An American Forrest
The Douglas firs of Western Washington once reached heights greater than the redwoods of California. They came down around the turn of the 20th century to make way for homesteads and the port cities of Seattle and Olympia. Forrest “An American Forrest” VanTuyl was born here, hemmed in by the dense second-growth, and became a vagabond as soon as he got out. Forrest crossed the US and Europe multiple times, working on farms, hitching rides, sleeping on floors, and writing as fast the miles rolled by. His first EP, 2013’s Salvation Rose, is a product of that chaotic, Kerouac-meets-Whitman lifestyle. “Boldly sung poetry takes on every color of the roots/country spectrum, from Appalachian arrangements to Pacific Northwestern sweetness and a pinch of Southern grit,” Seattle’s CityArts Magazine called it. The first EP saw Forrest take the moniker An American Forrest, a nod to Whitman and Mark Twain.
Forrest toured intermittently in support of Salvation Rose, opening for John Craigie and BJ Barham, and getting covered by fellow northwest songwriter Bart Budwig. Settling into the sparsely-populated Wallowa Country of north-eastern Oregon, Forrest began his first full length, Rosas y Mesteños, a tribute to horses and the subtle heroism of western women. “I learned a lot from Cass (his partner, to whom the album is dedicated), not only about horsemanship, but also about how tough and wise and underappreciated women have been - learning stories of Bonnie McCarroll (saddle bronc rider), Zitkala-Sa (Dakota Sioux writer and activist), and Annie Oakley (sharpshooter & all-around badass), then watchin’ Cass ride broncs in the Yellowstone Rodeo - it was hard not to be inspired.” The album is framed like a Clint Eastwood revisionist Western, set in a surreal borderland in the shadow of Manifest Destiny: “our horses balked like the blood we bought this land with never finished dryin,” Forrest sings in “Untitled w/Bluebells.” The album, recorded live to tape in the hundred-year-old OK Theatre in Enterprise, Oregon, has its biggest fans in Forrest’s songwriting colleagues, from John Craigie to Mike Midlo.
Forrest currently tours between jobs packing hunters and backpackers into the Eagle Cap and Hells Canyon Wilderness, where he’s logged over 500 miles horseback, most of it with his guitar along for the ride: “I top-packed it on a kinda bronc-y mustang filly once, and she smashed into a tree and busted off a tuner, so now it goes on the mule.” His current “High Country Tour” will be taking him from the Arizona-Mexico border to Montana and back home to Oregon.
Forrest toured intermittently in support of Salvation Rose, opening for John Craigie and BJ Barham, and getting covered by fellow northwest songwriter Bart Budwig. Settling into the sparsely-populated Wallowa Country of north-eastern Oregon, Forrest began his first full length, Rosas y Mesteños, a tribute to horses and the subtle heroism of western women. “I learned a lot from Cass (his partner, to whom the album is dedicated), not only about horsemanship, but also about how tough and wise and underappreciated women have been - learning stories of Bonnie McCarroll (saddle bronc rider), Zitkala-Sa (Dakota Sioux writer and activist), and Annie Oakley (sharpshooter & all-around badass), then watchin’ Cass ride broncs in the Yellowstone Rodeo - it was hard not to be inspired.” The album is framed like a Clint Eastwood revisionist Western, set in a surreal borderland in the shadow of Manifest Destiny: “our horses balked like the blood we bought this land with never finished dryin,” Forrest sings in “Untitled w/Bluebells.” The album, recorded live to tape in the hundred-year-old OK Theatre in Enterprise, Oregon, has its biggest fans in Forrest’s songwriting colleagues, from John Craigie to Mike Midlo.
Forrest currently tours between jobs packing hunters and backpackers into the Eagle Cap and Hells Canyon Wilderness, where he’s logged over 500 miles horseback, most of it with his guitar along for the ride: “I top-packed it on a kinda bronc-y mustang filly once, and she smashed into a tree and busted off a tuner, so now it goes on the mule.” His current “High Country Tour” will be taking him from the Arizona-Mexico border to Montana and back home to Oregon.
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Mon. Apr. 3, 2017 8pm
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