Featured Performers
Invited Performers
Arizona Wildflowers
Casa Grande, Arizona
This sibling band performs Western Swing, Bluegrass and Gospel music. They have recently begun writing their own original music about life growing up on their ranch in southern Arizona, where they raise Quarter horses and Corriente cattle. In 2024, the group was nominated for the International Western Music Association’s Crescendo Award. Ranelle and Isley both became national fiddle champions in their respective age divisions and performed at the Grand Ole Opry. You’ll love the sweet sibling harmonies and fancy fiddle licks of this talented young group of musicians.
Floyd Beard
Kim, Colorado
Floyd lives near Kim in the canyons, out where you swear you may not be at the end of the earth but you can see it from there. He and his wife Valerie run Corriente cattle with their children. Floyd was the International Western Music Association’s Male Poet of the Year in both 2016 and 2017.
Teresa Burleson
Weatherford, Texas
Teresa is an award-winning poet whose writing is inspired by her personal experiences and the Western way of life. She has an appreciation for agricultural industries and the people who make their lives in it. With a clear, soft Texas drawl and a voice that Waddie Mitchell once declared was “like silk,” her poetry is beautiful, soulful and aimed straight for the Western heart or the funny bone. Teresa and her husband Bobby enjoy the rural life with their Quarter horses, sheep and border collies.
Jon Chandler
Commerce City, Colorado
A seventh-generation Coloradan and well-known fixture in the Colorado country and Americana music scenes, Jon’s music and stories reflect his heritage. His CDs, novels, non-fiction works and myriad short stories are collected by Western lifestyle aficionados. He was named True West magazine’s Best Western Musician and is a three-time winner of the prestigious Spur Award from the Western Writers of America. “Linwood,” his moody examination of Doc Holiday’s life, was named Best Song, as well as his tribute to Wyoming’s Hole in the Wall country, “Morning Star Moon.” His novel The Spanish Peaks received the WWA’s Medicine Pipe Bearer Award/Spur Award and Wyoming Wind, A Novel of Tom Horn, was a finalist for the Colorado Book Award. Ghost Smoke is his latest recording, released in October 2024, while Homage, a highly praised collection of cover songs that have influenced his writing and singing, was released in 2021. He is at work on a new recording, I’m Still Here, and his long-awaited novel, He Was No Hero, is awaiting publication. Jon has performed throughout the country and appeared everywhere from the legendary Ryman Auditorium in Nashville to the Congressional Earth Day Reception in Washington, D.C. He was most recently honored with the Branding Iron Award by the Friends of the William S. Hart Museum in Newhall, California, and received the International Western Music Association’s Award of Excellence as 2023’s Male Performer of the Year.
Mike Dunn
San Tan Valley, Arizona
Mike is proud of his Arizona heritage going back to the 1800s. His personal experiences center along the east side of the Whetstone Mountains on his granddad’s ranch where the Rail “A” brand is still in the family today. It was there he learned what cowboy life was all about and his original poetry reflects these experiences, stories handed down and the realities of cowboy life. His book and CD are titled Somewhere Between Earth and Heaven. He has received the Gail I. Gardner Award as an Arizona Cowboy and Poet and a nomination as Cowboy Poet of the Year by the Academy of Western Artists. His CD earned him a nomination for Cowboy Poet of the Year by the International Western Music Association.
Slim Farnsworth
Eckert, Colorado
Slim was born and raised in the mountains of western Colorado. He spent his childhood working the family ranch with his granddad and building roads with his dad. Slim understands the cowboy in all his “gritty glory” – from the lowest saddle tramp to the ranch owner – and his vivid descriptions and colorful antics bring the West to life. Slim and his wife Virginia have a daughter, six dogs, two horses and “a partridge in a pear tree.” He works as a paramedic and entertains with stories that range from rural directions to CPR on mangy old heifers. He’ll make you laugh ’til your innards hurt.
