Interview: Dave Stamey - "Damn Lucky Cowboy..."

In your song called "It's The West" you sing about the life in the West that you define as "a feelin' and sometimes a state of mind". Do you think the place we chose to live in reflects our personality?

Personality is too light a word. The power of any landscape is how it makes you feel, both good and bad. Each region carries its own culture and lifestyles: the South is what it is, New England is what it is, and so on. If you get to choose where you live—and many folks don’t, because of economic or other factors—I believe the choice you make is a reflection of who you are as a human being, heart and soul, cell and molecue. For many of us, the West is the only region that rings that bell. 

The places I love to recall are those far from the hustle and bustle of the urban agglomeration that I visited as a child with my grandfather. Is there any special place from your childhood that you would like to visit again?

In my travels I’ve had the good fortune to revisit all those old places. The most satisfying has been the high plains of central and eastern Montana. Again, the region that sets your molecules thrumming. There’s a spot between Billings and Roundup that is the quinessentail landscape of my childhood, where the country rolls gently down from the caprock toward a serpentine creekbed, and the vista beyond stretches for endless miles to the horizon. You can almost see the dust clouds from the Sioux raiding parties in the distance. The last time we were on that road I stopped the car, climbed through the barbed wire fence and just stood there, taking it all in. It confused my wife. She looked around, trying to understand what I was doing. She said, "What are you looking at? What is it?" I spread my arms to encompass the world, and said, "It’s Montana!" 

I asked about this because your songs are like a landscape of life that is given to a few. Has a cowboy fate always been your dream, or maybe it was a choice you were forced to make?

The Ranching Culture is what I grew up in. I wasn’t given a choice. Many folks who are raised in that world can’t wait to escape from it, because there’s not much money, damn few swimming pools, whippy sports cars or retirement plans. I chose to embrace it because, for me, the romance of the cowboy was lodged pretty deep inside.

While listening to the songs you sing, I also sense a hint of nostalgia, longing for what is already gone. Don Edwards' "Coyotes" is the best example of this. You recorded this song for "Campfire Waltz" album. So what differences do you see between the world you remember from your youth and the world you observe now? Are we getting closer to the moment where the last of the coyotes will howl?

It’s not that the last coyote will soon be howling. It’s just that damn few people seem to be listening anymore. The world I remember from my youth celebrated the cowboy as one of its major heroes. The farmers and ranchers or Rural America were considered important members of the population. These days not so much. The media outlets are focused solely on the urban centers, I suppose because that’s where all the money and all the votes are. Rural folks are ignored. Resoundingly ignored. Sometimes vilified, and often ridiculed. The Rural American West is the most under-represented segment of our society, and that’s a tragedy.

Your music career has been going on continuously for over 20 years now. When you think about it in retrospect, what is the most important lesson you've learned about yourself?

That I have been incredibly fortunate. There are many, many talented, creative singer-songwriters out there, much more talented than I, and yet they struggle. I managed to catch the tail end of the renewed interest in Western music that peaked in the nineties, and built an audience from there. Timing.

Over the years, you have received many prestigious awards. In 2016, you were also inducted into the Western Music Hall of Fame. Do you feel like a fulfilled artist?

People from outside can make that judgement. An artist cannot. Or should not. It’s dangerous to think that way. Very dangerous. To use a time-worn, moldy description, every artist has a fire inside, the urge to work, to create. Considering yourself fulfilled is to say, ”There, I’ve done it all, I’ve arrived, I can rest now.” It puts the fire out. Your job is to work, period. In spite of successes or failures. Picasso kept producing well into his nineties. So did Irving Berlin. Ian Tyson is still writing good songs, and he’s in his ate eighties. You put your head down and do the work, every day. Let the world praise or condemn. That’s not your business. 

Your last album entitled "Good Dog" was released in 2019. In each of its songs you confirm your amazing talent for storytelling. I also have the impression that there is a truth about ourselves in these stories you tell. Do you agree with my point of view? What is the message of your songs?

Cecil B. DeMille allegedly once said, ”Messages are for Western Union.” I never think about messages or agenda when I’m writing these things. I try to tell the truth as best I can. We all go through the same emotional experiences, and when you touch one of them everybody gets it, because we’ve all been there. That’s what is so magical about music. 

One of my favorite on this album is called "Madam Zarelda", a bittersweet story about ... Well, I'm curious how would you describe this song? What inspired you to write it?

I wrote that song because no one else had written it yet. It was just a little piece of the American mosaic that had gone un-noticed. I thought it was worth singing about.

We are approaching to the end of our conversation, but before that happens, can you tell me about your musical plans for the coming months? And of course when can we expect your new album?

I just plan to keep my head down, keep slogging along. I have no other marketable skills. We have a new project on the workbench, 14 or 15 new songs, but like all of my projects it seems to be moving at a glacial pace. I hope to release it by the end of this year, but don’t hold me to that. It will be done when it’s done.

Speaking about the future, where do you see yourself in 5 years from now as an artist and as an songwriter? Any idea what might happen with your music in that time?

I’ve got no idea what I’ll be doing five years from now. I hope exactly the same thing I’ve done the last twenty-five or thirty years. I hope I’m still spreading this music around, I hope I’m still entertaining folks. I’m so amazed at where this career has taken me, the things Ive seen and the joyful experiences I’ve had, anything that happens from here on out is just gravy. 

And if you were to sum up your career in three different words, which ones would you use?

The three words that sum up my career are pretty simple and self-explanatory: Damn Lucky Cowboy.