Grombacher and Black bring cowboy music to Thermopolis

Two troubadours are riding into Thermopolis for a full day of contemporary cowboy music.

Friday, September 14 western music songwriters Kerry Grombacher and Aspen Black will present “From Idea to Radio: An Interactive Program” in the morning for students at Thermopolis Middle School, perform a short concert for residents at the Wyoming Pioneer Home in the afternoon, and then finish the day with a house concert at the home of Jacky and Michael Wright.

The middle school assembly will be in the commons from 10:30-11:10 a.m. and the Wyoming Pioneer Home performance is 2-3 p.m. The house concert is full.

Grombacher’s and Black’s songs draw vivid portraits and tell fascinating stories that are set in the Western landscape, where they’ve worked and traveled with cowboys and Indians, ranchers and rodeo riders, outfitters and chuckwagon cooks, and lawmen and lawbreakers.

“It’s an honor to be asked to return to Thermopolis for a school program and a concert, and a pleasure to introduce Aspen Black, an accomplished musician and educator, to the community that I’ve visited frequently over the past twenty years,” said songwriter Grombacher recently. “We’re looking forward to performing for seniors at the Wyoming Pioneer Home, too. Our mothers both live in senior facilities, so we’re attuned to their need for, and pleasure in, music.”

“The workshop program that we’re presenting, ‘From Idea to Radio,’ is specially designed for middle school students, who are immersed in music every day,” added Black. “We’ll take the students along on the songwriter’s journey from inspiration to writing a song, and then adding music to the lyrics to create a radio-ready recording. They hear music all the time; here’s a chance to learn how it’s made, and how it reaches broadcast radio or internet streaming sites.”

Grombacher and Black, both successful solo artists, have worked together as a duo since 2014, performing nationwide for arts councils, house concerts, festivals, museums, and libraries. Their songs are influenced by the English ballad tradition, the string-band music of Aspen’s Appalachian home, and the corridors of the desert Southwest, where Kerry has lived and worked.

Grombacher plays guitar and mandolin. His songs have been featured on the ABC-TV adventure travel show, “Born to Explore,” and on the Putumayo World Records CD “Cowboy Playground,” which was released in over 60 countries. He has released five albums of original songs, and his songs have been recorded by a list of artists that includes Jim Jones, Belinda Gail, The Texas Trailhands, Gary Prescott, and Trails & Rails.

Black plays guitar and bass. She released a new CD of Cowboy Poetry, “Tales from the Road,” in 2018. Aspen’s “Lovin’ the West” won the Rural Roots Music Commission’s 2017 Classic Western CD of the Year award, and her “Eastern-Western Cowgirl” was the 2015 Female Country-Western CD of the Year. She was a Top Five finalist for the International Western Music Association’s Female Poet of the Year in 2015, 2016, and 2017, and her poetry CD, “Invisibility,” was a Top Five finalist for Cowboy Poetry CD of the Year in both 2015 and 2016.

The sponsor for these programs is Hot Springs Greater Learning Foundation.

For more information about Black’s and Grombacher’s programs in Thermopolis, please contact Jacky Wright on 307 864 4070.