Barney Kessel

Golden Hill Ramblers

Charlie Russell

Charles Marion Russell (1864-1926) was many things: consummate Westerner, historian, advocate of the Northern Plains Indians, cowboy, outdoorsman, writer, philosopher, environmentalist, conservationist, and not least, artist. Born in St. Louis, Russell dreamed of being a cowboy, living the exciting life of men on the range. Russell came to the Judith Basin of Montana in 1880 a few days after his 16th birthday. Working briefly tending sheep, he realized that his dreams of the West were not to be fulfilled in this manner. He soon teamed up with a local hunter, Jake Hoover, with whom he spent two years sharing a cabin on the South Fork of the Judith River. Shortly thereafter, Russell became a night wrangler for the Judith Basin Roundup.

This was exactly what Russell the child had dreamed of, and what Russell the adult wanted and needed. It gave him time to observe the cowboys at work during the day, and to sketch and document all the activities and excitement of the cow camp. He continued to work as a cowboy and wrangler for 11 years before retiring to become a full-time artist.

Russell greatly admired the American Indians, especially those of the Northern Plains. He spent the summer of 1888 visiting often with the Blood Indians in Alberta, Canada. This experience affected him for the rest of his life, and can be seen in the many detailed works he created of Plains Indians.

Lee Miller

Martin 000-18

1927, 12 fret slot head neck, body refinished by Gruhn Guitars, original finish on neck, neckset and new bridge by Gruhn Guitars, a great looking and superb sounding guitar

www.gruhn.com

Corner Creek

back label reads:

In the tradition of the great wine importers, we at Corner Creek search for the elusive few great barrels of prime aged American whiskey, and offer it to you in this limited bottling of Corner Creek Reserve Bourbon Whiskey.

An exceptional marriage of the finest whear, rye and corn. Aged for 8 years in American oak and smoothed to perfection with Kentucky Limestone water.

Corner Creek is only lightly filtered so that it retains all of it’s complex flavor and is bottled in as natural and pure a state as possible. Few other whiskies can claim this.

This 88 proof whiskey was produced under the strict supervision of our master distiller at Corner Creek, Bardstown, KY

Pete LaFarge

Peter La Farge (born Oliver Albee La Farge, April 30, 1931 - October 27, 1965) was a New York-based folksinger and songwriter of the 1950s and 1960s. He is known best for his affiliations with Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash.

According to anecdotal sources, he was descended from the nearly extinct Narragansett Indian tribe and was raised on a ranch in Fountain, CO by his mother Wanden LaFarge Kane. He was the biological son of the Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Oliver La Farge. Oliver and Peter shared a love and respect for the traditions and history of Native Americans. As a teenager he competed as a rodeo rider and worked as a singer. As a young musician he worked with Big Bill Broonzy, Josh White, and Cisco Houston; Houston became La Farge’s mentor, in songwriting and in life. La Farge served in the United States Navy during the Korean War. After the war, he worked again as a rodeo cowboy, where an accident nearly cost him a leg.

Following his recuperation, he studied acting at the Goodman Theater School of Drama in Chicago. He then relocated to New York City, where he became increasingly interested in music. As a singer-songwriter, he became well-known as a folk music singer in Greenwich Village, along with Bob Dylan, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Dave Van Ronk, and veteran Pete Seeger. He was contracted briefly with Columbia Records. His performances in Greenwich Village convinced Folkways Records’ initiator Moses Asch to contract La Farge to his music company. La Farge’s five Folkways albums (1962-1965) were dedicated to Native American themes as well as blues, cowboy and love songs. His most famous song, “The Ballad of Ira Hayes,” is the story of a Pima Indian who became a hero as one of five United States Marines who raised the U.S. flag on Iwo Jima, but who then experienced prejudice and became an alcoholic after his return to civilian life. This song was covered successfully by Johnny Cash in his 1964 album Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian, and reached number 3 on theBillboard country music chart.

Ferrotypes

 

Gene Autry

Tom Mix

Thomas Edwin Mix (born Thomas Hezikiah Mix; January 6, 1880 – October 12, 1940) was an American film actor and the star of many early Western movies. He made a reported 336 films between 1910 and 1935, all but nine of which were silent features. He was Hollywood’s first Western megastar and is noted as having helped define the genre for all cowboy actors who followed.

Mix was born into a relatively poor logging family in Mix Run, Pennsylvania, about 40 miles (60 km) north of State College, Pennsylvania. He spent his childhood growing up in nearby Dubois, Pennsylvania learning to ride horses and working on the local farm owned by John Dubois, a lumber businessman. He had dreams of being in the circus and was rumored to have been caught by his parents practicing knife throwing tricks against a wall using his sister as an assistant.

In April 1898, during the Spanish-American War, he enlisted in the Army under the name Thomas E. (Edwin) Mix. His unit never went overseas, and Mix later failed to return for duty after an extended furlough when he married Grace I. Allin on July 18, 1902. Mix was listed as AWOL on November 4, 1902 but was never court martialed nor apparently even discharged. His marriage to Allin was annulled after one year. In 1905 Mix married Kitty Jewel Perinne, but this marriage also ended within a year. In 1907 he married Olive Stokes.

In 1905 Mix rode in Theodore Roosevelt’s inaugural parade with a group of 50 horsemen led by Seth Bullock which included several former Rough Riders (years later, Hollywood publicity handouts would muddle this event to misleadingly imply Mix had been a Rough Rider himself.) After working a variety of odd jobs in the Oklahoma Territory, Mix found employment at the Miller Brothers 101 Ranch, reportedly the largest ranching business in the United States and covering 101,000 acres (409 km²), hence its name. He stood out as a skilled horseman and expert shot, winning the 1909 national Riding and Rodeo Championship.