Gator Folk Feature: May 1999
Several months ago I was entering Morgans in Downtown Monterey to get my morning cup of Java...yeah, I'm one of those. A familiar face looked up and said something complimentary about my article on RW Hampton... I forget the exact words or my reply, but left with a feeling that I must have talked to the guy before someplace. I was headed to do a radio interview on our local Pacific Grove public station KAZU, with DJ, musician, and resident, Mike Eckstrom. While saying hello and making small talk with Mike after arriving a bit early I glanced at something that caught my eye... a CD with the photo of the very gentleman that had spoken to me at Morgans. I said to Mike, "this guy here, I just saw him a little bit ago". It was then that it came to me that I'd see this photo around the local papers before. Eckstrom let me know that he just did an interview with Mike Beck the day before and has known him and his cowboy music for some time.

This was how I first became aware of Mike Beck (aside from seeing photo) and I'm sure hearing the name and after being told by our mutual friend Gary Brown, AKA Cowboy Jack, that Mike was an act I would enjoy. The opportunity came last New Years Eve during the "First Night" alcohol free family event held in Monterey (and in increasing number of cities and towns). Gary had told me where and when Mike would be on stage and while enjoying this wonderful way to enjoy the New Year, I at the appointed time made my way to the YMCA building just on the edge of the downtown area.

The show was under way when I arrived and easily found a seat in the sparsely filled auditorium. Mike Beck was on stage and playing some beautiful music. I remember thinking as I sat down that Gary was certainly right about his expertise on the guitar. Beck had intricate patterns of finger-picking going on that spoke of open range and endless skies. This was cowboy music but with the elements of the other folk music styles up front...plus a hint of harder more rock brewing also. While sitting there listening and watching this young man, I noticed (first with my ears, then eyes) another thing our friend Gary "Pappy" Brown mention to me which I had not paid much attention to. That being about the special guitar attachment called a "string bender"......While Gary was explaining it to me it didn't quite take root, "cause I just wasn't gettin it." This thing has to be seen and heard by "metal midgets" like yours truly. I'm now realizing that I shouldn't try to explain it to you, but instead find the person who invented this "string bender" thing and let he or she explain.

Hey!...that didn't take long. This just came in with a pounding of hooves and cloud of dust, by the e-mail express... quick give that horse a beer!!...made the trip in record time from the "big sky" country of Montana. Mike Beck sends us this rather interesting bit of information about the "String Bender".

Hey Gator, The string bender is a strap activated string stretching or pulling device invented by my friend Gene Parsons who played drums with The Byrds. Actually him and the late Clarence White, also of the Byrds, thought it up together. You pull down on the neck of the guitar and the strap pulls a lever that raises the pitch of the B string one full step. A pedal steel or banjo kinda sound. Like a Scruggs (as in Earl) tuner. Hope this helps you out. Good to hear from you! Adios...Mike
Mike's songs were the songs of one close to the earth, (even though some contained as mentioned, intricate lines) delivered simply without pretense. That alone would have made me a fan (any kind of phoniness turns me off). There was however more to Mike Beck...Good songwriting, that you follow like a good book....So, without further ado, I give you working cowboy and musician Mike Beck.

Gator News: We've got Mike Beck here. Mike is a working cowboy and performs cowboy music. Where do live now Mike?

Mike: I was born and raised around here but now I live in Montana... I moved to Montana about 20 years ago. I cowboyed there then cowboyed in Nevada, cowboyed here....Then I'd miss playing music and go and do that for a while. After a awhile I'd get sick of Music Business people, miss my ranch life and go back to cowboy work...It's good to be back here for awhile, it's really been nice.

GatorNews: Here's the thing I wanna know Mike, How does a young man from Carmel Valley end up...

Mike: Well, I'm actually from right here in Monterey.

Gator News: That's even more so, there are at least horses out in the valley. Then, how does a kid from Monterey, which in itself is not exactly cowboy country, grow up to actively pursue the life of a working cowboy?

Mike: Monterey itself is not, but the surrounding area has a long, rich history in ranching and vaquero tradition. I went to school and church right up here in a mission that was built while the Vaqueros were doing their thing. This was the headquarters for ranching and a lot was going on around here in the past history. There are great horsemen in California, guys who influenced people all around the world...from right around here in Salinas. I made a point as a kid of working with all these people. While all my other friends were going to college I didn't go to school... I went and apprenticed with these guys, I wanted to be a cowboy and went and did it...you know lived the dream and its been fun...It's a great way to live.

