MARK LEE GARDNER
Historian, Writer, Musician of the Western Experience
An award-winning historian, author, and musician, Mark has worked with the National Park Service, PBS Television, National Geographic Magazine, and numerous state and local historic sites, museums, and humanities councils. An authority on the American West, he has appeared on the History Channel, PBS American Experience, ABC World News, the Travel Channel, American Heroes Channel, Encore Westerns Channel, Book TV, NPR's All Things Considered, Irish National Radio, and BBC Radio. He writes for both popular and scholarly audiences, having published with several university presses and periodicals such as Wild West, American Cowboy, True West, New Mexico Magazine, and Journal of the West. His op-eds have appeared in the Los Angeles Times and on FoxNews.com. Mark is the author of the critically lauded To Hell on a Fast Horse: The Untold Story of Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett and Shot All To Hell: Jesse James, the Northfield Raid, and the Wild West's Greatest Escape. True West magazine named Mark Best Author in its annual "Best of the West" issue for 2014. Mark's next book project focuses on Theodore Roosevelt and the Rough Riders, to be published by William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins.
WINNER OF THE 2014 SPUR AWARD FROM THE WESTERN
WRITERS OF AMERICA FOR BEST WESTERN
NONFICTION HISTORICAL BOOK
WINNER OF THE WILD WEST HISTORY ASSOCIATION'S
2014 AWARD FOR THE BEST BOOK ON
WILD WEST HISTORY
WINNER OF THE 2014 MILTON F. PERRY AWARD
FOR BEST NONFICTION BOOK
An Indie Next List Selection
"Rollicking...with enough bloody action to engage readers enthralled by tales
-- New York Times Book Review
"Gardner’s re-creation of the Northfield Raid... orchestrates the often-unwieldy
particulars of the event with considerable virtuosity. ... It would be hard to im-
agine a more thorough account.
-- Washington Post
"Historian Gardner crafts an elegant narrative that's as entertaining as it is
historically accurate....A must-read for any western fan."
-- Publishers Weekly
"Gardner's meticulously-researched history of the Northfield Raid and its
bloody aftermath is told in the kind of compelling narrative that all historians
should emulate....Shot All To Hell is one of those very well researched, wonder-
fully written, and most objective histories that any reader will enjoy."
-- Doris Meredith
New York Journal of Books
"Action packed...a colorful portrait...A gripping read and probably tells all there
is to tell about a legendary group of psychopaths."
-- Kirkus Reviews
"Gardner has shed considerable light on a neglected aspect of the gang's life
of crime...[A] detailed, almost bullet-by-bullet account of the failed robbery."
-- Booklist
"With careful research and well crafted prose, Mark Lee Gardner brings to life
the outlaws, lawmen, local citizens, and journalists who witnessed this failed
bank robbery and its aftermath....Gardner brings a new vitality to this famous
episode....this retelling is lively, rich, and full."
-- Clyde A. Milner II
History Book Club
"[Readers] will delight in the exciting yet smooth way the intriguing story plays
out in the hands of Gardner....It's a winner and a must read for anyone inter-
ested in perhaps the most infamous outlaws of the Old West."
-- Wild West Magazine
"[A] rootin'-tootin', chock-full-a-shootin' Old West tale...in glorious step-by-step
detail"
-- New York Post
"Like a heroic Mexican corrido, historian-musician Mark Lee Gardner's Shot All To Hell is both a personal ode and history of the infamous James-Younger
gang...Gardner's prose is paced like the James's ride into infamy."
-- True West Magazine
"Gardner's quick prose and wit enhances the fast-paced action-packed historical
account. This book should be on the bookshelf of every fan of Western history."
-- American Cowboy
"[A] hard, detailed look at the infamous Northfield Raid...thoroughly researched."
-- Dallas Morning News
In
addition to his research and writing, Mark is an award-winning
performer of the music of the 19th and early 20th-century American
West. Watch a PBS video of Mark performing the 1927 "Blind Andy" Jenkins ballad "Billy the Kid." Click here.
Mark's latest CD is Outlaws: Songs of Robbers, Rustlers, and Rogues, a saddlebag of famous and lesser known American ballads such as "Cole Younger," "Jesse James," "Billy the Kid," and "Sam Bass."
This
new collection from Mark Lee Gardner, a gifted singer who specializes
in songs from the Old West, deals with such notorious figures as Billy
the Kid, Jesse James, Cole Younger, and Sam Bass, not forgetting women
like Belle Starr and Calamity Jane. Two standouts are the lovely ballad
“Kentucky Moonshiner” and Gardner’s quiet, introspective take on Bob
Dylan’s “Billy,” written for the 1973 Peckinpah film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.
A lapidary picker, Gardner accompanies himself on an assortment of
period guitars, banjos, and mandolins. Reference-caliber reproduction.
Highly recommended.
—Paul Seydor,
The Absolute Sound
Outlaws is like having
someone sing you a book of stories. "John Hardy," "Sam Bass," "Cole
Younger," and "Jesse James" are all song titles that remind the listener
of hours spent reading and researching Western history. Gardner, author
of To Hell on a Fast Horse, a marvelous dual biography of
Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett, is obviously having lots of fun bringing
you the not-so-accurate stories of these outlaw legends. (As he points
out in his liner notes, "The truth is seldom as much fun as the
myth.") None of it is more fun than "The Finger of Billy the Kid," a
song sharing how the Kid's trigger finger ended up in a jar. Our
fascination with the outlaws of the Old West is only intensified by
Gardner's fine CD, which will no doubt drive many right back to the
history books.
—Marvin O'Dell
True West
A blend of history and music, Outlaws is a grab bag of ballads devoted to the West's less savory characters. Rich and rollicking instruments—Gardner plays an open-back banjo and tenor guitar —help bring the stories to life.
