Welcome to the 65th National Folk Festival. This is the 26th time I’ve attended, and you’d think I would know a lot about it. But it is always full of surprises, and I flit about as happy as a Mississippi mockingbird in mating season.

You see, I don’t yet know what I like. I keep discovering artists and old and new forms I never heard of that I enjoy a lot. I realize that many people much younger than I can say, “I don’t know much about music – or crafts or whatever – but I do know what I like.”

It must be nice to have your life summed up like that. No surprises until you overhear the undertaker whispering to your significant other that he regrets that the obituary writer misspelled your name.

I’m expecting to like everyone who is not a sorehead at this festival, and I’m especially intrigued by the opportunity to hear Wylie & the Wild West. My old pal Charlie told me about them.

Charlie is from ranching country in southern Arizona, now lives in Nevada, and is expert in all the species that inhabit the parched lands: Gila monsters, sidewinders, horned toads and singing cowboys. He always lives 40 miles from town, and rides a tall mule named Juanita – and I swear this is true.

Charlie got my attention with four loaded words about Wylie: He said, “He’s the real deal.” This means he is not a Stetson-wearing bank teller from suburban Denver. Nor a sensitive songwriter from Los Angeles who modified his toggery on the way to the gig by detouring through a Western wear store.

Charlie’s four words even tell when Wylie and the boys arise. They get up at 5 a.m. to go do the feeding. A real cowboy band? This is a species as rare as Baptist street preachers in Baghdad. A cowboy band that made the ranching folk from around Elko, Nev., stand up and yell themselves hoarse? Bring ’em on!

Wylie is from a tiny place called Dusty (I swear) in the bunchgrass and wheat country of eastern Washington state, and the boys live nearby. He never has been near here before, and he is a curious fellow. I persuaded him to come by telling him about the native Mainers.

No, I didn’t tell Wylie any big lies about Mainers. Yes, I may have stretched an item or two, but all of you in sales know about closing.

He’s in the beef business, so I didn’t tell him that some of you are vegans. You can tell him, but be gentle. We don’t want him to feel like a holy roller at a Scientology convention.

Never ask how many cattle he has. That’s a rude question out West. And if he mentions them, just smile and say, “bulls and heifers, I suppose?” I know he is going to like you a lot.

Joe Wilson

Executive Director

National Council for the Traditional Arts