Gator News: You know Mike, that is just great! I was thinking when I talked with you the other day, that here was someone that worked to get into the life I was born in (horse ranching)...and I on the other hand spent some years distancing myself from what I saw as the drudgery of cowboy and ranch work... although I would occasionally participate in rodeos in the early years and have kept horses most of the time (when situations permitted)...But you're right now that I think of it, the surrounding area surely has a long and rich history in ranching by the original cowboys...as well as the American cowboys that followed.

Mike: Yeah, there's such a rich history here, even though California is changing so fast. I've been having fun writing all these songs about California and cowboying from a real California outlook. That gets me in a bit of trouble from these guys that want me to keep doing the prehistoric stuff...this prehistoric music.

GatorNews: I had been told by Gary Brown that you were one heck of a guitar player and that your music was a mixture of styles included in your cowboy music. I found that to be true and enjoyed what you do. While the other influences are evident, it's still cowboy music, no doubt. While I certainly believe in preserving the old styles and passing them on as part of our heritage, I also know that tomorrow's traditional musics are being made today, as traditional also built upon, by doing just that building upon. Tradition is not something that you smoke and hang in the corner...if that were so we might well had stopped after the first primitive drumbeats or all still be stuck playing only the music of the middle ages...or whatever. I plan to release some of my favorite traditional cowboy songs when I do my western CD...but it will also include at least half of my own music that dances around the edges of traditional cowboy music.

Mike: Tradition grows and moves. Growing up here when I did, there was not a better place to be a kid in love with music. In 1967 we had the "Monterey Pop Festival" here and broke things wide open. After that there were the best acts of folk, jazz, rock, blues along with the Acid rock bands from San Francisco grooving, it was great. It was the California sound with the Beach Boys and all, it was just a fantastic place to be! I can't deny those roots that's what I listened to in my beginning, that's a part of who I am.

Gator News: You play all over the country, don't you Mike?

Mike: Well, not in the East, although there are people back there who try to get me to come. I get email and all from back there. Mostly I play the Western United States and Canada. I also do clinics to help people with their horses in Europe, mostly Scandinavia. I go to Norway, Finland, Sweden, and also England. I play a lot when I'm there and love it over there. In Norway the people who I run into don't know who Garth Brooks is man, they could care less. They are into Jerry Jeff Walker, Ian Tyson, Tom Russell, and Mike Beck.

Gator News: Is that not great Mike, it's...

Mike: It's great, it's really cool! I guess it has always been that way for reasons I don't know. Well, I did figure it out once...or at least my little take on it. The Jazz guys have always gotten so much respect over there...they always did from way back. Well, I was doing this clinic in Norway on a farm. There was a young guy there, it was his farm. He lived there with his wife you know, a good guy, didn't speak very much English. I gave him a CD at the end of the performance. I assumed this was a young couple leasing a place and asked him if he was going to be here for a clinic next year. He said, "next year? I was born here, my kids will be the 20th generation to have owned this place. We as Americans don't know of that. We have not been around long enough. I got to thinking that these people are so rooted that they might not think in the fly by the night type of way... being so rooted might have something to do with it.

Gator News: It's certainly different there. Good talent matter, sounds, tone, artistry matters. It's a good feeling for an artist...to be appreciated for being an artist, a creator. That in itself is a pretty stark difference from here in the United States. So you get to travel to Europe to work with peoples horses, cowboy in America and play your music to boot.

Mike: It's great Alligator. I help people up in Montana cowboying from time to time... I go to work with so many horses over in Europe, I'm about dizzy when I come home. I meet some cool people and have a good time, it's great over there. They want people to help them with their horses. They have been whacking on them for centuries and have finally found out that is not working. They are now looking for something different and just eat it up, every note.

Gator News: Their seems to be a new wave of horse handling going on now. More people are realizing that there's more to horses than working or riding them. There is a spirit in them that can be touched to enrich the lives of both the horse and rider. I'm guessing here but perhaps the movie, "The Horse Whisperer" might have had something to do with it?

