DEL NORTE — Wildwood Sounds, 850 Grande Ave., Del Norte, presents Cowboy Entertainer Dave Stamey on Friday, July 20 at 7 p.m. Tickets are $25, reservation only. Call 657-4757 or see wildwoodsounds.com.

This is a sweets/snacks potluck. Bring a snack to share. Coffee and tea are on the house.

Cowboy singer Dave Stamey has been called “the Charley Russell of Western Music,” and it’s an apt description. Charles M. Russell was a gifted period artist who painted over 2,000 canvases of cowboys, Indians, and the landscape of the American West in the late 1800s and early 1900s, each done with emotional resonance and meticulous detail. Stamey does the same thing, only as a musician. His songs capture the life of the modern cowboy in a world of rapid transition, where some things change constantly and some things never change at all.

But Stamey is far from a genre facsimile. He has been a working cowboy, rancher, mule packer, and dude wrangler, so he understands the territory well and he also knows his audience, and he just happens to be a natural entertainer and an astute businessman. His recorded work feels naturally authentic, always professionally recorded and played, and carrying a cultural and historical exactness without being overly fussy about it

Cowboys and Indians Magazine has called him “the Charlie Russell of Western Music.” Western Horseman Magazine has declared his “Vaquero Song” to be one of the greatest Western songs of all time. True West Magazine named him Best Living Western Solo Musician four years in a row.

He has been voted seven times Entertainer of the Year, seven times Male Performer of the Year and Five times Songwriter of the Year by the Western Music Association, and received the Will Rogers Award from the Academy of Western Artists. He’s delighted audiences in 23 states, and finds that he prefers this to being stomped by angry horses.

In November of 2016 Dave was inducted into the Western Music Hall of Fame.