Description
Working cowboy, touring musician, and fencepost enthusiast Forrest VanTuyl's music hews closer to the literature of Annie Proulx and Cormac McCarthy than to Marty Robbin's Gunfighter Ballads - Inspired by his time on horseback in the remote corners of Oregon and Washington, Forrests songs are redolent with carefully crafted details of rural life in the West, speaking of the taciturn men and women who work this land of rugged beauty. In addition to touring extensively as Margo Cilker's bass and guitar player, Forrest is a regular performer at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, has played with Sera Cahoone, Ramblin' Jack Elliot, and Corb Lund, and been featured by The New York Times, National Geographic, NPR, and KEXP.
The songs of Old Trails, Western and romantic as they are, don't romanticize the West. They're about hard people that work with land and animals through hard terrain and hard weather. They're about the emotional and philosophical depth that comes from a deep pride in work and land, and Forrest VanTuyl is one of the few songwriters finding a way to truly express it.
"Forrest VanTuyl is a good writer, because he doesn't sound like other people. He's a stranger, and strangers are what we require." - Jeffrey Foucault
"'O Bronder, Donder Yonder (2019)' doesn't just transport you out into the American wilderness and tell you what it feels like to be there. It also leaves you itching to find out what more musical gems Forrest will have in his saddlepack next time he rides in from the Oregon trails." -Alasdair Fotheringham, Americana UK
