Codes of the American Cowboy
(From Patrick Wayne ' s Eulogy to his father, John Wayne.)
1. A cowboy does not judge color of skin, but by character within.
2. A cowboy always respects a lady and tips his hat to all that pass him by
3. A cowboy stands strong for what the American frontier is all about:
Freedom, Truth, Justice and the American way.
4. A cowboy will not be wronged, nor wrongs another. The
justice he deems out depends on that.
5. A cowboy is loyal and hard working and maintains a high
ethic.
6. A cowboy loves his country, and will fight for its principles
and sovereignty.
7. A cowboy respects his animals and the earth they roam upon.
8. A cowboy is faithful to what is entrusted to him.
9. A cowboy is bound by duty, honor, and gratitude for what God
has given him, which includes his friends and family.
10. A cowboy maintains a hidden code in his heart, for all to see.
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News from Carolyn Martin:
The Academy of Western Artists just released the 2010 Academy of Western Artists Final Five Nominees; Carolyn is nominated for Swing Female Vocalist of the Year, Western Swing Album of the year for "Cookin' With Carolyn" and Song of the Year for "That's What I Call Cookin'.
Congratulation Carolyn!
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This is not news, but it was too good to not post. Enjoy!
Will Rogers was quite the cowboy,
with all the wisdom of simple, honest folk.
His words still ring with common sense today...
Simple but Brilliant and full of truths! Enjoy!
Will Rogers, who died in a 1935 plane crash with
his best friend, Wylie Post, was probably the
greatest political sage this country ever has known.
Enjoy the following:
1. Never slap a man who's chewing tobacco.
2. Never kick a cow chip on a hot day.
3. There are two theories to arguing with a
woman ... Neither works.
4. Never miss a good chance to shut up.
5. Always drink upstream from the herd.
6. If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
7. The quickest way to double your money is
to fold it and put it back into your pocket.
8. There are three kinds of men: The ones that
learn by reading. The few who learn by
observation. The rest of them have to pee
on the electric fence and find out for themselves.
9. Good judgment comes from experience,
and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.
10. If you're riding' ahead of the herd, take a look back
every now and then to make sure it's still there.
11. Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier'n
puttin' it back.
12. After eating an entire bull, a mountain lion felt so
good he started roaring . He kept it up until a hunter
came along and shot him. The moral:
When you're full of bull, keep your mouth shut.
Taken from "Will Rogers, a biography" by Ben Yagoda
Happy New Year to you all! I hope 2010 is very good for you. Stay happy, healthy and busy bringing Western Music and Cowboy Poetry to the rest of the world! It is such a pleasure to play your CDs on The Real West from the Old West! Keep 'm comin'!
Congratulations to the following award winners at the Western Music Association Showcase and Awards show in Albuquerque, NM in November, 2009!
2009 WMA Awards
Entertainer of the Year | Dave Stamey |
Male Performer of the Year | Bill Barwick |
Female Performer of the Year | Juni Fisher |
Songwriter of the Year | Marvin O’Dell |
Song of the Year | Jesus & Roy - Marvin O'Dell |
Traditional Duo/Group | Sons Of The San Joaquin |
Traditional Album of the Year | Gone For Colorado - Juni Fisher |
Western Swing Duo/Group | Asleep At The Wheel |
Western Swing Album of the Year | Hang-N-Rattle - Wylie & The Wild West |
Instrumentalist of the Year | Curly Musgrave |
Crescendo Award | Horse Crazy |
Radio Station of the Year | Ralph's Back Porch |
Radio DJ of the Year | Barbara Richhart |
Male Poet of the Year | Waddie Mitchell |
Female Poet of the Year | Doris Daley |
Best Collaboration | The Mourning Dove - Les Buffham & Judy Coder |
Cowboy Poetry CD of the Year | Beneath A Western Sky - Doris Daley |
Cowboy Poetry Book of the Year | Trail Mix - Diane Tribitt |
President’s Award | Silver Screen Cowboy Project |
Lincoln County Cowboy Symposium
By: Totsie Slover
If you missed the Lincoln County Cowboy Symposium this year…you missed a great time! The weather in Ruidoso, New Mexico was cool and beautiful and the entire town was involved! The kickoff was Thursday evening at 7:00 when Tommy Allsup and The Texas Playboys took the stage in a “sell out” house to get everyone in the mood! The next up were the beautiful, young, talented Quebe sisters with The Quebe Sisters Band and they rocked the house. Then the star of the evening, Mel Tillis took the stage and truly entertained for two hours! If you think Mel Tillis has lost anything over the years, you need to see him again. The voice is great, the jokes are funny and he holds an audience in the palm of his hand.
