Ken Overcast, a past winner of "Yodeler of the Year" (conferred by the Western Music Association in 1996) and winner of Academy of Western Artists' Best Yodeler award for 2000, is perhaps typical of a performer who has had to build his following working one room at a time. 
    "The answer to all of this is going to have to be a grassroots thing," said Overcast, Whose recent Montana Cowboy, album (Bear Val1ey Records, Chinook, Mont.) contains what he believes is his best musical work. "The radio stations that are playing [cowboy] music, have listeners who are loyal to it... but cowboy music is not designed to get radio airplay.. it's just the real thing sung by real kinds of people."

    Too much cowboy or Western music today is too poorly produced, Overcast said. "And that puts radio stations on the defensive. If we can insist on production being the best it can be, then it cannot be faulted for poor quality." 
    As for where to find quality, Overcasts warns artists to exercise caution. "There are tons of sharks in Nashville who will take every nickel you've got," he said. "You need to know somebody who has a well-produced album and ask them where to go to get that done." 
    It doesn't help just to get records into the stores, Overcast said. "The product will not move in the retail chains if nobody's heard of you.

The answer is finding your fan base and then giving them what they want. And what they want, at least in my case, is real cowboy music." 
    Overcast feels that, where festivals and cowboy gathers are concerned, audiences are "to kind" to performers, and that only hurts business. "At some of these gathers, the lineup just gets too long. The people producing them need to understand that that's what's holding them back." 
    Overcast ranches in north central Montana, raising commercial cattle and hay on a place outside Chinook, about 40 miles from the Canadian line. He says he feels the appeal of his music is the fact that it is the real thing.

Asked if he thought that the recent surge in nationalism and patriotism in the wake of the terrorist attacks would exert any influence on country or Western music, he said the effect could only be positive. "Although a lot of the stuff is not 'patriotic,' it is still Mom and apple pie and it makes people think about the things in life that are really important. I've heard more people talk about God [recently] than I thought I ever would. But I think that when you're really down and out you look at your hole card, and our Western way of life is reminiscent of the way things used to be. It really hasn't changed that much out here." 
    That's the quality that makes Western music "roots" music, in Overcast's opinion. It's the quality of realness. "People recognize it when they hear it- they just never get to hear it," he said.