Friday, Dec. 10, 2004 | 3:31 a.m.
Susan Snyder's column appears Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursday and Sundays. Reach her at [email protected] or (702) 259-4082.
WEEKEND EDITION
December 11 - 12, 2004
Three blocks from a trade show stocked with rhinestone wrangler's vests, $700 cowboy boots and wine-of-the-month club memberships, Waddie Mitchell and Don Edwards showed what it really takes to be a cowboy.
Pluck.
The pair entertained sell-out crowds in the world's entertainment capital with three microphones, two bar stools, a guitar and a 19th-century art.
They didn't even wear shiny boots. Mitchell (the cowboy bard) and Edwards (the western balladeer) wore the scuffed brown leather of men for whom boots are work clothes.
For two hours five afternoons last week, they held Circus Circus audiences spellbound with poetry and songs about a West so easily overlooked in the glitter and glamour of the annual National Finals Rodeo.
Mitchell and Edwards live on ranches in Elko and Texas, respectively. Both know the work and music of the range.
They plan which numbers will open and close the show, but neither knows exactly where the ride in between will lead.
"That's the beauty of working with him. He'll do something, and it'll remind me of something," Mitchell said of Edwards following their show Thursday afternoon.
"If you're having a conversation with a friend, aren't you glad it's not choreographed?" he added.
Edwards and Mitchell performed together for 20 years. These walking, leather-bound encyclopedias of American West culture know several versions of each piece, its origins and evolution. They impart their knowledge with a passion that brings alive a lifestyle few new Westerners know.
"This genre has probably grown more in the last 20 years than when the movement started," Mitchell said. "There was only a short time that cowboys had their own songs before Hollywood took it over and wrote the songs for them."
Edwards credits the 21-year-old National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko for jump-starting interest in cowboy music and verse. The pair are mainstays at the January gathering. (Check out www.westernfolklife.org.)
It's an art form cultivated from a cowboy's need to stay alert on night guard, stave off loneliness or keep his wits on long cattle drives.
"Lumberjacks, sailors on the wind-blown vessels, miners, sheepherders -- when you have time to contemplate you have time to challenge yourself to be able to say things more interestingly," Mitchell said.
But time is now something to be spent rather than savored. Fast is more valuable than interesting. Headphones on the morning walk. DVD players to keep kids occupied on long car trips. Cell phones all the time.
"People talk digitally now," Edwards said.
It's heartening when an 8-year-old walks up after a show and recites a cowboy poem word for word, Mitchell said. And Edwards is grateful for the youngsters who revel in cowboy songs and poems in his workshops.
But too few youngsters are taking a serious interest. Corporate rodeos and old movies are a poor legacy.
"You wonder," Edwards said, "if it's going to die with you."
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