 Don
Edwards continues to build a recorded legacy
enriching our vision of the American West. In
its tales of the day-to-day lives and emotions
of those who lived it, his ballads paint a
sweeping landscape of both the mind and heart,
keeping alive the sights, sounds and feelings of
this most American contribution to culture and
art.The
quality of this cowboy balladeer's music stems
from the fact that he is so much more than a
singer. Bobby Weaver of the National Cowboy
Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City, summed Edwards's
importance as "...the best purveyor of cowboy
music in America today."
A historian,
author and musicologist, someone well-versed in
cowboy lore and musical traditions, Don brings a
rare complement of knowledge of and love for his
craft. Mostly though, there is the soul of a
poet; a man who has never succumbed to any
temptation to present a glamorized or
romanticized version of the West. Edwards deals
with the bad weather and petty motivation, with
sadness, nostalgia and longing as parts of the
landscape like any other.
The son of a
vaudeville magician, Don was exposed as a child
to a vast cross-section of music from classical
to jazz, and blues to western-swing. Many of the
those influences enter his own music as they did
some of the music of the West. Edwards was
drawn to the cowboy life by the books of Will
James and B Westerns of the silver screen,
particularly those featuring "'sure-' nuff
cowboys" like Tom Mix and Ken Maynard. He
taught himself guitar starting at age ten, and
chased the rodeo and worked ranches in Texas and
New Mexico during his teens. In 1961, he got a
job as an actor/.singer/stuntman at Six Flags
Over Texas and he was to stick with music from
then on. He made his first record in 1964.
Don became part
owner of the White Elephant Saloon in the Fort
Worth stockyards and would play acoustic sets on
Wednesdays and Thursdays, and with a band on
weekends. "Esquire" magazine has named the
White Elephant one of America's 100 best bars.
Edwards also began playing throughout out
Oklahoma and Texas, and with the inception of
the Cowboy poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada
achieved widespread recognition. He has now
entertained throughout the United States,
Canada, Great Britain, Ireland, New Zealand,
Europe and the Far East.
Don Edwards has
two albums, Guitars & Saddle Songs and
Songs of the Cowboy, included in the
Folklore Archives of the Library of Congress.
These anthologies have been re-recorded and
expanded as the 32-song double CD/cassette
called Saddle Songs. This project took
first place the Best Folk/Traditional Album of
the year at the annual AFIM INDIE Awards
Ceremony held in May of 1998. The collection is
on the Western Jubilee Recording Company's
label. He has twice received the National
Cowboy Hall of Fame's "Wrangler Award" for
Outstanding Traditional Western Music, one for
his recording Chant of the Wanderer in
1992 and for the second time in 1996 for West
of Yesterday. Other projects include a book
release by the Gibbs Smith Publishing Co.
entitled Classic Cowboy Songs; performing
on Nanci Griffith's Grammy-winning video and
recording. Other Voices, Other Rooms;
co-presenter along with Waddie Mitchell on the
network-televised Academy of Country Music
Awards and featured performer for the
prestigious "Golden Boot Awards".
Don has
presented educational services at Yale, Rice,
Texas Christian and many other Universities.
His recordings under the Warner Western label,
Goin' Back to Texas, Songs of the Trail
and The Bard & the Balladeer have spawned
a new audience for his craft. His Warner
recording, West of Yesterday (1996) was
produced by Jim Rooney and features Don's
long-time Ft. Worth-based band, the 7-Bar
Cowboys. The summer of 1997 found Don in
Livingston, Montana portraying the role of
"Smokey" in Robert Redford's film The Horse
Whisperer. In addition to this
acting/singing role, Don is featured on the MCA
soundtrack. In May of 1998, to coincide with
The Horse Whisper theater release, Warner
Western compiled and released "The Best of Don
Edwards" while Western Jubilee offered Don's
newest recording "My Hero Gene Autry" recorded
live at Mr. Autry's 90th birthday.
The richness of
Don's voice coupled with his magical stage
presentation makes Don Edwards America's number
one western singer and concert attraction. The
accolades though, have been simply added bonuses
for Edwards, who sings what he does out of love
and respect for the genre. Don's career
continues to blossom, and luckily for all who
care about it, he has because of his sincere
approach, added much to the literature and music
of the West, passing on to the rest of us a
legacy rich for his efforts.
http://www.donedwardsmusic.com/shop/man_and_his_music.htm#man_his_music |
 “I
can’t ever remember ‘finding’ cowboy poetry, “ Waddie Mitchell
says of the entertaining and enduring art of storytelling. “It
was always there. The cowboys sure never called it poetry. I
know I wouldn’t have liked it if they would have. Seems like
an oxymoron, don’t it!?”From his
earliest days on the remote Nevada ranches where his father
worked, Waddie was immersed in the cowboy way of entertaining,
the art of spinnin’ tales in rhyme and meter that came to be
called cowboy poetry, a Western tradition that is as rich as the
lifestyle that gave birth to it. Within his stories, told in a
voice that is timeless and familiar, are the common bonds we all
share, moments both grand and commonplace, the humorous and the
tragic, the life and death struggles and triumphs that we each
recognize. And yet, Waddie presents his material with personal
insights and the lessons learned during his life spent as a
buckaroo.
