In our increasingly busy and technologically intense lives, we are forgetting some of our heritage, history and connection with the land. Living historians, at places like Bent’s Old Fort in southeastern Colorado, try to re-create and portray these earlier eras in as accurate a manner as possible. Rex Rideout has been immersed for over 30 years in understanding how 19th-Century Americans obtained their food, shelter, and entertainment. The history of music is his particular passion and he approaches this subject as a historian, consulting manuscript materials, diaries and journals, early sheet music, historic photographs, vintage recordings and oral sources. Rex will describe how he conducts his research, share some of his findings, and perhaps perform a song or two.
Speaker Bio
Rex sings of the American West–from the times of the early explorers, the fur trade, the Civil War and the cattle drive era to the end of the 19th century– by re-creating documented music of the 19th and early 20th centuries. He approaches music as an historian, consulting manuscript materials, diaries and journals, early sheet music, historic photographs, vintage recordings and oral sources. Rex has worked with interpreters of historic sites, humanities councils and theatres in presentation of the life of the first cowboys.