Mike: Yeah...not really though, I think it's more grass roots than that. The movie turned out to be sort of a "Horses of Madison County" sort of a trashy romance novel that went over big. The thing is that people are looking for something. Horses bring something out in people. You can't just make a horse do something. You can make a car do this, you can make a motorcycle do that, a horse is a living, breathing, thing. You have to change yourself inside to get that horse to change. That might sound like a lot baloney, but it's true. Horses change something inside of people. I think God gave us these animals, put us together so that we could experience this. That's the draw. After working with these horses, people change. Someone might be the most rotten, hard person there is, but he's not gonna get anywhere with a horse. They don't care what kind of saddle you put on, what kind of pants you put on, what kind of fancy boots you're wearing. You have to really get inside of yourself and then these horses will change. You don't make horses do things. In my clinic we way, we won't make your horse do anything. You don't make your friends like you. Its fascinating to see the people change. I get CEO's of company's who in their lives don't need horses but they need them for their heart and soul. Horses are really close to us as mankind, they are almost in our genes. It was not to long ago that we really needed them, in fact we could not live without them. We in the past need horses to survive. There is something in there.

GatorNews: I know what you mean Mike, there is something in there that bonds us with these animal. I often have people ask me what do I miss most about the area that I grew up in... without missing a beat I'll reply horses. I have loved these noble creatures since I can, hell since I can remember myself. To this day they remain the single most important animal to me, for spiritual reasons as well as the pleasure of being one with a good mount. Mike, you have two releases out now, are there more?

Mike: Yeah, I have two with another to be out before next Christmas. This will be a real California thing. I've been playing these songs and they have a real California feel to them. I'm really enjoying them. I don't think anyone has touched on the California Cowboy thing, it's wide open, it's big and romantic. The history is very deep and pretty wild. I'm having fun with it and hope it's out before Christmas.

Gator News: There should be a wealth of material to draw from with all the events and colorful folks from this historic past.

Mike: Yes there is, but I don't write history lessons by any means, that would be dry. I just let that feeling come through and hope folks get it. A lot of people do get it. I have people come up to and say, "That's really cool 'cause we always hear things about our state that are not good." Most people forget that there is such a rich ranching history here, its big, wide and bold.

Gator News: Yeah, 'cause when you think about it, this whole areas especially Salinas still has a lot of cowboying going on.

Mike: When I was a kid there were still a lot of horses in the Monterey area. You could get on one and ride all the way to Carmel Valley...you had to go through a few ranches to do it but it was okay then. Now you can't do that, everything is all fenced off. I would love to stay here, I love it, the weather is great. But I want a place that can be my own, I can do that in Montana. I can't do that here.

Gator News: That has become more difficult I'd imagine, through the years, with the prices being so excessive. Well Mike, I'm really glad we could do this. I knew you would be an interesting feature. I plan to do a review of your music if there's room in the same issue.

Mike: That would be great Alligator and I thank you. That's a good thing you do with your magazine.

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Dirty Linen: Aug/Sept 1998
Mike Beck "Where The Green Grass Grows"
"Would you go way out west with me?" Mike Beck sings, and that's where he takes listeners in this collection of a dozen tunes. Beck is himself a working cowboy, and his choices in both original and cover tunes are driven by that. If you've heard Beck's first album, "Cowboys and Angels", though, you'll notice a difference. That disc was acoustic fold with spare guitar accompaniment. On this one, Beck chooses styles and instruments closer to country rock. The Western outlook and ethic still predominate. Although Beck's lyrical vision of the West isn't as unique as that of Ian Tyson (who co-wrote one of the songs in this collection) or Stephanie Davis, he does have a distinct viewpoint and style. (KD)

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The Sing Out Corp: 1998
Mike Beck: "Where The Green Grass Grows"
Montana-based Mike Beck sings and writes about the West. The first clue that he is one of the good 'uns comes from the back cover endorsement from Tom Russell, himself one of the best with a cowboy song. The second clue is Beck's dedication of the album to Ramblin' Jack Elliot. Clearly Mike's heart is in the right place from the starting gate.
The album contains 10 originals, one of them a co-write with Ian Tyson (clue #3), and live takes of the traditional "Old Chisolm Trail" and Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now" as a guitar solo.
Mike's songs often evoke the language and characters of the West. "In Old California," with a gut-string guitar lead like that of Marty Robbins' "El Paso," the waltz "Vaquero" about how urban sprawl has devoured the West, "Ropin' To Do" about the joy of the work, and the celebratory rocking "Life of a Buckaroo" -they all spring from the fount of real experience.
His band has a tight, road-tested confidence that does sometimes overpower the songs a bit, but Beck is a winsome singer, writer and player, and it is this that carries the album easily.  -MT

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The New Inn, Hambledon, Tuesday, Oct. 14, 1997
Hambledon, UK: Oct 1997 - Singing Cowboy
I was riding the internet range last week in search of this Nashville folk singer called Joyce Woodson. I received her UK gig list courtesy of the American folk list. I had phoned a couple of venues in and around the Bristol area. Both had her tape by neither were booking her into play.

