Last weekend, American Legion Post 65 sponsored the Cowboy Poets of Idaho and International Western Music Association, who brought their talents to the Iron Door Playhouse.  According to MC Brian Arnold, the Cowboy Poets and IWMC are dedicated to celebrating and attempting to preserve the tradition of western music, poetry, and storytelling into the twenty-first century.  The event constitutes something of a revival in the area of the Cowboy Poetry form.  “We haven’t been up to Malad for a while, but it was certainly good to be back,” Arnold said.  

The benefit event gave members of the organizations involved the chance to practice the art that they love, as well as raise money to repair the Playhouse roof.  “This roof has needed work for a long time,” Brenda Daniels of the Iron Door Theatre Guild said.  “This will definitely help.”

The Poets and Musicians (many of the performers fit into both categories) gave a series of four total performances across Friday and Saturday.  The afternoon shows on both days were free to the public; and gave members of the Cowboy Poets of Idaho and International Western Music Association the chance to try out different material, rehearse, and entertain the public in an open sign up format.  The evening’s scheduled shows allowed the performers to present their most polished material to the audience, as well as raise funds at the box office.

Many of the performers have been practicing their art for decades, while others are fairly new to the scene.  Robin Arnold, for instance, joked about starting out with the Beatles, and then gradually finding his way into western music decades ago, and played selections from a number of the albums he has released over the years.  Venessa Carpenter, on the other hand, is only eighteen but also presented her original compositions.

Some of the performers focused on picking, some on humorous poetry, others on traditional and classic western songs.  A mixture of Malad locals with a love of the Cowboy Poetry and Traditional Western music genres enjoyed themselves throughout the various performances, as well as the performers themselves, who cheered on their fellows when off stage.

The shows also featured the skills of the bands Saddlestrings and Many Strings, who played a range of classic western and more modern songs to the delight of the audience.

Both days featured a Grand Finale, in which all the performers from the night joined together to put on classics, such as “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” as a group.

The American Legion, one of the event’s sponsors, provided refreshment to the performers and crew throughout the two days of shows.   

The Cowboy Poets of Idaho is a not-for-profit organization, which seeks to promote the continuance of the musical and spoken tradition of the great Western poet.  They can be most easily found on their Facebook page at facebook.com/CPIdaho.

The International Western Music Association is a group that, according to their website (iwesternmusic.org) believes that “Western Music is the folk music of the Western lifestyle and vista. Some Western Music originates from roots in English, Scottish, Irish, and Welsh ballads, as well as musical influences from the European countries of immigrants who "went west" and some carries jazz and blues origins. While "Cowboy" music is an important part of the history of Western Music, the stories and lifestyles of the larger populations of Western culture are equally important: settlers, farmers, ranchers, horsemen and women, soldiers and the women who accompanied them into the west, miners, opportunists, gamblers, saloon keepers, school teachers, and other town folk who populated the great American West are all subjects of modern day Western Music.”