In this digital age, music is ubiquitous. You can burn a CD or download a track in seconds. iPods carry thousands of songs and satellite radio stations broadcast hundreds of music channels. As a result, “we don’t listen to music carefully anymore,” says Hal Cannon, Western Folklife Center Founding Director. Cannon and Media Producer Taki Telonidis have pledged to preserve “rare and endangered sound,” on the new Deep West Records label. These CDs include both music and spoken word and are meant to be listened to carefully for generations. We will produce a limited number of Deep West Records CDs and each “First Edition” will include a collectors’ series of numbered and signed issues. Whereas a musical group might go into a recording studio and have a master recording ready to press in a single day, our CDs require extensive fieldwork, research and documentation, then careful production. It may take years to produce something like our Smithsonian Folkways Records CD Songs and Stories from Grand Canyon or our CD of sheepherding songs and stories. Future titles include songs and stories from other great National Parks in the West. Also, we are planning a CD of songs and stories from aviation as well as CDs from the collections of the Western Folklife Center.  | Red Rock Rondo:
Zion Canyon Song Cycle
Deep West Records: $16.99 The Zion Canyon Song Cycle visits ghosts in Grafton, stolen quilts in Rockville and moonlight sonatas in Springdale in a new Americana song cycle by Phillip Bimstein celebrating the history and contemporary life of Zion National Park and its neighboring communities. Commissioned by the American Composers Forum, recorded with the support of the Zion Natural History Association and the Utah Arts Council, and a signature project of Zion National Park's 2009 Centennial, "A Century of Sanctuary." Read more of the included performances
and buy the CD in our online gift shop.
Read more about Red Rock Rondo. |
 | Celebrating 25 years of the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering
Deep West Records - $25.00Premiering at the 25th National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, this CD is a unique double set - there is one CD of cowboy poetry and one CD of western music. This collection includes 50 performances - 25 poems and 25 songs that were recorded during a Gathering, one from every year. Read more of the included performances
and buy the CD in our online gift shop. |
 | The Cowboy Poets Live at Elko
Deep West Records - $20.00Capturing the irrepressible spirit of the 10th Cowboy Poetry Gathering in 1994, this DVD features the performances of such poets as Waddie Mitchell and Wallace McRae, and the western music of Don Edwards, Ian Tyson, Michael Martin Murphey and more. Buy the DVD in our online gift shop. |
 | A Cowboy Christmas
Deep West Records - $9.95 First airing in 1995, A Cowboy Christmas has a timeless quality and is regularly broadcast on public radio stations across the country each Christmas season. Bronze medal winner at the New York International Radio Awards. The CD - an hour long radio documentary featuring Baxter Black, Waddie Mitchell, Gene Autry, Vincent Craig and others - has been reissued for the 25th Anniversary of the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering. Buy the CD in our online gift shop. |
 | Snake River Outlaws
Deep West Records - $15.00 A tribute to one of the hottest honky-tonk bands in the Northwest during the early 1950s. Live every Saturday night from the Sunshine Bar on the corner of Woody and Alder in Missoula, Montana was heard over KXLL radio. The CD includes rare digitally-remastered live radio broadcasts that create a sound capsule of a time when cowboys, railroaders, college students, society ladies and vagabonds all hoisted mugs of beer to fine music and western sociability. Read more here. Buy the CD in our online gift shop. |
 | Songs of Yellowstone and the Tetons
Deep West Records - $15.00 Based on a simple premise that America’s greatest places should be accompanied by great songs, the Western Folklife Center presents Songs of Yellowstone and the Tetons, a concert to launch a new CD of the same name. This concert features the winning songs from our Yellowstone and the Tetons Songwriting contest and more! Read more here. Buy the CD in our online gift shop. |
 | Songs and Stories from Sheepherding
Deep West Records - $15.00
This CD is a groundbreaking glimpse at the music and poetry of the "other" ranching tradition. Hear the songs, verse and stories of shepherds who came to this country to pursue the American dream, including Scots, Scandinavians, Basques, Greeks, Irish, Mexicans and Peruvians. This historic collection is based on the expressive arts of sheep ranching and is bound to be a collector's item. The CD includes extensive notes, photos and translations to the songs and poems.
Buy the CD in our online gift shop. |
 | Why The Cowboy Sings
Deep West Records - $15.00 This CD premiered at the 2007 National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, and is a recording of the extraordinary songs from the Western Folklife Center's high definition production, Why the Cowboy Sings. Included are songs by Tom Russell, Ian Tyson, Buck Ramsey, Stephanie Davis, Sourdough Slim and others. Buy the CD in our online gift shop. |
 | Stories From Native America
Deep West Records– DW001 $15
These stories are contemporary and are all about warriors, visionaries, and true humanists, people who put it all on the line to make life better through the traditions and history of their tribes. The forces fighting against their efforts, both within their tribes and outside, are immense. The heart of this CD comes from stories produced for National Public Radio. Hal Cannon and Henry Real Bird narrate.
Buy the CD in our online gift shop. |
 | Songs and Stories from Grand Canyon
Smithsonian Folkways Records – SFW CD 40167 - $15
This CD features the "real folks" who call this extraordinary place their home. An Indian tribe sings of its birth out of the canyon in ancient times; mulepackers tell tales of their daily descents; boatmen brave the Colorado’s rapids. This CD is a mosaic of local songs and stories by local people; all resonate with the deep meaning of this deep place. This is an insider’s soundtrack to the Grand Canyon, which also includes a never-before-released track by Roy Rogers. Extensive notes, photos; 58 minutes. Read more here . Buy the CD in our online gift shop .
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