Montana’s yodeling cowboy Wylie Gustafson continues to perform traditional country songs

Most people have heard his famous yodel in Yahoo.com commercials, but Wylie Gustafson’s fans appreciate him for his decades of country-western music, which he says is inspired by his love of prairie life.

Gustafson has two careers. One of them is of course music, which he has been doing professionally for over 35 years. The other is livestock farming, which takes up much of his time in the summer.

“I have a horse ranch right outside of Conrad where we raise horses and also harvest a lot of hay,” he said. “We have irrigated land, so we irrigate a lot. There’s a lot to do in the summer, besides touring.”

But he’s still on the road playing shows, which is sometimes hard to balance with ranch responsibilities. His band plays concerts throughout the Northwest, where loyal fans travel to see him. His website includes a statement from a Minnesota State Fair official who said they always hire Gustafson because they know he draws a crowd and excites newcomers, too.

Knowing how to draw a crowd is nothing new for Gustafson, who has been performing at Conrad since he was a teenager. His father played guitar and sang “old cowboy songs” and old folk music, which had a great influence on him. Gustafson grew up in the ’60s and ’70s listening to radio stations from Shelby and Great Falls that played contemporary country music, but KMLN specifically had a traditional country music show that played songs from the ’40s and ’50s.

“For me, the ’50s and ’60s are the golden era of country music. So I was really into that style of music. And growing up, I listened to those radio shows,” Gustafson said.

His older brother Eric needed a “cheap bass player” for his band when Gustafson was about 13 years old. When he graduated high school and went to the University of Montana, the group was making decent money on the weekends from proms and other events, he said.

“The name of that band was The Talk…We became pretty popular in the Northwestern college town and bar scene, and then we got a little recognition,” Gustafson said. “Some of the music we recorded was picked up by a music producer and made into a film…That got us interested in life outside of Montana.”

“The Talk” ended in 1986, but Gustafson decided to try to make it in Los Angeles. He switched to pure country and put together a band to perform at the Palomino Club, which allowed them to play original country music. There were many opportunities for him and his bandmates in Los Angeles – country music was more popular than ever, and acts like Dwight Yoakam and others were enjoying popularity in Southern California. They were recognized by the local music industry. After taking over management in the early ’90s, they were able to begin recording music videos for Country Music Television (CMT) and The Nashville Network. Music videos were a big deal for country artists back then, Gustafson said. In the eye-catching video for “Yodeling Fool,” he is seen jamming in front of some of Glacier National Park’s famous landmarks.

Another area of ​​opportunity in Southern California was music for commercials.

“Yodeling was often used in TV commercials, so they started hiring me. I was probably the only yodeler in that part of the world,” Gustafson said. “And in 1996 the company that worked for Yahoo said, ‘Yahoo needs a yodeler, would you do that for them?’ That happened in 1996…and the rest is history.”

He knew then that websites grew quickly. Although it was Yahoo’s first year as a public company, Yahoo quickly grew in popularity. Soon he would no longer be able to escape his own yodeling.

“I was watching the Super Bowl in 1999 and heard my yodeling at the end of one of their big commercials. So that was a cool deal. And that’s when they really started using the yodel – it kind of became an audio logo for Yahoo. They used it in all their commercials, they used it in their emails,” he said.

WYLIE AND The Wild West Show began recording albums in 1992 when their videos began playing on CMT. According to his website, he releases a record “every few years,” totaling 24 albums. Gustafson had found his place in the country music industry – he said he and his band played the Grand Ole Opry over 50 times.

But he was never interested in moving to the Music City. After almost a decade in Los Angeles, he moved back to Conrad.

“There’s always been a connection to Nashville, and I love going there and performing on the Grand Ole Opry, one of my favorite things to do… I do have connections to Nashville, but at the same time it’s just me.” It’s really convenient, not to move there. I want to live this lifestyle in the West. So when I write, you know, it rings true,” he said.

After 24 albums of country-western music, how do you continue to find inspiration? Gustafson said he gets it from his daily life as a rancher in Conrad. He is a fourth-generation rancher and enjoys spending time on his homestead with his wife, Jenny, and their children.

A good country-western song evokes and reflects such a lifestyle.

“Unfortunately, you listen to modern country these days and you don’t get much of it. You get an artificial image of what life is like in Nashville… But the music I hear would remind you of Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard.” They sang about country life and their music reeked of a lifestyle that was Western and Western was country-shaped,” Gustafson said.

His last album, “Bunchgrass,” was released in 2023 and enjoyed some success on the Americana charts, where a lot of traditional and alternative country music can be found these days. It’s a competitive list, and Gustafson said he appreciates it because the mix reminds him of the radio stations in the ’70s, when the best stuff “bubbled to the top.”

This only makes him more excited for the next release, which is due out sometime in 2025.

Music is an important part of his life and the older he gets, the more impressed he is by its power.

“It is a great gift from God to have music in our lives. We listen to music when we are happy, we listen to it when we are sad. It’s just one of those wonderful things that a lot of people connect with.” “We have a lot of hardcore fans who stay in touch with me and through Facebook and so on. They write me little notes saying how important our music is to them, and that’s a big deal to me.”

Gustafson will perform Nov. 1 at the Press Play Show, a midday concert series hosted by the Daily Inter Lake. Subscribers can enjoy a unique music listening experience at Daily Inter Lake by donating to the Newspapers in Education initiative.

Concertgoers can bring their own lunch or purchase it from the House of S&M.

Tickets are available at FlatheadTickets.com or by calling 406-758-4436. The performance will be streamed live on Daily Inter Lake’s Facebook and Instagram pages.

For more information about Gustafson’s music, visit www.wyliewebsite.com. Watch and listen to Press Play concerts on the Daily Inter Lake YouTube channel or via a podcast app.

Reporter Taylor Inman can be reached at 406-758-4433 or email [email protected].