Friday morning started off with entertainers on three stages at 9 o’clock! R. J. Vandygriff and J. W. Beeson (is Lipscomb, TX so small the guys don’t have full names??), Pete Laumbach and the Sidekicks started the day off early. The audiences were fairly sparse at the beginning but by the time the 10 o’clock show started, the place was hummin’. There were seasoned, efficient stage managers at all four locations to keep everything running as planned and emcee the program. Joe Baker was at Billy’s Sports Bar, Larry and Kelly Scott at the Ray Reed Stage, Pete Laumbach at the Larry McWhorter Stage and Carolyn Wilson at the Three Rivers Stage. The stages were also festively decorated by Jean Stoddard, Sunny Hirshfeld, Gail Scott, Bruce & Lynn Morgan.
During the day, audiences were treated to performances by The Flying J Wranglers, Call of the West, Heart of Texas, Red Steagall, Jimmy Burson, Bobby Flores, Jim Chancellor & Brien Berline, Floyd Domino and The All Stars (which included headliners like Billy Mata, Ginny Mac, Amber Digby, Justin Trevino…) The Quebe Sisters Band, Chuck Cusimano, Tommy Allsup and Fiddlers and more performances from R. J. Vandygriff, J. W. Beeson, Pete Laumbach, Rollie Stevens and The Sidekicks. In addition to these stages, in Billy’s Sports Bar within the Casino from 10 AM til 1 AM there was constant music from Brady Bowen, Bobby Flores, Heart of Texas and The Sidekicks with vocals from Amber Digby, Justin Trevino, Liz Talley, Darrell McCall, Tony Booth, Curtis Potter and more!
Friday evening ended with a concert with Floyd Domino and The All Stars opening to another packed house! Next up was Larry Gatlin with The Texas Playboys! Everyone was talking about it the next morning! I heard no complaints! It was a great evening of entertainment!
The three stages opened Saturday morning at 9:00 AM so you had the opportunity to catch the performers that you missed on Friday or listen again to the ones you enjoyed most. The performances at Billy’s Sports Bar started at 10 AM.
The entertainment culminated Sunday morning with many artists participating in Cowboy Church, singing and playing beautiful Gospel Music.
All weekend the entire place was packed! In between the stages were dozens of venders. They were selling, books, artwork, clothing, western sculptures, hats, food and drink, jewelry…it was all there! Outside you could find the World’s Richest Chuckwagon Cook-off, Craig Cameron’s horse training seminar, and events for the family and kids! You could start the weekend Thursday evening and not leave until Sunday noon and still miss something. I’m sure of it!
The thing that impressed me most was the range in age of the entertainers. Billy Doshier celebrated his 80th birthday at the Symposium on October 10th. Billy has played for many years for folks like Patsy Cline and Leon McAuliffe and is now playing guitar and fiddle for Brady Bowen, the AWA Western Swing group of the Year 2009. 17 years old fiddler, Jess Meador, was there with him, on the stage as part of the same band, with well deserved respect from the other band members. The Quebe Sisters and Ginny Mac are very young, beautiful, energetic and enthusiastic! The whole picture of the old, the young, the relatively new entertainers and the ones who have been doing it for decades and all in between, is so refreshing. All of these folks have the utmost respect for each other and will pitch in and do whatever needs to be done to get everyone time with the mike. It reinforces my feeling that Western Music is here to stay!!!
Make your plans now to attend the Lincoln County Cowboy Symposium 2010! www.CowboySymposium.org
Pictures on "People I have met" page.
Totsie Slover
Backforty Bunkhouse Newsletter Editor
The following interview appeared my Western Way, Fall 2009 and was posted on www.cowboypoetry.com. Thank you Rick and Margo.
Western Air
- by Rick Huff
Fall 2009
Just based on our interviews for this column, obviously there are ways and ways to get yourself into your own Western Music radio show. Totsie Slover was handed one of the toughest ones. She basically inherited her husband's show after he passed away.