With all this riding up blind canyons I discovered a UK folk list. Not as much to chew on as the American list but I discovered a Montana Cowboy winging about ten mile up the road from me.

Hambledon village is etched into the history books as the site of the first cricket match. The locals have three pubs to celebrate that in. The fourth is shut. With direction provided by Mike Beck's Hampshire friends I found the New Inn. A pitch black lane without lights, curtains pulled, the customary, swinging in the wind, pub sign missing from its iron hangings.

The from bar had a handful of locals shooting the breeze. I collected a substitute for Guinness (Beamish) which was a bit like a Texan going vegetarian. Then I looked around for the music. The place was as dead as a pin.

I knew it was going to be a cracking night from the moment I was led into this tiny back outhouse, all wooden beam cozy. I leant on an oak pillar at the back. The place was packed. Everyone seated at tables along each wall. There were children, teenagers, a couple of musicians holding guitars, all ages. An old villager is gently tapping his hand on one knee to a folk singer.

With the Queen's portrait on the fireplace wall this was about as English as a Montana cowboy could hope for. I guessed Mike Beck was the bloke sat in a chair to one side of me gently fingering over a guitar while he listened to the singer. He wore a cowboy neckerchief, had some fancy Western hide boots on, obligatory jeans and a rustic shirt. A short brimmed cowboy had was pulled tight on his head. Yep he was the singer from Montana. Even without a lasso.

The bearded singer introduced his last song, "This is by Guy Clark, " he said. Knock me down with a Guinness. It was one off Dublin Blues. A tape of which had arrived in the post only the night before from Brian Munro. I was one happy pig in shit to hear it.

Mike Beck sauntered to the front for the first of his two sets tonight. Knock me down with another Guinness. He began Michael Murphy's Geronimo's Cadillac. His guitar picking like his voice was subtle yet it carried as though it were milked.

The cowboy was on his first European visit. By day he's working horses for anyone who wants a real Montana cowboy to show 'em to rope and ride. By night he is singing for anyone who will provide him an opportunity to sit in front of an audience. He's glad to be England, "Where all our music started." Pleased not to be in Finland "Don't go to Finland, the food is terrible. After working horses all day we were served up this big dish of what looked like soup or stew. It had something resembling a moose bone sticking out of it."

His second song comes from one of his two albums "Cowboys and Angels and his latest "Where the Green Grass Grows." I am here for all this American prairie talk. Curling up when he says, "In Nevada they call us Buckaroos which is after the Mexican work, vaquero. Tonight becomes like sitting right inside Ian Tyson's song Claude Dallas.
Mike Beck tells a lovely road tale about the two passions of his life. Music and riding the range in Montana. "One you stay up all night, the other you have to be up early in the morning. They don't go together." After punching cows and horses for awhile he returns to music. Then he gets fed up with all the music biz people, the agents and the hoodwinkers. Quits and puts a big 'ol sky above him.

From this derives a great cowboy poem cum tale about an outlaw cook who was famous for cooking and killing in equal measures. It was full of sagebrush stew and campfire coffee. Beck mentions the National Cowboy Gathering in Nevada every year, "The Cowboy's Woodstock" he calls it. Those expecting cowboy hokum in the manner of the Sons of the Sage albums were going to be disappointed tonight.

The most traditional he got was to do that old Alan Lomax favorite "The Chisolm Trail." "Every time I do this in America, I always get some old timer come up to tell me I've missed out a verse. Then they sing me another verse I've never heard of."

Mike Beck mentions his respect for the cowboy songs of Woody Guthrie. He does one. Don't ask me which one but it reeked of the range. His intro tells of a fan trip he took to find Woody Guthrie's home in Oklahoma. There was hardly anything left. No more than a bit of bare ground but the lady at the post office had some pictures of how it had once been. Beck notes Guthrie's communist credentials which have probably stopped the politico's of American slick suit variety wishing to remember him.

