Cowboy Croonin’

Photo by Ross Mehan
Photo by Ross Mehan

Like something from your grandma’s collection of 45s, “10-gallon funnyman” Sourdough Slim harkens back to the days of the singin’, yodelin’, joke-tellin’ cowboy. You might be asking yourself: Is the world really waiting for a revival of the Burl Ives, Will Rogers and Gene Autry sound? The answer is: Probably not. But like a dusty little gem found in a secondhand shop, Slim (né Rick Crowder) shows that you didn’t know what you were missing the first time around. “My true calling as a cowboy was not on the range but, rather, on the stage,” Slim says on his website.

Dressed like the comic sidekick in an old John Wayne movie­ — lumpy cowboy hat, oversized handkerchief and pulling faces — Slim works his way through “vaudevillian camp and cowboy lore.” You’ll recognize classics like “Big Rock Candy Mountain.” Expect him to play accordion, harmonica, guitar, dance a jig, tell jokes and, most of all, yodel — I’d like to see Justin Timberlake try one of those things.

Sourdough Slim plays with Robert Armstrong and the Saddle Pals, who will perform “Western classics, country blues and string band favorites from 1920s and ’30s rural America” 5 pm Sunday, July 20, for House Concerts at River Acre. Contact Robert Armstrong at 514-5402 for details.