"I didn't dream I'd have a radio show," Totsie recalls. "Howard reintroduced me to Western Music when he got started with his in September of 2006." As many of you know the late broadcaster and Deming, New Mexico civic activist Howard Staub had only just joined the Western Music Association's Board of Directors in 2007 when his health began to fail. But Totsie Slover came by her love of the music much earlier.
"The music was something that I grew up with," says Totsie, who was named for her two grandmothers Zelma and Lotta (youngest of her siblings and known as "Tots"). Her real name is Zelma Tots. Totsie warns that it could have been "Alotta Zelma" but we digress.
"I grew up at the once a month Western dances in Hatchita and Animas down in the New Mexico bootheel. You'd throw coats on the floor behind the chairs and the kids would lie down when they couldn't go any longer! Everybody would just stay there...til it was over!" Not only was she immersed in the music, she also lived the genuine working ranch life for her first 16 years. Although she remained connected to ranching for many more years, she eventually drifted away from the music...til Howard!
"The first Western event we went to was in Alpine, Texas...January or February of '07," she says relishing it, "and I either laughed or cried through the whole thing! It brought back so many memories I just instantly fell in love with it all over again!" Totsie went with Howard to Western events far and wide and got to know the people. "I was Howard's official photographer, I think! And CD carrier..." But it was when Howard got sick that the spirit in the people that causes the music became most apparent.
"It was the people from Western Music who kept in touch, several calls and emails every day...and they continued to do it after he passed away. It was amazing. I felt like they were my extended family." And Totsie wanted to not only continue her husband's quest, but to give something back as well. "After my brain started working again, I knew the most important thing to Howard at that time was to keep Western Music alive. I thought 'I can do the radio show' and even talked to the station manager about it and she said 'if you want to do the show...it's yours!" That's when Totsie heard some show promos with Howard's voice, thought she could never match the animation of his delivery, and told the station manager "I can't do it." Summer came, people began asking her if she was coming to last year's WMA Festival in Albuquerque, and Ruidoso host and promoter Joe Baker called her to say the WMA was doing a tribute to those who had passed away during the year and she might want to be there for it.
"On the way up I had a bunch of Western Music CDs in my vehicle and was listening to them to get into the mood. By the time I finished the three hour drive to Albuquerque I thought 'I wanta do this radio show!!! I called the station manager from the hotel and said 'I wanta do the show, Candy' and she said 'whenever you want to start!'" Some additional time elapsed as Totsie had to see to medical needs of her mother, but the epiphany came. She didn't have to do the show like Howard did it!!! She smiles, saying "that gave me the courage, and I'm lovin' it!" Now it's her show that airs each Wednesday morning from 10 to noon on Deming's KOTS 1230 AM, with an emphasis on the music, not the talk. In May she went to the Cowtown Society of Western Swing to accept a posthumous award for Howard as DJ Of The Year, discovered her newest love Western Swing, blends it with the Cowboy Music, a dab of Honky Tonk and Classic Country and about every sixth track is Cowboy Poetry. It streams on the internet at www.demingradio.com, and her playlists can be found at www.realwestoldwest.com and www.realwestoldwest.spaces.live.com.
Oh, yes...Totsie also now edits the BackfortyBunkhouse online newsletter for its founder Joe Baker, helping to get the news out about the music, the deejays and their playlists to more than 700 subscribers internationally! "They had just won Publication Of The Year at that same Cowtown Society event that honored Howard," Totsie exclaims. "The editor Howard Higgins felt he wanted time away from it and it looked like it was going away. Being the mouthy person I am I said 'Joe, it has to keep going. I can do that!'" And Joe Baker couldn't be happier she said it. "She's really adapted to it quickly," he tells us with obvious pleasure. "By the third issue, it was hers!"
Send CDs for airplay to Totsie Slover, 220 South Gold Avenue, Deming, New Mexico 88030. Subscribe to the BackfortyBunkhouse Newsletter at www.backfortybunkhouse.com.