Jack George
Quemado, New Mexico
This 19 year old was named after his grandfather who was a horse trainer and cowboy. Jack works on many ranches in the Quemado area and has been performing cowboy poetry for eight years. He received the Buck Ramsey Award from the Lone Star Cowboy Poetry Gathering along with the IWMA Liz Masterson Crescendo Award. Jack loves the cowboy lifestyle and wants to help preserve the Western way of life through cowboy poetry and stories. He recited his first cowboy poem in kindergarten and hasn’t looked back.
Randy Huston
Rociada, New Mexico
Randy writes and sings about the modern-day lifestyle of the cowboy. He is a fourth-generation livestock producer and partners with his father on their ranch in New Mexico. He started breaking horses for wages at the age of 14 and spent many years in rodeo arenas through high school and college. He has written some of the most widely recognized songs of contemporary cowboy music. Randy’s albums have won awards from the Academy of Western Artists. In 2015, his album Cowboys and Girls won the award for “Outstanding Traditional Western Album” from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.
Jim Jones
Rio Rancho, New Mexico
Jim has won three Western Heritage Wrangler Awards, the 2019 International Western Music Association Song of the Year, and Western Writers of America 2013, 2017 and 2021 Spur Awards for Best Western Song. He was the Western Music Association’s 2014 Male Performer of the Year and is part of the trio The Cowboy Way, which has received the IWMA’s Group of the Year Award six times. His Western novels include the Jared Delaney series, the Tommy Stallings series and the Bolo the Brave children’s series.
Steve Jones, “Yampa Valley Steve”
Steamboat Springs, Colorado
The Irish tenor is in his 27th year as a performer, 17 of which were spent with the Yampa Valley Boys. Steve’s third CD album, The Lump of Coal (Hope’s Diamond), is based on a true story that happened on the Gathering train ride a few years ago. It charted in the top 20 of Western CDs in all four quarters of 2022 per the Western Way reporting. He has two other CD recordings, That Irish Kid(2012) and Picasso (2017). Steve brings enthusiasm and energy to the stage with an audience-friendly show, including sing-alongs. He has appeared at the Arizona Folklore Preserve, Colorado, Cochise, Durango, Grand Encampment and Nebraska (Valentine) cowboy music gatherings, the Steamboat Pro Rodeo series, county fairs and many other public and private events.
Jo Lynne Kirkwood
Sigurd, Utah
Jo Lynne is a writer and storyteller who has won numerous awards. Along with her CDs and books, her poems have been published in anthologies and magazines, and are often included in online and radio broadcasts. Jo Lynne hosted at the Heber Valley Cowboy Poetry and Western Music Festival for almost 20 years, and has co-produced two other significant Utah gatherings as well as a variety of concerts, shows and events. Audiences find themselves laughing and crying to tales of cowboy and country life, trials, tribulations and comedy when she takes the stage. Jo Lynne and her husband raise fruit, calves and alfalfa hay.
Susie Knight
Conifer, Colorado
This horsewoman and auctioneer/ringman has been honored with numerous awards for her performances as a cowgirl poet and Western singer/songwriter. In 2023, she was inducted into the Colorado Country Music Hall of Fame. She is the producer and host of a podcast, “The Western Way Hour,” which can be found at https://www.mixcloud.com/susieknight and featuring many of the leading performers of Western music and cowboy poetry. On stage and in the saddle for over 60 years, Susie is Colorado’s own “All-Around Cowgirl Entertainer.”
Jarle Kvale
Dunseith, North Dakota
Jarle turns his experiences with horses, rodeo and rural living into humorous verse. He’s been writing cowboy poetry for over 25 years, sharing his stories with friends and family members over trail ride campfires, at various community events and at cowboy poetry gatherings. He is host and producer of “Back at the Ranch,” a weekly half-hour radio show promoting the traditions of the American Cowboy through a mix of Western music and cowboy poetry. The program is available at http://keyaranch.podomatic.com. Jarle and his wife live north of Dunseith, not far from the Canadian border.