Beck also performs a Rambling Jack Elliot song. He reminisces on how Rambling Jack is some character. The original torch carrier of Guthrie's flame who kept playing coffee houses while on Robert Dylan copied most of his style and signed himself up with CBS. At 68 years old, he's still out there touring in a camper van. Don't ask me what the song was but whatever it was it had all the hallmarks of classic American flat picking folk song. Full of black stove top coffee, dusty hobo boots and chewed tobacco spit.

At one point Beck had invited the half dozen people at the back to come sit around him at the front. I declined saying, "I can't see your guitar playing from over there." "I charge extra for guitar lessons, " he retorted. "Only kidding," he quickly added. The guitar work sounded so damn simple but it was sweet. He had every guitar picker in the room, and me bug eyed at his laconic combination of flat picked plectrum, palm deadened chords and string bends.

The folk club broke for interval. I got chatting with a couple of people. Bought a raffle ticket, grabbed a beer from the front bar. Mike Beck was at the bar grinning from ear to ear to be in a real part of England. In that first set Beck had noted that "The Little Big Horn was only 120 years ago. Just down the road from me. Your history goes back centuries, I feel privileged to be playing in this beautiful old place."

I never won the raffle but one of the helpers who collected my three quid for the night thought that I might have been an organizer. It was one of the friendliest places I had been in for a long time. When Mike Beck returned as the gig was about to restart I asked him he did any Ian Yyson songs like "Navajo Rug" or "Claude Dallas." "Claude Dallas, " he looked up surprised. "No", he said grinning. "You should, suits you to a T", I suggested. "Thank you, thank you very much," he smiled promising to do a Tyson song.

The second half started with a young guy who whipped up and down the banjo. Too much Lindisfarne Camptown Races not enough Nitty Gritty bluegrass for me. Technically he wasn't bad if a little short of feeling. He did a Gram Parsons song off of GP which I immediately warmed to. Then this big guy from Portsmouth took the stage with a young girl called Claire. He proceeded to lighten the banjo playing by asking, "What's the difference between a trampoline and a banjo? You take your boots off to jump on a trampoline..."

Claire sang two songs accompanied by the guitarist. The first was "Who Knows Where The Time Goes." She had a beautiful voice. Although nervous and singing off lyric sheets provided by the guitarist in the post that very morning she did a great version. The second song, I heard her say, afterwards was by Christine McVie. When she finished both of them she breathed a sigh.

Mike Beck returned to the stage thanking all the performers. He began with a song he had written with Ian Tyson. He describes Tyson's Alberta ranch where the songwriter has a log cabin where he writes his songs. Beck had been going up there to learn all he can.

He performs two poems in this half. Fitting each in between a song. The first is a humorous take on re-incarnation and the other is by cowboy poet, Bruce Kissakadin. More sagebrush tales about a lifestyle which has receded into the remote regions of this far flung country.

Moving away from the range Beck alludes to his time growing up in California. His introduction to a Richard Thompson tune is a classic. He talks of being on the road with Gene Parsons in Los Angeles when they came across a motorbike rally. "Cowboys aren't supposed to like cars but I can get away with a bike," he reckons. Amongst the Harleys and Japanese bikes, Beck spies a Triumph. He is out of his tree. The solid thud instead of the tinny parp form Japanese or the Harley's stuttery. It is the only bike that has a big pool of oil leaking from its sump.

There is also and English gent by the bike admiring the craftsmanship. "I said to him, 'Lovely bike'." Beck adapts to a beautiful piss take English aristocrat voice: "Its the only real bike here." Then Beck points to the pool of oil below the engine. "You don't see any rust do you?" responds the English gent. Then Mike Beck launches into Richard Thompson's motorbike song. Excellent topped only by what comes next.

Mike Beck alludes to Joni Mitchell. How he was traveling up in Joni's hometown recently and saw a young girl roller blading down the road. "I just wondered if she might blossom out into the world one day..." He does a beautiful rendition of a Joni Mitchell song as an instrumental. Crafted guitar picking, subtle as a snowflake. "Both Sides Now".

On a call from the back it is time to close the session down. Mike Beck squeezes in two songs. There first is something that might have fitted Ely's Letter to Laredo Session. "One day I am going to put a band together and go on the road. I'm not going to hire a bunch of Nashville pickers, they use too much hairspray. No, I'm going to get me a Marachi Mexican band. Because the Mexicans are great. They know the best places to eat, they wear the coolest uniforms, those big sombreros."

