Singing cowboy, Del Shields, Humboldt, invites area cowboys, cattle ranchers, and Western music enthusiasts to listen in on his latest endeavor, a radio show broadcast locally.
The show, found at betterhorsesnetwork.com since Oct. 1, 2016, is a world-wide radio show that links back to Dave Pratt’s radio studio in Scottsdale, Ariz., and is digitally broadcast from wherever Shields is, including his home in Humboldt. The show is recorded live at 10 a.m. Saturdays. All shows are archived, Shields said.
The shows are not always broadcast from Kansas. Shields is performing and conducting a live radio broadcast Feb. 25, from Alpine, Texas during the 31st annual “Texas Cowboy Poetry Gathering.”
“We can do it live from different places so that’s been a real neat thing,” Shields said. “The radio show’s name I think kind of says what we represent, Western World. What I do a lot of is having Western musicians, entertainers and cowboy poets be my guests.”
His guests have included Johnny Western, who wrote “Have Gun, Will Travel,” which, according to Shields, was the longest-running theme song in the history of Western movies.
The premise of the radio show is to promote and help keep the Western lifestyle alive. That lifestyle, according to Shields, includes music that tends to talk about the land, people, livestock, sunsets, winter storms and gunfighter ballads.
“Western music has maintained itself lyrically and for the most part instrumentally,” Shields said. “For the most part, the people in our industry all have some kind of link to the lifestyle.”
It is a genre of music that appeals to the young as much as it does to older generations, according to Shields. He said the Western Music Association named Kristyn Harris, 22, Texas, the 2016 entertainer of the year. She is not only the youngest but the also the first female to win that industry’s award.
“Kristyn has done a fabulous job of representing the younger generations and she is not the only one doing well,” Shields said. “Mikki Daniel is doing just as well. Both of those girls are setting stages on fire coast to coast.”
Shields said he interviews both veterans of the Western music industry and up-and-coming artists, and that it is interesting to see who the younger artists’ heroes are, and what the artists’ goals and aspirations may be.
“We now have a really nice upcoming crop of young musicians who are teenagers or just in their early 20s who are doing great things in this genre of music so the appeal is there and really being inflamed,” Shields said.
One of his own icons is Marty Robbins. He performs a Marty Robbins tribute show.
“He’s one of the guys I’ve looked up to for a lot of years,” Shields said. “Of course he died in 1982, but his music is incredible, always has been.”
Shields also promotes musical endeavors of his own during the Western radio program.
“It’s not an egotistical thing but we are out to do the best we can, so it does afford me that opportunity,” he said.
Shields hosts “Western World” while still co-hosting the TV show, “Best of America by Horseback.” As part of his adventures with the television show, he has sung on the steps of the Mayan Ruins at one point, and ridden his horse called “Naked” from Mexico to Canada.
Shields said he stays busy. He will sing with Belinda Gail in June at Loretta Lynn’s Ranch in Hurricane Mills, Tenn. He is looking forward to that opportunity.
“The list of awards that (Gail) has won is longer than my arm,” Shields said. “The Cowboy Western Magazine said that she was one of the top 50 country western singers in our history.”
He said he is also in the process of putting together a Christmas show at the campus of the University of Alabama for U.S. troops, and because this is the 150th anniversary of the Chisholm Trail, he is involved in six different events throughout Kansas. He also performs for the Humboldt Historical Society every year.
