On October 16, 2007, the Western Folklife Center announced the winners of the Yellowstone and Teton Song Contest. The Grand Prize of $1,000 went to Connie Dover for her song "Out Yonder." The second prize of $500 went to Ray Doyle for his song, "The Jewel," and the Audience Award of a new Gibson Songwriter Deluxe Guitar, went to Jon Chandler for his song, "The Road That Leads to Yellowstone." 

There were 139 original songs entered in the contest of which 16 songs were chosen as finalists to be judged by four anonymous music experts from states surrounding Yellowstone and the Tetons, and by the public in the online Audience Award portion of the contest. In the end over 8,000 votes were cast online, sending Jon Chandler’s lovely anthem to Yellowstone Park to the top of the list. The four judges also voted in terms of songwriting craft and pertinence to the Yellowstone region.

Hal Cannon, founding director of the Western Folklife Center and song contest organizer said: “Most of the songs that came in were cowboy, singer-songwriter, country and bluegrass. There were so many wonderful songs submitted I really don’t know how the judges picked the winners.” Now Cannon’s task, along with co-producer Taki Telonidis, is to select songs (both from the contest and from other sources) to produce a CD, Songs from Yellowstone and the Tetons. “We want to give people a wonderful soundtrack of music to accompany their drive around the parks,” explains Cannon. The CD will be released early spring 2008. There will be a launch concert at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman and there are also tentative plans to have events in Cody and Jackson, Wyoming as well.

Purchase the CD in our online store.

“Out Yonder” was written by Connie Dover on the front porch of the cook house at the Double Diamond X Ranch where she worked as a ranch cook in the summer of 2004. The ranch headquarters overlooks the South Fork of the Shoshone River right on the edge of Yellowstone Park near Cody, Wyoming. Connie has worked summers on ranches all over Wyoming but winters near Weston, Missouri. “Out Yonder” is a song about a woman who dreams of leaving the East to come to God’s country near Yellowstone. Connie completed the song driving to a recording studio near Taos, New Mexico where she recorded this and other unreleased songs about her love of the West with friends and fellow musicians Mason Brown and Chipper Thompson.

“The Jewel” was written by Ray Doyle of Mar Vista, California. Ray is originally from Ireland, and when he moved to North America at 13 he had a lot of catching up to do in American culture. It wasn’t until he joined the famous touring band Wylie and the Wild West nearly 20 years ago that he saw Yellowstone. It was after playing with Wylie at the Calgary Stampede that Ray took a detour home through Yellowstone. He says of that trip through the Park “I’d never been so affected by a place.” In the song he recalls that first experience of seeing the volcanic aspects of the Park, and says “The Jewel” examines “the meeting of the water and the fire.”

Jon Chandler’s “The Road That Leads to Yellowstone” was inspired by his boyhood adventures with his father, uncle and grandfather on yearly fishing trips to the rivers that define the Yellowstone region such as the Snake, Firehole and Madison. In the song, he tries to bring back the vision of those boyhood trips. Jon was just completing the song when he heard about the contest and decided to enter it. He has recently completed a collection of songs about Wyoming.

Based on a simple premise that America’s greatest places should be accompanied by great songs, the Western Folklife Center and its supporters sponsored this contest for the best songs and other musical compositions inspired by the greater Yellowstone area. The contest ran from May 1 through July 31, 2007.  Read more about the contest: click here.

This project is supported by the Museum of the Rockies, Gibson Guitar, and the Western Folklife Center and was made possible through the generosity of the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation and public radio and television stations in the region.