Harry & Friends featuring Jon Chandler

In 2024, the tradition continues! Our founder, Harry Tuft, will be coming by to swap songs and stories with his talented musician friends. The evening begins with an interview and performance with Harry’s guest, from 7:00 – 8:15 PM. After a 15-minute break, there will be a song circle, to which players and listeners are all invited. The song circle ends at 9:45 in order for the building to close at 10 PM.

Harry’s “friend” will be…

Jon Chandler!

Jon Chandler is part Wallace Stegner, part Jack Schaefer. He’s part Bruce Springsteen, and part Rambling Jack Elliott. He’s part William F. Cody, and part Cole Younger. Yet he’s distinctively original, a poet laureate of the American West of past, present and future.”
– Johnny D. Boggs

Jon Chandler is a three-time winner of the prestigious Spur Award from the Western Writers of America. Linwood, his moody examination of Doc Holliday’s life won the Spur for Best Song in 2009, while his tribute to Wyoming’s Hole in the Wall country, Morning Star Moon, received the award in 2012.  His novel The Spanish Peaks received the WWA’s Medicine Pipe Bearer Award (Spur Award) for Best First Novel, and he was named True West Magazine’s Best Western Musician.  Wyoming Wind, A Novel of Tom Horn, was a finalist for the Colorado Book Award.  A seventh-generation Coloradan, Jon’s music and stories reflect his heritage, and his eight CDs, two novels, two non-fiction works and myriad short stories and nonfiction articles are collected by western lifestyle aficionados worldwide.  He hosted the iconic monthly concert series America’s Soul Live at the Olde Town Pickin’ Parlor in Arvada, Colorado for 16 years until the pandemic caused its demise.  Homage, his new recording of cover songs that have influenced his writing and singing, was released to exceptional reviews.