Chris Jenkins Luthier

Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada

The highlight of my winter was the Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada. If you Karen’t familiar with this event - it is huge. About 20,00 people gather in this small northern Nevada town every winter for a week of outstanding live music and poetry. If you like high quality live performance, this is the place to be. Three of the featured performers at the festival were playing Jenkins instruments, Chuck Milner, Dale Burson, and Denise Withnell of Cowboy Celtic. I have always wanted to attend this event, but never before made it. Since I was going to get a lot of exposure on the stages of Elko, I figured this was a good place to be to show off some guitars. So I packed a couple of instruments up, and headed for Elko. I had such a wonderful time! As a bonus, the guitars were used by many performers on every stage of the festival, and received great acclaim.

Chris with a fine assemblage of Jenkins Guitar players

Chuck Milner, Dale Burson, and Denise Withnell, all did their instruments proud with top notch performances. Although Denise has played her Saddle Pal for a few years now, I had never met her. She is such a wonderful person, a great guitar player, and she sings like an angel. Many other featured performers used the cedar topped Saddle Pal, or the spruce and rosewood Chameleon I took along. Kevin Davis of Oklahoma used the spruce guitar several times and stole the show whenever he performed. I was also proud to have the likes of Dave Stamley, Gail Steiger, and David Wilkie (Cowboy Celtic) play the instruments in their shows.

Ramblin’ Jack Elliott tried out the cedar top, and was impressed enough to give me lifts around town in his car when I needed them. I enjoyed meeting Ramblin’ Jack.

One of the highlights of the festival for me was when Wylie Gustafson of Wylie and the Wild West used the spruce Chameleon, and gave me a plug to the audience of 2000 in the main concert hall. In fact, Wylie liked the guitar so well that he bought it. I’am proud that an artist such as Wylie has joined the performers using Jenkins guitars. Wylie is one of the best showmen I have ever seen. His band tours internationally, doing over 150 shows per year. They have performed on the Grand Ole Opry over 40 times. Wylie and the Wild West are the highest charting western music group of all time, with 10 music videos in heavy rotation on CMT and TNN. Once you see Wylie and the Wild West, you will never forget them!


The last day of the festival the Elko newspaper ran a feature story on my guitars. It is included here, with accompanying photo. I can hardly wait until next year. I think I’am hooked on Elko.
Chris

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Chris Jenkins, 829 Kingston Drive, Mansfield, Texas 76063 |817-473-6949 |