Cowboy Songs & Range Ballads

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Meet the Performers

For 2008 Cowboy Songs & Yellowstone Traditions took the stage - weaving together cowboy songs, poetry, scholarship, gear making, and Yellowstone for one exciting weekend - April 10-13, 2008. Learn more about some of the 2008 performers.

2008 Cowboy Songs & Range Ballads Performers

Open Range

Western Music Association award winners Open Range - Ric Steinke and Linda Hausler - weave a musical blend of tight vocal harmonies and outstanding acoustic instrumentation. They perform music from the old western standards, to swing tunes of the 1940s, to today's western music - including their own original compositions. Ric and Linda's musical inspiration is from the wide open spaces of Montana where they live in the Shields River Valley near Livingston.

Skip Gorman and Connie Dover

Through his music, Skip Gorman brings back to life the workaday world of the American cowboy. It is simple yet poignant music that was performed around campfires by cowboys and westward settlers in the late nineteenth century. His personal experience as a working cowboy in Wyoming lends authenticity to his playing of the guitar, fiddle, and mandolin, as well his singing. Connie Dover is an accomplished interpreter of the traditional music of Great Britain and Ireland. An accomplished arranger, Connie offers the modern listener connections with the past through her crystal clear voice.

Curly Jim Musgrave and Belinda Gail

Belinda Gail has earned the Western Music Association's Female Performer of the Year an unprecedented four consecutive years, 1999 through 2002, and again in 2005. She garnered the Academy of Western Artists Will Rogers Award for Female Performer of the Year in 1999 and 2004. Curly Jim Musgrave was the Western Music Association’s Male Performer of the Year for 2002 and 2003. He also garnered the WMA’s Songwriter of the Year award in 2002, 2003, and 2004. He also received the Academy of Western Artists Will Rogers Award as Male Performer of the Year and Entertainer of the Year in 2003. Together, Gail and Musgrave infuse electricity, energy, enthusiasm, and versatility into every performance. Most recently they named the Duo/Group of the Year for 2005 and 2006 from the Western Music Association.

Ray Doyle

Singer, songwriter and member of the popular band Wylie and the Wild West, Ray Doyle was born in Dublin, Ireland, emigrated to Canada, and then California. Doyle's band "Reach for the Sky" appeared on the seminal Los Angeles country compilation album, "A Town South of Bakersfield." His songs have been heard on albums in the U.S., Europe and Australia. In 2007, his song "The Jewel" won the Western Folklife Center's Yellowstone Song Contest.Doyle's new record, “The Emigrant Trail,” blends his Irish roots and western influences, while exploring a newcomer’s journey to America.

Michael Hurwitz

Michael Hurwitz's Wyoming ranching roots go back four generations. After picking up the guitar at age thirteen, Hurwtiz learned the old cowboy songs from his father and the southern country blues from his Mississippi-born mother. For over thirty years he has crossed the country, writing and playing music, working as a cowboy and more, and also managed to release several critically accclaimed albums of country blues and cowboy music.

Joyce Woodson

Joyce Woodson is a nationally touring, award-winning singer/songwriter. The winner of the 22nd Tucson Folk Festival Songwriting Contest, Woodson was a finalist in the 2007 Yellowstone and Teton Song Contest, sponsored by the Western Folklife Center in Elko, Nevada. Her newest album, "If I Hadn't See The West," is infused with sadness - songs that both heal and redeem the lonesome characters who walk, ride, and wail through Woodson's musical landscapes. She lives and works in her hometown, San Juan Capistrano, California.

Stan Howe

Stan Howe was born on a ranch near Ismay, Montana - the son and grandson of old–time fiddlers. His great–grandfather came from England in 1874 to cowboy near Weeping Water, Nebraska. Although quite familiar with traditional songs, he writes about today’s cowboys. Howe is the winner of the 1993 American Songwriter Magazine’s Amateur Songwriter of the Year Award, and the 1992 Western Music Association’s Songwriting Contest for “Riding for the Family Brand.” He is also an auctioneer, musician, and a maker of violins. The host of “Bunkhouse Honkytonk" on the University of Montana radio station, it is the only cowboy music radio show in Montana, and was named as one of the top ten western and traditional music radio programs in the U.S. In 2000, Howe was named one of the top ten disc jockeys in America by the Academy of Western Artists. He was a finalist in the 2007 Yellowstone and Teton Song Contest, sponsored by the Western Folklife Center in Elko, Nevada.