Outlaw Bohdi Linde
Rapid City, South Dakota
Bohdi is a 16-year-old multi-instrument singer-songwriter with roots in the farming and logging community in southeastern South Dakota. His song-writing reflects the way he has grown up. He has been labeled a prodigy among his peers for his guitar, banjo, bass mandolin and other instrument skill set. He’s happiest when he is on stage and providing and sharing his talents with the new generation of Jazz and Western music fans. Bohdi has played over 250 live shows and is looking forward to touring the country soon.
Claudia Nygaard
Nashville, Tennessee
Claudia is a mesmerizing storyteller and cinematic lyricist who writes songs that are heartfelt and humorous. With her powerful voice, she is a master at putting a tear in your eye with a song that breaks your heart, and then with a quick wit and an outlandish sense of humor, she’ll replace it with tears of laughter. It is no wonder she was chosen an ”Emerging Artist” by the 2022 Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, and has a performance history that includes over 250 fairs and festivals in 48 of the United States and 10 foreign countries. Building on the craft she learned while a staff songwriter on Nashville’s Music Row, Claudia has won numerous awards.
Caitlyn Taussig
Kremmling, Colorado
Caitlyn is a fourth-generation rancher who runs cow-calf pairs with her mother on their high-country cattle ranch. Her interests include travel, cattle care, learning to be a better roper and studying up on bridle horses in the Californio tradition. Caitlyn has been singing since childhood and has performed at ranch brandings, cowboy gatherings, private events, guest ranches, bars and ranch ropings. She draws inspiration for her songwriting from Colorado’s rugged and beautiful landscapes, her experiences summering cattle at 9,000 feet, cowboying in rough high country and dark timber, working on the family ranch, feeding cattle in the harsh winter months and listening to her late father’s wild stories. An article about the Taussig family appeared in the February, 2016, issue of Western Horseman, and in January, 2019, Caitlyn and her mother Vicki were featured in a front page NY Times Sunday business section story, “Female Ranchers are Reclaiming the American West.” Caitlyn’s debut album, The Things We Gave Up, was released in January, 2015.
Timberline Cowboys
Durango, Colorado
Both multi-instrument aficionado Geary Parsons and award-winning singer-songwriter J. Michael Mullins have, in one way or another, been in the music industry for the majority of their lives. Most of what they do is original music, dealing with the ranching and farming life prevalent in and around where they reside in the Four Corners area. Their music is basic, honest and forthright. Two guitars and vocals, they are just at home around a campfire as they are in an arena or concert hall. Through lyrical ballads and up-tempo comedy songs, they give the audience a first-hand look at what life is like for the still proud, but dwindling, number of ranchers, farmers, cowboys and cowgirls in the great Southwest. Together, they have produced five albums in five years. Mike’s original song, “Drivin’ This Herd to the Rail,” took home the award for 2024 IWMA Working Cowboy Song of the Year.
Dick Warwick
Oakesdale, Washington
Dick has written poetry since the 1960s and became aware of cowboy poetry in 1990 when he journeyed to Elko because he heard some Australian poets were performing there. He was a fan of bush poetry and had actually written verse in the American cowboy poetry genre without even knowing there was such a thing. He worked a harvest in western Australia in the early 1980s and fell in love with Australian culture. He has made many trips there since then, including performing at their National Folk Festival for many years. In 1982, Dick started a band featuring Australian folk music. The group played for a couple of decades and produced a CD titled Sound the Chorus Once Again. Dick has spent his life in the rural West and has a deep love for Western landscapes, ethos and environments. He said he also enjoys writing absurd poems, “because cowboy poetry audiences seem to enjoy laughing.”
Cora Rose Wood
Ranchester, Wyoming
Cora Rose is a Western singer/songwriter whose music is deeply rooted in ranch life in southern Wyoming and Montana. Raised on cowboy poetry, horses and wide-open spaces, her songwriting blends traditional Western influences with raw, relatable storytelling. A former Western Music Association Youth Yodeler of the Year (2008, 2010), Cora Rose brings a lifelong connection to Western music into her work today. She holds an Associate of Fine Arts in Music from Sheridan College, along with certificates in Music Technology and Arts Administration. Her songs pay tribute to the landscapes, traditions and way of life that shaped her.