On this one the guitar has tinges of Borderlands Texas and Mexico split by the Rio Grande. From here he has one song to play like the last card in a hand poker. He alludes to his growing up in California, to the day his mum took her kids to the Cow Palace in San Francisco to see an English band called the Beatles. I Wanna Hold Your Hand in an English folk club complete with sing-a-long chorus from the audience.

Mike Beck. Montana singing cowboy. Not a dude ranch city slicker or a line dancer in sight. The real "thang".  -Mike Plumbley

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Park County Weekly: Aug 1997
Out West, "Where the Green Grass Grows", I knew it was due to be released, but it had slipped to the back of my mind. I spoke with Mike Beck a couple of months ago; he was so high on his new recording that I couldn't wait to hear the tracks he had laid down. Mike said that it was a slight departure from his earlier work, one that he thought I would like. He was flying with anticipation, and the feeling was contagious. Well, this was the week. I have a copy of "Where the Green Grass Grows" on my player.

If you don't know Mike Beck as a singer/songwriter/guitar player, you might guess that he was a working cowboy. You would be right. Mike has been working horses from California to Nevada and Montana ever since taking a turn toward the open spaces, at the same time his buddies were leaving for college. Those experiences on the back of a horse, in the sage and under the stars, far from the closest television set gave Mike time to hone his skills on the guitar. Those days have also found their way into Mike's lyrics, with songs of the West as was, and is.

"Where the Green Grass Grows", is a departure, not for Mike - he is playing his songs in a style he knows and loves, but if you are only familiar with Mike Beck form his 1994 release, "Cowboys and Angels", this is your chance to hear a broader Beck. Take a quick look at the cover of each recording. Cowboys...has a black and white duotone photo of Mike strumming an acoustic guitar, sitting in the doorway of an aging log cabin. The cover sets the tone for this wonderful, generally acoustic collection of western/folk tunes. "Where the Green Grass Grows", by contrast, sparkles with a full color close up of Mike's face on the cover. The flip side has Mike standing in that green grass holding his electric telecaster.

"Where the Green Grass Grows", is a twelve song collection filled with western imagery Beck's songs are known for. Saddles, spurs, sage brush, black and white dogs, and Elko, Nevada all find their place. Yes, the themes are pleasingly familiar, but the sound has changed. The instrumentation takes a cue from the country/rock bands of the 60's and 70's. The Flying Burrito Brothers, New Riders of the Purple Sage and the Clarenc White era Byrds immediately come to mind, as Mike's stringbender guitar whines out its tune, intertwining with what Mike calls "hippy steel". He and I have spent many a conversation discussing our common love of those "hippy" country bands, so it was no surprise when I was grabbed by the first notes on this CD. Mike found the spot where "Americana rides West." Let me tell you about a few of the tunes you will be hearing when you get the chance to sit down with this one.

The disc starts with the title cut, "Where the Green Grass Grows", as the singer searches for the connection between the old and new Wests, hoping the things he loves form the "old" will always be found in the "new". Mike sings "Spend my day in the saddle ridin' along, the wind through the sage is still my favorite song...the cowboy life brings little pay, you're crazy to be out here anyway, you gotta want'a lay where the green grass grows." A similar theme is voiced in "Don't Tell Me", a song listing many of the things that the singer hopes won't disappear from the West. Mike sings, "I want to saddle my horse in the darkness, trot out though the morning dew, I want to breathe the air that's never been breathed, I want to drink the wine of freedom and toast the good ones that we knew, I want to count a million stars and think of you..."

"Vaquero" and "In Old California" (co-written with Ian Tyson) both take on a Spanish tone, as they tell a reverent tale of the west as it was a century ago. The changes that have taken place over those hundred years are there to be discovered. Beck laments those changes in "I Can't Find Juanita." The singer complains that in what once had been the wide open West "horses stand in little back yards...(and) the interstate took main street away."

"Ballad of Jimmy Day", is the sad story of a cowboy who lost his way after "a bullet in Vietnam shatter more than his hip." The cowboy strayed farther and farther without taking advice that "each of has a path of hope, we're all give a ray of light, if you wander far off course you start to loose sight."

On a lighter note, Beck finds poetry in the art of throwing a rope in "Ropin To Do" as he sings "Life is good - there's ropin to do." The shear fun the singer finds in ropin' cannot be denied.

Beck's acoustic side is used to great advantage in the hauntingly beautiful "If You Could", a duet with Canadian singer Cindy Church. Reminiscent of "If I were a Carpenter" taken to the west, the singer asks, "If you could would you go, way out west with me." He questions if she would follow and stay, not only join him but to join his west, in an effort to unite both loves. The voices of Beck and Church intertwine, making the listener question how much might be sacrificed when trying to hold the things you love together.

