Montana's yodeling cowboy Wylie Gustafson keeps playing traditional country songs

Most people have heard his famous yodel in Yahoo.com commercials, but Wylie Gustafson’s fans appreciate him for decades of country western music that he says is inspired by his love for life on the plains.  

Gustafson has two careers. One is music, of course, which he has been doing for over 35 years professionally. The other is ranching, which preoccupies a lot of his time in the summer.

"I have a horse ranch just out of Conrad where we raise horses and also raise a lot of hay,” he said. “We have some irrigated ground, so we do a lot of irrigating. There’s lots of things to do in the summertime, besides touring.” 

But he’s still out playing shows, which is sometimes hard to balance with responsibilities on the ranch. His band play shows throughout the Northwest where dedicated fans will travel to seek him out. His website features testimony from a Minnesota State Fair official who said they always hire Gustafson because they know he will bring in a crowd and delight newcomers as well. 

Knowing how to pull in a crowd is nothing new for Gustafson, who has been performing since he was a teenager in Conrad. His father played guitar and sang “old cowboy songs” and old folk music, which was a huge influence on him. Growing up in the 60s and 70s, Gustafson would listen to radio stations out of Shelby and Great Falls which were playing contemporary country music, but KMLN specifically had a traditional country music show that played songs from the 40s and 50s.  

“To me, the golden era of country music is 50s and 60s. So, I really got hooked on that style of music. And growing up listening to those radio shows," Gustafson said.  

His older brother Eric needed a “cheap bass player” for his band when Gustafson was around 13 years old. By the time he graduated high school and was off to the University of Montana, the group was making decent money playing proms and other events on the weekends, he said.  

“The name of that band was The Talk ... we got to be pretty popular in the Northwest college town circuit and bar circuit, and then we got a little bit of recognition,” Gustafson said. “Some of the music we recorded was picked up by a music producer and put in a movie ... So, that kind of got us interested in life outside of Montana.” 

The Talk ended in 1986, but Gustafson decided to try to make it in Los Angeles. He made the switch to full country and got a band together that would play the Palomino Club, which allowed them to play original country music. There was a lot of opportunity in Los Angeles for him and his bandmates — country music was more popular than ever, with acts like Dwight Yoakam and others finding popularity in southern California. They started getting recognized by the local music industry. After getting management in the early 90s, they were able to start recording music videos for Country Music Television, or CMT, and The Nashville Network. Music videos were a big deal for country artists then, Gustafson said. In the eye-catching video for “Yodeling Fool” he’s seen jamming out in front of some of Glacier National Park’s famous landmarks.  

Another area for opportunity in southern California was music for commercials.  

“Yodeling was kind of used in TV commercials a lot, so they started hiring me. I was probably the only one of the only yodelers down in that part of the world,” Gustafson said. “And in 1996 the company that worked for Yahoo said, ‘Yahoo needs a yodel, will you do it for them?’ That happened in 1996 ... and the rest is history.”  

At that time, he knew websites were growing quickly. Even though it was Yahoo’s first year as a public company it was quickly rising in popularity. Soon, he wouldn’t be able to get away from his own yodel.  

“I was watching the Super Bowl in1999 and I heard my yodel at the end of one of their big commercials. So, that was kind of a cool deal. And that's when they really started using the yodel—  it kind of turned into an audio logo for Yahoo. They used it in all their commercials, they used it on their emails,” he said.   

WYLIE AND The Wild West Show began recording albums in 1992 when their videos started playing on CMT. He puts out a record “every couple of years” with 24 albums in total, according to his website. Gustafson had firmly found his place in the country music industry — he said he and his band have played the Grand Ole Opry over 50 times. 

But he was never interested in moving to the Music City. After nearly a decade in Los Angeles, he moved back to Conrad.  

“There's always been a connection in Nashville, and I love to go out there and do the Grand Ole Opry, one of my favorite things to do ... I do have my connections to Nashville, but at the same time, I'm really comfortable not moving there. I want to live this lifestyle out west. So, when I write, you know it, it rings true,” he said. 

After 24 albums of country western music, how does one continue to find inspiration? Gustafson said he mines it from his daily life as a rancher in Conrad. He’s a fourth-generation rancher and enjoys spending time on his homestead with his wife Jenny and their children.  

A good country western song evokes and reflects on such a lifestyle. 

"Unfortunately, you listen to modern country nowadays and you don't get much of that. You get some artificial reflection of what life is like in Nashville ... But the music that I do listen to would be like Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard, they sang about country life. And their music just reeked of a lifestyle that was of the west and of country,” Gustafson said.  

His latest album “Bunchgrass” came out in 2023 and saw some success on the Americana charts, where a lot of traditional and alternative country music can be found these days. It’s a competitive chart, and Gustafson said he appreciates it because the mix reminds him of what radio stations played in the 70s, where the best stuff “bubbled to the top.”  

It’s only made him more excited for the next release, which is set to come out sometime in 2025.  

Music is a huge part of his life, and as he grows older, the more he is in awe of its power.  

"It’s a great gift from God to have music in our lives. We listen to music when we're happy, we listen to it when we're sad. It's just one of those wonderful things that that a lot of people connect with,” he said. “We have a lot of hardcore fans that stay in touch with me and through Facebook and whatnot. They write me little notes saying how important our music is to them, and that's a huge deal for me” 

Gustafson will perform for the Press Play show on Nov. 1, a lunchtime concert series hosted by the Daily Inter Lake. Subscribers can join for a unique music listening experience at the Daily Inter Lake by donating to the Newspapers in Education initiative.  

Concertgoers can bring lunch or purchase lunch from The House of S&M.   

Tickets are available at FlatheadTickets.com or by calling 406-758-4436. The performance will be live streamed on the Daily Inter Lake Facebook and Instagram pages.  

More information about Gustafson’s music can be found at www.wyliewebsite.com.  Watch and listen to Press Play concerts on the Daily Inter Lake’s YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/@daily_inter_lake or through a podcast app.  

Reporter Taylor Inman can be reached at 406-758-4433 or by emailing tinman@dailyinterlake.com.