Pokin’ Fun

The show at The Met on Valentine’s Day will be a veritable yodeling extravaganza.

After all, when you put Sourdough Slim and Wylie Gustafson together on one stage, you’re bound to hear a lot of odle-ay-hee-hoo.

Slim is a California cowboy yodeler. Wylie is our region’s own yodeling star, as heard on the Yahoo commercials.

Yet yodeling will be only a small part of the evening. For one thing, the show is being billed as an evening of “Cowboy Love Songs,” which is only fitting on Valentine’s Day. Expect to hear a few love ballads, not all of which will be directed at a horse.

For another, Sourdough Slim’s act goes far beyond yodeling. He’s an all-around cowpoke entertainer, whose act also includes:

Western lore: Slim is a teller of tall tales, who has honed his storytelling skills at events such as the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering.

Accordion playing: Yes, Slim accompanies himself on that oft-maligned yet infectious one-man-band instrument.

Rope-twirling: Slim knows how to create some magic with a lariat.

Cowboy comedy: Slim is a purveyor of Western humor. In fact, he bills himself as a “comical minstrel” of the West.

Add all of these things together and the result should be an all-around entertaining evening.

A reviewer for the Nevada Appeal described it this way: “Audience members – impressed by his cascading yodels while two-steppin’ and fingering the accordion strapped to his chest – were speechless when he did all of those things and spun a flat lariat simultaneously.”

Slim is the stage name of Rick Crowder, who was born in Hollywood and grew up on the family cattle ranch at the base of the Sierras.

He began developing his comic Western persona in the 1970s and 1980s when he performed in several Western touring bands. Soon he worked out a solo act, playing the part of an accordion-playing, yodeling cowhand.

It caught on. He may be the only man ever to yodel, play the accordion and twirl a lariat at Carnegie Hall.

Now, he’ll be doing the same thing at The Met, with help from Wylie Gustafson, the most famous cowpoke ever to come out of Dusty, Wash.

Like Slim, Wylie recently returned from the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nev., where he appeared with his father, Rib Gustafson, an author of numerous books on ranch life.