Musical Performers of the Frontier Past

                                                                         "Gardner and Rideout sound almost too authentic....It's like you're

                                              listening not to real singers but to a couple of down-on-their-luck

                                              gunslingers in some one-horse town."  -- Dirty Linen Magazine

                        From "Boatmans Dance" to "Little Joe, the Wrangler," Mark Gardner and Rex Rideout perform the historic music of the Western ex-

                  perience using vintage instruments and historic playing styles.  As "living historians," they recreate the authentic music of the Santa Fe

                  Trail, the battlefields of the Civil War, the cow camps of Colorado, and more.  To hear one of their performances is to take a trip back

                  to the days of Stephen Foster, Dan Emmett, and Jack Thorp.  Their "music...is precisely what your ancestors heard, what they danced

                  to," writes Jon Chandler of their popular release, Frontier Favorites: Old-Time Music of the Wild West.  "It's a musical journey to the

                  mid-19th century that transcends cultural nostalgia; this music is realistic enough in style and content to have been played and sung in its

                  exact form on the Western frontier....It is rollicking, it is exhilarating, and most of all, it is real."  Music from Frontier Favorites is fea-

                  tured in two new National Park Service visitor center films, those for Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site, La Junta, Colorado; and

                  Fort Union National Monument, Watrous, New Mexico.

                  Mark L. Gardner  Mark is a respected independent historian with numerous scholarly and popular publications to his credit, including

                  several guides for the National Park Service.  His latest NPS publication is a biography of GERONIMO, to be published by Western 

                  National Parks Association during the summer of 2006.  Mark is an authority on cowboy ballad collector Nathan Howard "Jack" Thorp.

                  His feature article on Thorp appeared in the March 2004 issue of New Mexico Magazine, and he recently collaborated with the Muse-

                  um of New Mexico to produce a book and CD of the cowboy songs collected by Thorp in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Mark's

                  first CD, Songs  of the Santa Fe Trail and the Far West (Native Ground Music), received critical acclaim as an accurate portrayal of

                  the music of the 19th-century American Southwest,  receiving a nomination for a 1998 Indie Award in the Traditional Folk category.  The

                  CD has been featured on the soundtracks of several television documentaries, most notably the PBS documentary "The U.S.-Mexican

                  War, 1846-1848."  Mark's musical instrument of choice is the 5-string banjo, although he is also a master of the bones and jawbone! 

                  Rex Rideout   Rex is a long-time student of the music and songs of the 19th-century American West.  As the proprietor of Time Travel

                  Music, Rex has performed at countless historic sites and museums across the West.  His music has also been featured on television and ra-

                  dio specials.  Rex contributed to the soundtrack of two HGTV documentaries: "Homes of the Gold Rush" and "Ghost Towns," both of which

                  aired nationally in 2001.  He worked closely with Mark on the music CD to accompany the book Jack Thorps Songs of the Cowboys, the

                  trade edition for which was recently published by the Museum of New Mexico.  Rex plays many musical instruments: mandolin, fiddle, guitar,

                  banjo, and tin whistle, to name a few.  He has been a student of the trades and skills of the 19th century for over twenty-five years, specializing

                  in traditional woodwork and metalwork. Studying how 19th-century man obtained food, shelter and, when possible, entertainment, has been a

                  life-long interest. When he is not performing, Rex works in the Geology Department of the Colorado School of Mines in Golden.  He lives with

                  his family in Conifer, Colorado.  Visit Rex's brand-spanking new web site at www.TimeTravelMusic.com.

         Be sure to check out CowboyPoetry.com's new feature on Mark & Rex's latest: Jack Thorp's Songs of the Cowboys

                                                                          Just a few of the places Mark & Rex have performed:

                                                                              Gateway Arch, St. Louis, Missouri

                                                                              Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, Wyoming

                                                                              Palace of the Governors, Santa Fe, New Mexico

                                                                              Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site, La Junta, Colorado

                                                                              Fort Larned National Historic Site, Larned, Kansas

                                                                              Fort Laramie National Historic Site, Fort Laramie, Wyoming

                                                                              Mahaffie House Historic Site, Olathe, Kansas

                                                                              El Pueblo Museum, Pueblo, Colorado

                                                                              Arrow Rock State Historic Site, Arrow Rock, Missouri

                                                                              Watkins Woolen Mill State Historic Site, Lawson, Missouri

                                                                              National Frontier Trails Center, Independence, Missouri                        

                                                                              Raton Museum, Raton, New Mexico

                                                                              St. James Hotel, Cimarron, New Mexico

                                                                              Santa Fe Trail Center, Larned, Kansas

                                                                              Littleton Museum, Littleton, Colorado

                                                                              Albuquerque History Museum, Albuquerque, New Mexico

                                                                              Rock Ledge Ranch Historic Site, Colorado Springs, Colorado

                                                                              Baca and Bloom Houses State Historic Site, Trinidad, Colorado

                                                                              NRA Whittington Center, Raton, New Mexico

                                                                              Four Mile House Historic Site, Denver, Colorado

                                                                              Martinez Hacienda, Taos, New Mexico

                                                                              El Rancho de las Golondrinas, Santa Fe, New Mexico

                                                                              Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum

                                                                              New Mexico State Capitol, Santa Fe, New Mexico

                                                                              Rocky Mountain Storytelling Festival, Palmer Lake, Colorado

                                                                              The Irma Hotel, Cody, Wyoming

                                                                              The Fort Restaurant, Morrison, Colorado

                                                                              Western History Association Annual Meeting, Colorado Springs

                                                                              Santa Fe Trail Festival, Trinidad, Colorado

                                                                              Pecos National Historical Park, Pecos, New Mexico

                                                                              University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico

                                                             For Mark & Rex's Upcoming Performance Dates,

                                                   Click On The Home Button Below And Look At The Schedule.

  "REX RIDEOUT AND MARK GARDNER ARE NATIONAL TREASURES!"

                                                                                     Corrine Brown, Western Writers of America

                                                                                           For Bookings, Call 719-651-6887

                                                                       (or click on the contact link below)