Music school hosts Tall Tales and Tall Songs — an evening with Bill Rossiter
Local musician Bill Rossiter will perform Tall Tales and Tall Songs at the Northwest Montana History Museum June 22, hosted by North Valley Music School. (Courtesy photo)
North Valley Music School invites the community to attend an evening of Tall Tales and Tall Songs performed by local musician Bill Rossiter June 22.
During the free event, which starts at 6 p.m., Rossiter will focus on Lewis and Clark as they traveled through Montana looking for a dream. He will also share the songs and stories of hunters, adventurers, homesteaders, and gold-seekers who wandered the West seeking other dreams.
These travelers braved the wilderness with hand tools and ox-drawn wagons, singing hopeful songs about the land of milk and honey. By the time they settled on their claims, they were singing more homemade and often hilarious songs about alkali water, grasshoppers, chickens, and leaky sod huts.
Rossiter will also play guitar, banjo, autoharp and various ungainly kitchen and laundry utensils.
Rossiter taught literature and folklore for 25 years at Flathead Valley Community College and the University of Montana. He currently rambles around the Northwest, singing songs of the railroad, heroes and outlaws, Irish immigration, Civil War, the frontier, cowboys and sodbusters, mines and miners, the Great Depression and other eras of American history. In 2015, he received the Montana Governor’s Award for his contributions to the humanities.
The event will be held at the Northwest Montana History Museum, 124 2nd Ave. E., Kalispell. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. There will be light refreshments.
The event is free and open to the public thanks to a grant from Humanities Montana.
For more information, visit northvalleymusicschool.org or call 862-8074.