It’s barely sunrise, but I’m already warming up my voice for a yodelling session with Kristyn Harris – a young buck reviving this time-honoured cowboy singing tradition. “Louder! It’s impossible to yodel quietly,” she urges, a 10-gallon hat crowning her cascade of curly blonde hair.
As Kristyn effortlessly slides into falsetto, I do my best to follow suit – “yodel-ay-ee-oooo” – while beyond the window the sun spills its first light over Elko’s Ruby Mountain Range, casting a golden hue like something straight out of the 1969 movie Once Upon a Time in the West. The 30-year-old western swing star is here to perform at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, a celebration of frontier arts now marking its 40th year – the same event that has drawn me to this remote pocket of northeastern Nevada, 420 miles from the bright lights and hungry slots of Las Vegas.
