Riders in The Sky on the WJ Ranch stage
Music has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. My parents must have given me “musical genes” but they weren’t overly euphonious themselves. I remember my mom playing just one song on the piano (two if you count chopsticks) and my dad being able to sound out a few recognizable measures of “Battle Hymn of the Republic” on a neighbor’s accordion, but that’s about it. I was 4 years old when Santa Claus brought me a little red toy accordion for Christmas. I still have that accordion but never learned to play a real one. What became a passion and a joy for me, however, was singing.
I had a dear friend, Jean, who lived on a farm not far from ours. I’ve known her since childhood. Jean’s mother, Margaret, played the organ at the little country church that our families both attended when I was growing up. Margaret encouraged Jean & I to sing together. On Christmas Eve when I was 8 and Jean 10, we made our debut with our harmonized version of “Angels We Have Heard on High” as part of our Sunday School Christmas program. Done. The love for singing was born. In fact, Jean & I have been singing together all our lives.
Music is such a large part of who I am that I cannot imagine life without it. It’s no surprise, then, that when our barn and riding arena was built in 2000 and we wanted to have a neighborhood get together, we hired a karaoke DJ to be part of the fun. Karaoke was huge at that time. Our guests began performing their versions of Summer Nights, Pretty Woman and My Way. As I listened, however, I was oblivious to the talent (or lack thereof). I was instead being mesmerized by the fact that although our barn was built for promoting horsemanship and riding, I was experiencing some of the most wonderful acoustics I’d ever heard.
Everyone left the party and Greg politely listened to me rant and rave about what great sound came from this new building. The wheels started to turn in my head. Big time. We began to pray about the possibility of using our barn to bring entertainment to our community and joy to those who would attend the shows.
In 2004, we decided to launch our idea. Could the WJ Ranch arena become a “concert hall”? We invited Baxter Black, well-known cowboy humorist as our first guest with Dick Taylor, cowboy singer/guitarist from North Dakota, the opening act. Over 425 people attended that evening and the annual concert event at the WJ Ranch was born.
Since then, we’ve hosted Suzy Bogguss, Michael Martin Murphey, John Berry, Riders In The Sky, Red Steagall, Dan Tyminski & Ronnie Bowman, Wylie & The Wild West, Ty Herndon & others. This coming September we are excited to add Mark Wills & Teea Goans to that list . We can seat up to 600 people and offer a unique atmosphere for a wonderful evening of entertainment.
It’s imperative to us that the artists that we bring in represent our values at the WJ Ranch. Much prayer goes into deciding who might be our next headliner and we’ve never been disappointed. In the past few years, we’ve also added a cowboy Church service on Sunday morning of our concert weekend. We strive to serve God in all we do at the WJ and our concert weekend is no exception.
Who would’ve guessed that a night of karaoke in a barn would evolve into this? I have absolutely no doubt that dreams or a passion can turn into something bigger than we can ever imagine as long as we include God and allow Him to lead us.