High Desert Music

The newest issue of High Desert Journal – which always keeps its focus on ‘witnessing and celebrating the world through the work of writers and artists from across the West and across the country’ – includes a couple of great features that caught my eye as I skimmed the issue. One is a look at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering by Linda Hussa, which includes an online HDJ Extra of Hussa reading her poem “Homesteaders, Poor and Dry” and an interview she gave to Lisa M. Hamilton from Real Rural. The other – and I really have to thank HDJ for introducing me to this musician – is an interview by Charles Finn with singer and songwriter Martha Scanlan. The photo image of Scanlan and her accompanist recording out in the field of her ranch in Montana is what first drew me in. In addition to the interview, there is also an HDJ Extra of Martha Scanlan’s Tongue River Stories online.