, and he inspired Sam to learn to play. In his early 20s, he began touring, later playing lead guitar for Wylie and the Wild West, which took him all over the world. Sam draws inspiration from his roots in the West, traditional country, and Texas dancehalls. His wife, Lilly, has played fiddle in the band for the last decade. Sam’s latest full-length album is titled, Right Where I Belong. Sam and Lilly are joined on stage by Kevin Cooley (drums), Ethan Shaw (steel guitar), and Martin Sargent (upright bass).

Henry Real Bird
Garryowen, MT
Henry Real Bird, a member of the Apsáalooke (Crow) Nation, grew up ranching on the battlegrounds of the Little Bighorn. He still lives on the Crow Reservation. A former rodeo cowboy and bronc rider, now a renowned poet, horses picture large in Henry's creative work. He touches and cares for horses every day, raising both bucking horses with his daughter and gentler riding horses. A writing mentor for youth, a Crow speaker, a Montana poet laureate, and a self-proclaimed “old-timer,” Henry nurtures horses and grandkids, helping them break each other, while preserving language and thoughts that have been here a long time.

M.L. Smoker
Wolf Point, MT
M.L. Smoker is Nakoda, Dakota, and Lakota, a citizen of the Fort Peck Tribes, and rooted in her family’s homeplace Tabexa Wakpa (Frog Creek). M.L.’s poems speak to themes of personal struggle and identity, drawing from Native American culture, language, and history. Her words often seek to understand the kinship between people and places and to bear witness to the world around us. She is a former Montana Poet Laureate, an educator and education advocate, co-author of the children's graphic novel Thunderous, and author of Another Attempt at Rescue and a collection of poems published in 2025.

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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 in Elko, NV, on Jan. 29, 2026.

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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