Mike brings back two songs found on earlier recordings, "Vision Seeker" and "Life of a Buckaroo" breathing a new country/rock life into each. In "Life of a Buckaroo", Beck sings of his lifestyle's naysayers, "Most folks say you're wasting your time, get with it kid you're really in your prime, they don't know nothing 'bout you or the life of a buckaroo." Sounds like and attitude that applies to many professions.

Beck closes out the disc with two covers, and instrumental, acoustic version of Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now" and the western standard "Old Chisolm Trail." Both fit well with the Beck originals. Yes, "Where The Green Grass Grows" is a departure, while at the same time complementing Mike Beck's past work.... Strong songwriting and singing find a home in the midst of stringbenders and steels.

The entire recording can be summed up in these words from "Don't Tell Me", when Mike sings, "Don't tell me the west is dead and gone, my heart can't stand to hear that sad old song, if you're saying son you've missed it all, here's hopin' that you're wrong, don't tell me the west is dead and gone..." As long as there are "Mike Becks" loving the West and singing about it, the West will never be gone.

"Where the Green Grass Grows" is available locally at Mountunes or contact Reata Records, PO Box 55, Gallatin Gateway, MT 59730.   -Jeff Eads

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Dirty Linen: April/May 1996
Mike Beck: Cowboys and Angels (Reata Records 1995)
Ian Tyson, Michael Martin Murphy, Tish Hinojosa- you can pretty much count them as the foremost contemporary troubadors of the American West. Mike Beck is on the way to joining that list with his second release, which is full of sparsely composed and performed portraits of people who have crossed Beck's path. Tyson co-wrote one song and guests on another.

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Lively Times: June 1996
Mike Beck is part buckaroo, part child of the 60's. He watched Jimi Hendrix burn his guitar at the Monterey Folk Festival, rubbed elbows with Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, listened to Country Joe and the Fish.

He also learned to break colts, settle a rope neatly 'round the neck of a steer and rock easily in a saddle for hours on end. Those sensibilities - a prairie apart - saddled up next to each other on his new recording, "Cowboys and Angels". The music is western, but describes a disappearing West; it's cowboy, but about contemporary cowboys.

Ian Tyson, folk hero and cowboy singer, co-wrote one song and lent his resonant voice to another. Kostas, the Montana songwriter who's built a following among Nashville stars, also co-wrote a tune, "It's had the laying on of hands" says Beck.

His audience is pleased too. "I've been getting great feedback. People write and tell me they put it on in the middle of nowhere and dance to it. They usually order a couple more."

Song-making is a relatively new pursuit for the musician. He was raised in the Carmel Valley, along the coast of northern California, and moved to Montana 22 years ago. He now lives in Gallatin Gateway, a small community on the fringe of Bozeman.

Beck has been a guitarist for 29 years, ever since his local record store gave him "a little Japanese guitar called a Marco Polo" when he was 13. "They made me promise I'd never come in the store again." He's backed countless musicians, including Rob Quist and Suzy Bogguss.

He's also been a buckaroo - cowboy who broke colts professionally and spent two years riding the range on a two-million acre ranch in Nevada. He spent last month at a ranch in the foothills of the Sierras, "just riding colts, watching the place, writing a few songs." He's also writing music for an instructional video on how to doctor cattle on the range and catch calves and brand them.

"The fact that I've really cowboyed and really played the guitar - the combo is pretty rare." It's that combination, he believes, that caught Ian Tyson's ear. "I gave him my tape. He said he already had a barrel-full at home. Ok, I said. Here's one more for your barrel."

Tyson, who lives on a ranch in Alberta, has since become something of a mentor, coaching Beck in the hard work and discipline that song writing requires. When they write together, they begin with a story line. "We'll say, 'what do we want to write about tomorrow?' It's like writing a little novel we put together."

"Ian doesn't want a guitar around when we start writing. Then he gets a melody in his head and wants me to find it on the guitar."

Kostas, on the other hand, keeps his hands on the guitar while composing. "Like a friend says, "I bring these songs to him and he fixes them.' He's quite the tunesman."

