Don Edwards Tunes Into Cowboy Lore

Let’s draw a fine but important distinction here.

Don Edwards, who appears Thursday at The Met, sings western music, not country and western, and certainly not country.

Edwards possesses a fine baritone and mines the rich lode of western music, which is also called cowboy music. It’s unadorned, plain-spoken music that tells the history of the West, largely because much of it was written by the people who were there.

One listen to Edward’s new CD, “West of Yesterday,” will remind astute listeners of two great western singers, Marty Robbins and Eddie Arnold. The genre has faded from public view in the past decade or two, but it’s still vital and even magical in the right hands.

For years, Edwards and his band were the house band at Fort Worth’s famous White Elephant Saloon, where he was part owner for many years.

He’s one of the performers who turned on Michael Martin Murphey to cowboy music and now sings for Warner Western, the division of Warner Brothers Music which Murphey helped found.

Two of his albums, “Guitars & Saddle Songs” and “Songs of the Cowboy,” are included in the Archives of the Library of Congress, and he was honored with the National Cowboy Hall of Fame’s Outstanding Traditional Music award for his “Chant of the Wanderer” CD.

Dick Warwick, a cowboy poet from Oakesdale, will open Thursday’s show.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: CONCERT Don Edwards will perform at 8 p.m. Thursday at The Met. Tickets are $10, available at G&B Select-a-Seat outlets or call 325-SEAT.