Photo: Jason Kempin

Waddie Mitchell

For Booking Information Please Email: info@waddiemitchell.com

Press Kit: online or

“Typical” from the album, “Waddie Live”

Schedule

Date Location Event Contact
Jan.29-Feb.3, - 2024
39th NCPG
Elko, NV
Feb. 15-17, 2024
Alpine, TX
Lone Star Cowboy Poetry
Mar. 22, 2024
NYC, NY
Roll On, Cowboys Carnegie Hall
August 3, 2024
Lubbock, TX
Ranch Verse, National Ranching Heritage Center

Waddie Mitchell photos courtesy of: Donald Kallaus, C. West, Western Horseman, William Matthews, Charlie Ekburg, Tom Cruze

Waddie Mitchell

“Buckaroo Poet”

“I can’t ever remember ‘finding’ cowboy poetry,” Waddie Mitchell says of the entertaining and enduring art of storytelling. “It was always there. The cowboys sure never called it poetry.  I know I wouldn’t have liked it if they would have.  Seems like an oxymoron, don’t it!?”

From his earliest days on the remote Nevada ranches where his father worked, Waddie was immersed in the cowboy way of  entertaining, the art of spinnin’ tales in rhyme and meter that came to be called cowboy poetry, a Western tradition that is as rich as the lifestyle that gave birth to it. Within his stories, told in a voice that is timeless and familiar, are the common bonds we all share, moments both grand and commonplace, the humorous and the tragic, the life and death struggles and triumphs that we each recognize. And yet, Waddie presents his material with personal insights and the lessons learned during his life spent as a buckaroo.

“All the time I was growing up we had these old cowboys around,” he says. “When you live in close proximity like that with the same folks, month after month, and that we didn’t have electricity which meant we didn’t have T.V.  We had damn poor radio too.  So that meant we did the strangest things at night… WE TALKED TO EACH OTHER! I suppose that’s where the whole tradition of cowboy poetry started.  You find that if you have a rhyme and a meter to start that story, people will listen to it over and over again,” Waddie states in his down-to-earth description its “When my imagination first got let out of the gate, it was from an old-time cowboy, with a story set to rhyme,” he says in his second recording from Warner Western, Lone Driftin’ Rider.  By the age of 10, he was reciting poetry himself; at 16, he quit school to follow his heart and went to making his living as a cowboy.

There came a time though, which he relates in his poem Where To Go, when he had to choose between being a full-time cowboy (he managed a 36,000 acre ranch in Lee-Jiggs, Nevada) and the art form that he loved so much.  In 1984, he helped organize the internationally recognized Elko Cowboy Poetry Gathering and gave his first public performance.  Although Waddie didn’t think anyone would be interested, (he thought it would be a pretty good party for the weekend) the first Cowboy Poetry Gathering was set for a cold, snowy weekend in January.  This was one of the only times of the year that Waddie and his fellow cowboys were free from ranch duties.  More than 2,000 people showed up, and Waddie was off and running.

Since then Waddie has performed internationally for audiences from Los Angeles to New York, Zurich to Melbourne, and all points in between.  With television appearances ranging from 4 appearances on The Tonight Show (His neighbor took the first phoned invitation, drove 40 miles to deliver the message to the remotely based Waddie and returned with a “No Thanks” because it was calving time and he’d never heard of Johnny Carson), Larry King Live, Good Morning America, TNN, The History Channel, PBS, and BBC, Waddie has also been featured in People, Life, New York Times, USA Today, Fortune, National Geographic,  Wall Street Journal and the Official Program for Super Bowl XXX, along with numerous other appearances, performances, articles and books.  In 1994, Waddie founded the Working Ranch Cowboys Association with a mission of creating scholarships and crisis funds for working cowboys and their families.  The well-recognized and highly respected WRCA now sanctions numerous regional rodeos throughout the West with the sold-out world championships held each November in Amarillo, TX.

