Friday, October 18, 2024

Howdy everyone!

Our member ticket sales are in full swing. Thanks to all of you who have already renewed your membership and purchased your tickets! We're happy to see you excited about coming to Alpine in February, and about selecting your reserved seats.

There are still lots of great seats left. Have you thought about asking a friend to come with you this year? If your friend isn't familiar with cowboy music and poetry, remember you can send a free film link to anyone you like. Here's how to do it. Just sign in to your account, and see the section titled "Give a Film Rental." Click "copy my personal link to clipboard" and paste that link into an email message. Then email the link to one or to several friends. You are our best ambassadors for the Gathering, and for keeping cowboy poetry alive.

Our August newsletter featured seven performers who are new to the Gathering this year. If you missed it, you can read it online. We load all our newsletters to the website for later reading.

Now, here are the first profiles of returning performers from Texas. These are some of the great folks who put the Lone Star in the Gathering.

Fourth generation Texas Panhandle rancher Dale Burson is an award-winning singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, playing guitar, fiddle, mandolin, and banjo. He was awarded the Wrangler Award from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum for "A Life More Than This" as Outstanding Original Western Composition, and has released several albums. He runs cow-calf and yearling operations near Channing, Texas. To hear Dale talking about how he learned to play banjo and opened for Chet Atkins, Roy Clark, and Merle Haggard in high school, listen to his interview on Cowboy Crossroads.

Craig Carter was born and raised on a ranch in Southwest Texas. He is the epitome of the classic country-western singer, songwriter, actor, entertainer, and horseman. He has written songs and created melodies that ring with authenticity and match the beauty of his home in the Big Bend Country of Texas. His band, The Spur of the Moment, has played from the West Coast to the East Coast, and everywhere in between, including overseas. Craig is the recipient of the 2015 Texas Cowboy Poetry Heritage Award. Craig, his wife, and their daughter ranch south of Marathon, Texas.

Zack Casey has been touring as a professional musician since he was 13 years old. He has been working with Craig Carter for 28 years as part of The Spur of the Moment Band and is known as an amazing entertainer.

Rodeo Kate was raised in the foothills of the mountains of Utah and Idaho, where she grew up immersed in the cowboy culture. She has played fiddle for over 46 years and loves to play all types of music. She has worked with KG & The Ranger, The Daughters of the Purple Sage, and The Texas Trailhands. Kate has been nominated Instrumentalist of the Year for the Western Music Association many times and won in 2005 (the first female to be awarded that honor).

Allan Chapman first joined the WMA in 1992. He was the bass player, principal male vocalist, and record producer for The Texas Trailhands for over 15 years. He has been nominated three times for WMA Song Writer of the Year and four times for Song of the Year. Allan was born and raised on a working cow/calf ranching operation, the Blue Goose Ranch in Knox County, Texas. He graduated from Texas Christian University with an MA in English Literature. After teaching at OSU, he worked in Nashville for Tree International Publishing, writing songs for the likes of Diana Ross and the Oak Ridge Boys.

Together, Kate and Allan play Western roots music at most of the major Western poetry and music gatherings across the United States. Albums they've created together include Thistles & Thorns, Travelin' West, and Under Blue Skies. Allan's album West of the 98th Meridian is also still available. They live in rural Wise County, Texas, where they continue a ranching tradition that goes back over 180 years.

Pipp Gillette lives and works on the family ranch near Lovelady, Texas, where his grandfather started raising cattle and cotton in 1912. He also operates the Camp Street Cafe, a music venue in Crockett, Texas. Pipp and his late brother Guy received the Western Heritage Award for Outstanding Traditional Western Album of 2011 and the 2013 Western Heritage Award for Outstanding Original Western Composition for their performance of the Waddie Mitchell song "Trade Off." Drawing on a lifelong interest in Western history and music, Pipp plays traditional cowboy music on guitar, banjo, harmonica and bones. Pipp's first solo CD, Singing Songs by Waddie and Pipp received the Western Heritage Award for Outstanding Traditional Western Album of 2016. You can hear him on Cowboy Crossroads as well (part 1 and part 2).

Lloyd Wright is known for his skills on the mountain dulcimer, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, guitar, and bass. He won the National Mountain Dulcimer Contest championship in Winfield, Kansas in 2000 at the Walnut Valley Festival a few months after his high school graduation, and took second place recently in 2022. He has led banjo workshops at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada, and mandolin workshops at the Blue Ridge Old Time Music Week. His album with Pipp Gillette, called Pipp Gillette with Lloyd Wright, was released fall 2018. He has performed regularly with Pipp since then. Lloyd and his wife, April, put on The Old Mill Music Festival in Kennard, Texas, where they host a wide array of artists every November, and are active in the Palestine Old Time Music and Dulcimer Festival each March (held in Palestine, Texas).

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Hearing from these folks has been great in the past, and it will be interesting to hear them interact with our new performers. That's one of things that's unique about the Gathering format -- performers aren't just putting on a show, they are responding to each other, both in the paid shows and in the 30+ free sessions.

Hope October is treating you well. See you in Alpine in February!

All the best,
Kay and Gene Nowell
Co-Chairs
Lone Star Cowboy Poetry Gathering

P.S. To learn more about membership, click here. Then you can book your tickets once you're a member!

P.P.S. Need to study the schedule? Here's the full 2025 schedule.

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