Garrett LeBeau — Pastures of Plenty Stage, Woody Guthrie Folk Festival

Blues & Soul from the High Plains

The blues spoke to me and that raw unadorned hon­esty is what still moti­vates me musi­cally. It spans all styles and is really the same thing as Soul. Folk music is kin in spirit, as is most music that I love. My goal is to con­nect with other like-minded human beings, and keep the Blues tra­di­tions alive … feel­ing has no genre.

Born and raised on the Wind River Indian Reservation near Lander, Wyoming, soul­ful singer-song­writer Garrett LeBeau grew up vir­tu­ally with­out music. The local radio sta­tions played mostly 1980s top 40, which had nei­ther appeal nor cul­tural rel­e­vance for young LeBeau and his fam­ily (LeBeau is an enrolled mem­ber of the Shoshone tribe). As a result, he didn’t start play­ing music until he was out of school, when he taught him­self basic scales and chords.

He made his Woodyfest debut on the New Dominion Stage on the out­skirts of Okemah this past July, open­ing the evening con­cert on Saturday. Accompanying him were Brad Houser (bass), Michael Christmas (drums), and Nate Basinger (key­board). Songwriter and musi­cian Annie Guthrie (daugh­ter of Arlo and grand­daugh­ter to Woody) joined LeBeau for the final part of his elec­tri­fy­ing set.

LeBeau’s debut album Rise to the Grind was released in May. By June, the album had climbed near the top of both the EuroAmericana and Roots Music charts.

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