Wylie & The Wild West play the kind of Cowboy music that comes from a real place in America that often gets overlooked by the corporate music machine. Wylie Gustafson and his band perform Sat., April 29, 7:30 p.m. at the State Theatre.
Gustafson is a native Montanan singer/songwriter who lives the songs he writes. With three decades of writing, recording and performing under his belt, he has matured into a dynamic talent, and has become one of the few authentic voices of the West. His music has been baptized with a hearty dose of trail dust and horse hair.
For more than 25 years, Wylie & The Wild West have performed their refreshing blend of cowboy, swing, folk and yodeling music worldwide. They are hugely popular on the festival and theatre circuit. Stateside, they have performed at such prestigious venues as the National Folk Festival, MerleFest, the Bumbershoot Festival, The Stagecoach Festival, A Prairie Home Companion, The Conan O’Brien Show and the Grand Ole Opry (with more than 50 guest appearances). Worldwide, their genre-friendly performances have taken them to China, Russia, Australia, Europe, South America, and Japan.
As a seasoned singer/songwriter with over a dozen nationally distributed albums under his belt, Gustafson has etched his presence onto the American music scene and is the originator of the High Plains Yodeling style which evokes the loneliness of his northern Montana home.
“We are a good-time cowboy band that hates to be boring! The band members, guitarist Sam Platts, drummer Rick Bryceson, and bassist J. Kane, are among the best players in their field. The fans appreciate their approachability and loyalty to the genre,” Gustafson says.