Ranch Verse: Poetry, Song & Storytelling featuring Andy Hedges and Friends

Ranch Verse: Poetry, Song & Storytelling featuring Andy Hedges, Dr Dom Flemons and Pipp Gillette
Saturday, August 2, 2025
Doors: 6:50 pm • Showtime: 7:30 pm

Back for a third year by popular demand, Ranch Verse will be held Saturday, Aug. 2 in Lubbock, Texas. Daytime programs at the National Ranching Heritage Center and an evening concert at the Cactus Theater will artfully illustrate the heritage of cowboy country. The evening performance features cowboy songster Andy Hedges, Pipp Gillette and Dr. Dom Flemons.

Andy Hedges is a songster, reciter, storyteller, guitarist, and collector of cowboy songs and poems. The son of a schoolteacher and a rodeo cowboy turned preacher, Andy was born in Lubbock, Texas. He grew up in the small community of Tokio, Texas, where his family paid rent on an old farmhouse by looking after a few head of cattle. It was there that Andy fell in love with traditional music by listening to his father’s cassettes of cowboy songs.

Andy’s vast and varied repertoire includes cowboy poetry recitations, obscure western ballads, and the folk-blues of the working cowboy. He also hosts a podcast, Cowboy Crossroads which features in-depth interviews with fellow musicians and poets. Andy has performed many times with folk legend Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and the duo’s performance at the 60th Newport Folk Festival was named one of the “10 Best Things We Saw” by Rolling Stone. In 2023, he made his debut at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee, and in 2024, Andy brought his album Roll On, Cowboys to Carnegie Hall in New York City.

"Andy could very well carry on the traditions when all of us old guys are gone. I'd feel assured in knowing the music of our great American West was in good hands." - Don Edwards

“This cowboy songster is not just a contender, he’s the real deal.” – Tom Russell

"I've always admired Andy Hedges for his longstanding fascination for classic cowboy songs. He sings 'em with just the right amount of grit and wry cowpoke humor." - Michael Martin Murphey

"Andy is just the kind of artist I like. Deep into the tradition and carrying it into the future with his own voice." - Jim Rooney

"He embodies the future of the tradition." - Waddie Mitchell

"Hedges blends tradition with vanguard..." - Jennifer Denison, Senior Editor, Western Horseman

“…Andy is at the epicenter of the collective beating heart of cowboy poetry and music. As an artist, and as a man, he is among the finest this renaissance has to offer.” – Randy Rieman

Pipp Gillette lives and works on the family ranch near Lovelady, Texas, where his grandfather started raising cattle and cotton in 1912. Pipp and his late brother Guy received the Western Heritage Award for Outstanding Traditional Western Album of 2011 and the 2013 Western Heritage Award for Outstanding Original Western Composition for their performance of the Waddie Mitchell song "Trade Off.” Drawing on a lifelong interest in Western history and music, Pipp plays traditional cowboy music on guitar, banjo, harmonica and bones. Pipp’s first solo CD, Singing Songs by Waddie and Pippreceived the Western Heritage Award for Outstanding Traditional Western Album of 2016. His newest CD, PippGillette with Lloyd Wright was released fall 2018.

Dr. Dom Flemons “The American Songster" received an Honorary Doctorate from Northern Arizona University and he's a GRAMMY Award Winner with four GRAMMY nominations, Two-Time EMMY Nominee, International Acoustic Music Award Grand Prize Winner, and was a United States Artists Fellow. He is a musician based in the Chicago area and he is famously known as "The American Songster®" since his repertoire covers over one hundred years of American roots music; including country, folk, bluegrass, Americana, and the blues. Flemons is a songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, music scholar, historian, actor, narrator, host, slam poet, record collector, podcaster, and the creator, host, and producer of the American Songster Radio Show on WSM in Nashville, TN. He is considered an expert player on the banjo, guitar, harmonica, jug, percussion, quills, fife and rhythm bones. He is the Co-Founder of the Carolina Chocolate Drops and the Founder of American Songster Productions.

Reserved Tickets:
First 6 rows of floor (rows A-F)................$50.00
Remaining floor (rows G-M)...................$40.00
Standard Balcony...................................$35.00
Box Seats (box includes concessions)....$80.00

Also check out other Arts events in Lubbock, Music events in Lubbock, Literary Art events in Lubbock.