His series of recordings for Warner Bros. Records and more recently for Western Jubilee Recording Company have received critical acclaim. Waddie’s Western Jubilee Recordings are: Waddie Mitchell Live, featuring Don Edwards as well as world class instrumentalists Rich O’Brien and Norman Blake was recorded live at the Western Jubilee Warehouse in Colorado Springs.  A glowing review of Waddie Mitchell Live appeared in People, which concludes with “Bottom Line:  Horse sense and humor from America’s Best Known Cowboy Poet.” This was followed by A Prairie Portrait which features Waddie Mitchell, Don Edwards and the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra.  In April, 2001, the Oklahoma City Cowboy Hall of Fame / National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum presented Waddie with the coveted Wrangler Award for his participation in the Outstanding Traditional Western Album of the year.

The 2002 Cultural Olympiad commissioned Waddie Mitchell to write a commemorative poem.  His offering, That No Quit Attitude, gained importance at the Salt Lake 2002 Olympic Winter Games.  No Quit appeared in the Welcome To Salt Lake film, in schools and libraries, on Delta Airlines, the Olympic website, at the Olympic Arts Festival, on Western Jubilee’s CD single and many publications, including the Official Souvenir Program of the 2002 Winter Games.  Since, That No Quit Attitude, also titles Waddie’s Western Jubilee release featuring fourteen new original poems and thirteen original ‘Waddie-isms’.  2003 found him on stage at Carnegie Hall and producing Elko – A Cowboy’s Gathering.   This Western Jubilee double disc features 40 Artists and salutes the gathering he co-founded 20 years prior.  In 2005, Waddie was featured on TV, radio, print and personal appearances as the Review Journal newspaper’s official spokesperson for their 100 Year Celebration as well as that of the city of Las Vegas, NV.  December 2010 finds Waddie in yet another environment.  Theaterworks, Colorado Springs professional theater company, presents Waddie Mitchell, A Cowboy Christmas Carol; 16 highly entertaining performances of Waddie’s de-arrangement of Charles Dicken’s Christmas classic.  In 2011 the accolades continue with Waddie receiving Arizona’s Festival of the West Cowboy Spirit Award and The National Storytelling Network Circle of Excellence Award as well as being inducted into the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame where he joined luminaries such as Will James and Mark Twain. 2012 found Waddie receiving the prestigious Nevada Heritage Award and in 2013 he received the American Cowboy Culture Award at the 25th Annual Symposium in Lubbock, TX. In April 2013, Mitchell again receives the Wrangler Award from OK City’s National Cowboy Museum. This time for “Composition of the Year” by writing both words and music of “Trade Off” that was recorded by The Gillette Brothers of Crockett, TX. Other artists continue to collaborate with Waddie in creating music to his poetry which appears on various recordings. Defying the theory that it’s always hardest to be recognized in your home area, in 2014, Nevada Tourism commissioned Waddie to write a poem in honor of the states 150th Birthday. Waddie Mitchell’s poem “Dame Nevada” resulted in multiple appearances throughout Nevada as the state’s official Sesquicentennial Poet for the yearlong celebration. Also, in 2014 Western Jubilee releases Sweat Equity, poetry both old and new and recorded live and in the studio. 2015 offers another milestone with the Western Jubilee published book One Hundred Poems composed and selected by Waddie and it is his most comprehensive book to date. In November, 2015, Waddie Mitchell received the Western Music Association Award of Excellence as One Hundred Poems was voted the 2015 WMA Poetry Book of the Year. In addition to performances and projects in 2016, Waddie produces Cohorts & Collaborators.

This special recording, released by Western Jubilee in early 2017, features nine top Western Artists who have co-written songs with Waddie.

Currently, Waddie Mitchell continues performing and hosting at festivals, private gatherings, rodeos, corporate events, concert halls and an extraordinarily wide variety of functions. California’s Country Music Festival, Stagecoach, located at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, CA has presented Waddie more years than any other artist. The Reno Gazette-Journal published a list chosen by a panel of writers, historians and other notables, who selected the Top 20 Artists, Authors and Entertainers to Influence Nevada in the 20th Century.  Sure enough pards, there was WaddieWaddie Mitchell has received the title of Adjunct Professor from the University of Wyoming.  This honor was based on “Real world credentials which Waddie possesses in wealth.”

Waddie’s Word, Waddie Mitchell Publishing Administration – Please contact: info@waddiemitchell.com