From his earliest days on the remote Nevada
ranches where his father worked, Waddie was immersed in the
cowboy way of entertaining, the art of spinnin’ tales in rhyme
and meter that came to be called cowboy poetry, a Western
tradition that is as rich as the lifestyle that gave birth to
it. Within his stories, told in a voice that is timeless and
familiar, are the common bonds we all share, moments both grand
and commonplace, the humorous and the tragic, the life and death
struggles and triumphs that we each recognize. And yet, Waddie
presents his material with personal insights and the lessons
learned during his life spent as a buckaroo.
“When my imagination first got let out of the
gate, it was from an old-time cowboy, with a story set to
rhyme,” he says in his second recording from Warner Western,
Lone Driftin’ Rider. By the age of 10, he was reciting poetry
himself; at 16, he quit school to follow his heart and went to
making his living as a cowboy.
“I’d never done anything else, never made
money without horses or cows until I started telling cowboy
poetry.” The father of five children, (“They’re all girls,
except four of them!”) his goal is to one day buy his own
ranch. “I’m hoping,” Waddie says, “for the opportunity to go
broke on a ranch by myself instead of helping somebody else do
it!”
There came a time though, which he relates in
his poem Where To Go, when he had to choose between being a
full-time cowboy (he managed a 36,000 acre ranch in Lee-Jiggs,
Nevada) and the art form that he loved so much. In 1984, he
helped organize the internationally recognized Elko Cowboy
Poetry Gathering and gave his first public performance.
Although Waddie didn’t think anyone would be interested, (he
thought it would be a pretty good party for the weekend) the
first Cowboy Poetry Gathering was set for a cold, snowy weekend
in January. This was one of the only times Waddie and his
fellow cowboys were free from ranch duties. More than 2,000
people showed up, and Waddie was off and running.
Since then he has performed internationally
for audiences from Los Angeles to New York, Zurich to Melbourne,
and all points in between. With television appearances ranging
from The Tonight Show (his neighbor took the first phoned
invitation, drove 40 miles to deliver the message to the
remotely based Waddie and returned with a “No Thanks” because it
was calving time and he’d never heard of Johnny Carson),
Larry King Live, Good Morning America, TNN, The History Channel,
PBS, and BBC, Waddie has also been featured in
People, Life, New York Times, USA Today, Fortune,
National Geographic, Wall Street Journal and the Official
Program for Super Bowl XXX, along with numerous other
appearances, performances, articles and books. In 1994, Waddie
founded the Working Ranch Cowboy Association with a mission of
creating scholarships and crisis funds for working cowboys and
their families. The well-recognized and highly respected WRCA
now sanctions 22 regional rodeos throughout the West with the
sold-out world championships held each November in Amarillo, TX.
His series of recordings for Warner Bros.
Records and more recently for the Western Jubilee Recording
Company have received critical acclaim. Waddie’s Western
Jubilee Recordings are: Waddie Mitchell Live featuring Don
Edwards as well as world class instrumentalists Rich O’Brien and
Norman Blake and recorded live at the Western Jubilee Warehouse
in Colorado Springs. A glowing review of Waddie Mitchell Live
appeared in People, which concludes with “Bottom Line:
Horse sense and humor from America’s Best Known Cowboy Poet.”
This was followed by Prairie Portrait which features Waddie
Mitchell, Don Edwards and the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra. In
April, 2001, the Oklahoma City based Cowboy Hall of Fame /
National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum presented Waddie with
the coveted Wrangler Award for his participation in the
Outstanding Traditional Western Album of the year.
The 2002 Cultural Olympiad commissioned Waddie
Mitchell to write a commemorative poem. His offering, That No
Quit Attitude, gained importance as the Salt Lake 2002 Olympic
Winter Games grew nearer. No Quit appeared in the Welcome To
Salt Lake film, in schools and libraries, on Delta Airlines, the
Olympic web site, at the Olympic Arts Festival, on Western
Jubilee’s CD single and many publications, including the
Official Souvenir Program of the 2002 Winter Games. Since, That
No Quit Attitude, also titles Waddie’s newest Western Jubilee
release that contains fourteen new original poems and thirteen
original ‘Waddie-isms’. 2003 found him on stage at Carnegie
Hall and producing Elko – A Cowboy’s Gathering. This Western
Jubilee double disc features 40 Artists and salutes the
gathering he co-founded 20 years prior. Along with a busy 2005
touring schedule, he was featured on TV, radio, print and
personal appearances as the Review Journal newspaper’s
official spokesperson for the 100 Year Celebration of Las Vegas,
NV.
The Reno Gazette-Journal published a
list from a panel of writers, historians and other notables, who
selected the Top 20 Artists, Authors and Entertainers To
Influence Nevada in the 20th Century. Sure enough
pards, there was Waddie! Waddie Mitchell has received the title
of Adjunct Professor from the University of Wyoming. This honor
was based on “Real world credentials which Waddie possesses in
wealth.”
http://www.somagency.com/waddiemitchell/index.html |
