Concert celebrates Songs of the Cowboys

A concert celebrating Nathan H. "Jack" Thorp and his 1908 publication, "Songs of the Cowboys," will be held at 7 p.m. on Sept. 29 in the theater at the New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum.

Funded by the New Mexico Humanities Council, admission to the concert is free.

The event is one of a series of eight concerts celebrating Thorp's seminal 1908 publication that will take place across New Mexico in September. The performers are Mark Gardner and Rex Rideout, a pair of Old West music revivalists and authorities on Jack Thorp and his times.

Thorp (1867-1940), who is widely acknowledged as the first collector of cowboy ballads, published the very first book of cowboy songs at Estancia, N.M., in 1908. His slim booklet contained 23 songs, a number of which Thorp wrote, including the oft-recorded classic, "Little Joe, the Wrangler."

Gardner and Rideout travel with a variety of vintage instruments and they dress to the period.

For more information, please call (575) 522-4100.