In addition to Kostas and Tyson, the new album features other familiar performers - especially to Montana audiences, Ben Winship of the bluegrass band Loose Ties, adds mandolin and Claudia Williams of Montana Rose, sings a duet on "My Baby". Other contributors include Rich Rabisco on bass, Carlo Damiano on keyboard, Michael Blessing on native drum and snare and Rich O'Brien on Mexican guitar.

Already, Beck is imagining his next recording and has enough songs to make it. Something a little more electric he predicts. "More like Tom Petty meets Gene Autry."  -Kristy Niemeyer

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Western Horseman: Aug 1995
A good album should be able to take you somewhere in your head, and transform whatever mood you were in when the music began. Here's one that takes you to the kind of buckaroo country that I call more and more of less and less, where they run out of names for the roads, and make do with numbers.

Mike Beck is a voice of that bare, windy part of the earth, and like many a top hand, he makes his own gear - in this case, his songs. He wrote eight of the eleven songs presented here, adapted one from traditional versions, and co-wrote two. Claudian Williams joins in vocally on a 90's song titled, "My Baby Makes a Better Hand Than Me," which contains the line, "I bet Casey Tibbs is sittin up in her family tree!"

The final recommendation for this album is Ian Tyson's involvement. He co-wrote the lead son, "Fire of the West," and sings on another. Tyson also wrote the liner notes to the album. He concludes with "Don't miss this one." So don't.  -GV

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KGLT: April 1995
I have the pleasure of expressing to you my excitement of a new release from one of our local recording artists, Mike Beck. "Cowboys and Angels" is the name of it, and I think you may want to consider reviewing it...

Mike has been a guest on my radio program and has a strong regional following of fans and friends. He has been recently touring with Ian tyson, and a few months ago opened up for him here in Bozeman.

On this project, Beck sings with equal amounts of heart and clarity. I can almost hear the campfire crackling and feel the night air under and open sky as Mike sings the songs and accompanies himself on guitar. He writes songs with skill and passion from voices he's heard, cowboys he's known and worked with or been inspired by. Almost all the songs Beck originals; one is traditional and two are co-written - one with Ian Tyson, the other with Kostas. (Not a bad company of songwriters!)

Mike Beck's guitar accompaniment (mostly acoustic, with some sweet Telecaster work) is augmented by tasteful use of the Parsons/White Stringbender. (He really knows his Clarence White, and is friends with Gene Parsons)

Along with some fine backup musicians on "Cowboys & Angels, " my favorite contributor is the fine mandolinist, Ben Winship of Loose Ties.

Be sure and check out the tracks that have special guests singing with Mike Beck: "Juan Guadalupe" with Ian Tyson vocal and excellent Mexican guitar by Rich O'Brien; and "My Baby" with Claudia Williams. My particular favorite cut I'm playing so far on my show is "Rubin's Song" with that old-time tune 'Been All 'Round the World' feel to it.

"Cowboys and Angles" won't get heard by as many as could benefit from it, unless folks like you and me get it on the air and the trade publications. Please, give it a listen, and see if you , too, don't get roped in by this cowhand's guitar pickin' and singin'.  -Rik James

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Montana Magazine: 1993
Mike Beck got tired of repetitive country music themes of cheatin', drinkin', and love gone wrong. So he started writing his own country songs.

Beck writes about ranch life and cowboying. He says his themes are universal, with a western flavor. "My songs show there's still a cowboy and ranch culture out here, and it's not the faked movie thing," Beck said.

"There's a part of everyone that wishes to be a cowboy. People come up to me and tell me their stories after hearing me sing one of mine."

Beck started writing his own songs after playing at the cowboy poetry gathering in Elko, Nevada. "It was like cowboy Woodstock," he laughed. "Over 12,000 people there of all kinds, farmers, bankers to judges to blue collar workers to ranch hands. I listened to the poetry and the music, and thought 'I could like doing that.' So I started writing, and haven't stopped. I even wake up in the middle of the night sometimes, and get up to write the song in my head."

His first recording, "Life of a Buckaroo" has two of his own songs, some poetry set to music, and popular country songs. His second recording is entirely original, and will be released this winter. On it, "Vision Seeker" tells of an Indian cowboy raised on the Rocky Boy Reservation. "My Baby is a Better Hand Than Me" is a humorous tale of a cowboy realizing his girl can rope better and ride better than he.

Beck spent some time cowboying in Nevada, California, and Montana before settling down to run a horse center in the Gallatin Valley. He performs in coffeehouses, folk clubs and schools, and for festival and other special occasions.

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