Elko Cowboy Music & Poetry Gathering Comes To Napa Valley

The Lincoln Theater presents the 5th Annual Cowboy Music and Poetry Gathering on Saturday, September 7th, as musicians, poets, and storytellers regale the audience with their experiences of hard work, heartbreak and hilarity in the West. Part of the world renowned Elko Cowboy Poetry Gathering, this event embodies the spirit and heart of a uniquely American way of life.

For more than 30 years, the ranchers, cowboys and artists at the Elko Cowboy Poetry Gathering have been sharing poems, stories and music about their lives, celebrating the shared traditions and experiences of the land and culture of the rural West. Elko brings together artisans who share their love of cowboy culture. Declared by journalists as "the most honest and open-hearted festival in America" and described by ranchers as "the highest concentration of lies in any one place at any one time," Elko is the real deal.

With its deep roots in the rural west, and a strong history of ranching and working the land, the Napa Valley is the perfect place for this gathering. Charles Shaw of Two Buck Chuck fame attended the Elko gathering a few years back. After listening to the stories and songs about life on a ranch, he approached Gail Steiger, one of the performers.

"He said, wow, this is just like growing grapes," Gail recounted, "We're all at the mercy of things we can't control, living with uncertainty, praying for rain and worrying about frost and heat waves and such. So that got it started. Pretty soon we were talking to Lincoln Theater about doing a show in the Napa Valley, and we've been coming back ever since."

The connection between Gail and Charles did not end there. "He told me he was going to make me his favorite chili recipe by a guy named J.I. Gardner, and he asked if I'd ever heard of him. Well, as it turns out, I had heard of him. He was my great grandfather. So we really hit it off," Gail remembered with a chuckle.

"Whether California, Arizona, Mongolia or Brazil, if you are working close to the ground it doesn't take long to find we have more in common than separates us and that's what Cowboy Music and Poetry is all about," says Arizona rancher and songwriter, Gail Steiger.

Lincoln Theater is thrilled to work with the Western Folklife Center to bring the 5th Annual Cowboy Music and Poetry Gathering to the Napa Valley community. Taking the stage this year will be Gail Steiger, joined by poet Olivia Romo and songwriter Mike Beck.

Gail Steiger comes from both a ranching and songwriting background. His grandfather, Gail Gardner, wrote several well-known cowboy songs and was named "Poet Lariat" of Arizona by Governor Bruce Babbitt. He helped make an award winning film, Ranch Album, in 1987. He sings songs and tells stories at cowboy poetry gatherings around the southwest, all while running the 50,000 acre Spider Ranch in the Sonoran desert.

Olivia Romo is a farmer, poet, and water rights activist from Taos, NM. Recognized as a spoken word artist, Romo was the New Mexico State Slam Poetry Champion in 2011. In 2017, Olivia collaborated with 3 renowned poets from the West in the Moving Rural Verse Project produced by the Western Folk Life Center in Elko, Nevada. The series of moving poems powerfully communicate contemporary rural issues, ideas and insight-and, in particular, the subject of water in the West. Romo intentionally focuses her activism and poetry to educate and mobilize around the risks and uncertainties of our natural resources.

Mike Beck is an engaging acoustic solo artist from California who regularly performs in the United States and Europe. He is a seasoned performer - his guitar work and warm, genuine style of songs and stories engages audiences from all walks of life. Mike has seven albums under his belt with original songs that have been recognized as some of the finest compositions on Western Americana out there. The Western Horseman magazine recently picked "The 13 Best Cowboy Songs," and included two compositions by Mike, putting him along side other songwriters such as Ian Tyson, Tom Russell, Lucinda Williams, and Gene Autry.

The Cowboy Music & Poetry Gathering will be held at Lincoln Theater on Saturday, September 7th at 7pm. Ticket prices are $20 for general admission; children under 18 are free. To purchase tickets go to www.lincolntheater.org or call the Box Office at 707-944-9900.

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