Total Yodel

In the Dusty Cafe, Wylie Gustafson’s autographed CDs and tapes are displayed right below the cheeseburger and chili prices. But his friends in the town of Dusty, Wash., (pop. 12) know the country-western singer best between his road gigs with his band, Wylie and the Wild West. That’s when he comes home to tend the 600-acre spread he ranches with his wife, Kimberly, and joins neighbors in friendly roping competitions.

Growing up on a ranch in northwestern Montana, Gustafson learned cowboy songs and yodeling from his dad. Now he honors the Western lifestyle and yodeling’s deep roots in traditional country music by writing songs like The Gather, drawn from childhood memories of rounding up cattle on the Two Medicine River.

“My father was probably one of my biggest musical influences,” says Gustafson, 42. “He always had a guitar and loved to sing songs like Cattle Call and yodel.”

Yodeling crept into cowboy songs in the ’30s and ’40s when an Austrian who sang with an Oklahoma Western swing band would let loose with a wild yodela-hee-hee, Gustafson says. It caught on with performers like Gene Autry, Eddy Arnold, and Montana Slim.

Gustafson wrote his first yodeling song in 1989. It was a “crowd stopper,” he says, and he now includes several in each act. He recorded his most famous album, Total Yodel, in 1998 and yodeled in commercials for Taco Bell, Porsche, Miller Lite and supplied the now famous yodel for Yahoo!. His latest CD, Glory Trail, a cowboy gospel album, was released in 2002.

Gustafson performs 100 dates a year, from cowboy poetry festivals and state fairs to the Grand Ole Opry, where he’s appeared numerous times and sung with Merle Haggard. But his real version of paradise is the view from the Cross Three Ranch that his wife’s great-grandfather homesteaded in 1905. It’s where Gustafson lives out the Western lifestyle he celebrates in song, raising cattle, and training cutting and roping horses.

“The first thing I do when I get home from a trip is head for the pasture, saddle a horse, and start riding,” Gustafson says. “It’s my way to unwind and switch gears.”

Home is also Dusty, an unincorporated town with a grain elevator, farm co-op, gun club, and cafe that’s named after the dust storms that close local roads. It may seem like an unlikely place to launch a singing career, but Gustafson, who once tried the Los Angeles music scene, couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. His life is deeply woven in the fabric of this rural community. He and his wife worship at the Country Bible Church two miles down the road with 20 to 40 neighbors. He also helps dig graves in the local cemetery. “It’s the men’s social,” Gustafson says. “It’s a time to do a little mourning and catch up on the news.”

Gustafson and Kim pitch in at spring branding and fall roundups, and Gustafson always breaks out his guitar when ranchers gather around a summer bonfire.

Neighbor Judy Johnson recalls Wylie’s and Kim’s thoughtfulness. “If we have to be gone, they do our chores,” Johnson says. “I had surgery one time, and Wylie sent me a cassette tape of him singing to help me get better.” She also praises Gustafson’s generosity. “He’s very community-minded,” Johnson adds. “He’s gone to local libraries and schools and worked with kids teaching them to yodel. When a few people in the community had cancer, he’s done a benefit for them.”

Despite a busy singing career, he doesn’t envision becoming another Garth Brooks.

“We’re a mom-and-pop operation, and that’s the way we want to keep it,” says Wylie, who notes that Kim hand-packs every CD they send out. “That’s why a lot of our fans like us, because we’re a treasure that hasn’t been discovered yet.”

Karen Karvonen is a frequent contributor.

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