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Celebrating the American West

Rosalie Sorrels is considered a matriarch of American folk music. She began her public career as a singer and collector of traditional folksongs in the late 1950s. During the early 1960s she left her husband and began traveling and performing at music festivals and clubs throughout the United States. Nanci Griffith chronicled this aspect of Rosalie's life with her song "Ford Econoline." Currently "retired," she still performs in select concerts and festivals. Her career of social activism, storytelling, teaching, learning, songwriting, collecting folk songs, performing, and recording has spanned six decades.

Poet Wendy Brown-Barry has lived in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada in the Gold Rush-era town of Mariposa, CA since 1971. Her works have been published in newspapers and magazines, and she has helped organize the Cannonball Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Mariposa, CA since 1999.

Mick Vernon pens poems about his time spent in the saddle working cattle with the Dobbas outfit in the Sierras near Auburn, CA, and about other reflections of western life. He is the author of "The Lyrical Lawman Rides," a book of original cowboy poetry (and CD by the same title).

John Silveira lives in Hilmar, CA with his wife and family. He has been writing cowboy poetry for several years. He says, "I was told it was good for the soul, and found that to be true."