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14th Annual Academy of Western Artists
"Will Rogers Awards"
September 22, 2009 7:30 PM
Granville Theater, Garland, Texas
* * * * * * * * * * *
Music Awards
WESTERN MUSIC
Western Music-Male....Daron Little
Western Music-Female....Devon Dawson
Western Music-Duo/Group....Flying J Wranglers
Western Music-Song....Bob Davidson "Western Sky"
Western Music-Album....Liz Masterson "Roads To Colorado"
Western Music-Yodeler....Carin Mari Lechner
WESTERN SWING
Western Swing-Male....John England
Western Swing-Female....Kelli Grant
Western Swing-Duo/Group....Brady Bowen & Swing Country
Western Swing-Song....Mary Allen-Keating "Let's Make Music In The Country"
Western Swing-Album/CD....Billy Mata "This Is Tommy Duncan"
Western Swing-Instrumentalist....Buddy Hrabel
PURE COUNTRY
Pure Country-Male....Tony Booth
Pure Country-Female....Leighan Cortes
Pure Country-Duo/Group....Landon Dodd & The Dance Hall Drifters
Pure Country- Song....Kimberly Murray/Jake Hooker "Living And Learning"
Pure Country-Album/CD....Mickey Clark "Winding Highways"
Art and Gear Awards
Artist-Wayne Justus, Pagosa Springs, CO
Braider-Wayne Bevan, Glenwood, AB, Canada
Spurmaker-Todd Hansen, Molt, MT
Engraver-Jerry Falkner, Ft. Davis, TX
Cartoonist-Bob Rohan, Houston, TX
Garnet Books Chuckwagon Award-Cliff Teinert, Albany, TX
Saddlemaker-Cary Schwarz, Salmon, ID
Don King Lifetime Saddlemaker Award-Billy Wootres, Albuquerque, NM
Will Rogers Lifetime Achievement.....Wayne Mitchell
Poetry Awards 2009
Male-Mike Puhallo, Kamloops, BC ,Canada
Book/CD-Slim McNaught, New Underwood, SD "Reminiscin"
Cowgirl-JoLynne Kirkwood, Siguard, UT
Skinny Rowland Humor Award-Andy Nelson, Pinedale, WY
Buck Ramsey Book Award-Ray Owens, Artesia, NM "Tracks That Won't Blow Out"
Media Awards
Disc Jockey-Dallas Wayne XM-Sirrus Radio
Record Label-Bear Family Records, Germany
Record Producer-BGM Studios, San Antonio, TX
Radio Station-KBAL, San Saba, TX
August 22, 2009
This is just an update to let you know what is going on. Wednesday Aug. 19, Eddy Harrison joined me on the show. We had a good time and the radio audiance probably learned a little about Eddy's background that they didn't know. It was a nice visit. Thank you Eddy for coming over. We listened to "Oh Antonia," "Ballad of Julio Robledo," "Seven Spanish Angels" and "Roscoe Dinwitty Drove the Chuckwagon."
The bad part of the day was that immediately after I signed off, a truck snagged a powerline and all of Deming lost electricity. Therefore...the recording of the show was lost. The show from the 12th. will remain on demingradio.com until after the show the 26th. It is just one of those things in life.
May 4, 2009
From a new comers point of view.
Attending the Cowtown Society of Western Music Swingfest was an exhilarating and emotional experience for me. The main reason I attended was to accept an award on behalf of my husband, Howard G. Staub. He was inducted into the CSWM Hall of Fame as Disc Jockey of the Year (Posthumous). It was indeed an honor for me to do this and I am grateful to the Society for honoring Howard in this way. Watching the remainder of the inductions of the “Heros” into the Hall of Fame and the heartfelt tribute to one of the original Texas Playboys legend, Bobby Boatright, made me realize how special it truly was. I was also very proud of the fact that four of the Heros honored were from New Mexico….Joe Baker, Etienne (A-10) Echeverry, Lynn Carter-Morgan and Howard Staub. Howard was indeed standing in “tall cotton”!
After the induction ceremony I then put on my hat as disc jockey and started touting my radio show, “The Real West from the Old West”. The rest of the day turned out to be fun, educational, enlightening and I met a bunch of wonderful people in the process. The western swing musicians and singers are indeed a talented, fun loving, friendly group and accepted me as part of the group. I feel I have a large addition to my Western Music family. It was a thrill to meet the artists whose music I have been playing and as much a thrill to meet new artists who were, until then, unknown to me.
We were entertained by Larry Lange and the Lone Star Troubadours, Country Night Live, Bob Bone and the All Star Band and Brady Bowen! To quote Howard “it was sort of like trying to drink from a fire hose”. So much talent in such a short time!
What a weekend!
Lone Star Troubadours Country Night Live
Bob Bone & the All Star Bank Johnny Boatright
Joe Baker presenting to Howard Higgins Etienne Etcheverry accepting
Terry Elliot presenting to Joe Baker