Cowboy Poet Darrell Holden teams up with singer-songwriters Brenn Hill and Kaden Miner for a night of small-town and ranch-hand storytelling when the Park City Performing Arts presents Cowboy Christmas: Country Music and Poetry.The night of musical and spoken-word tales by these Utah artists will begin at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 21, at the Eccles Center for the Performing Arts, 1750 Kearns Blvd., and Hill is looking forward to the concert’s Park City debut.“Darrell, Kaden and I have shared the stage together in other places, but in this capacity for a Christmas show in Park City, this will be the first time,” he said.Part of the excitement stems from Hill, an award-winning country-music artist, who considers Holden and Miner as his brothers.“We’re kind of a loosely knit but close family,” he said. “We see each other at cowboy poetry gatherings, county fairs and other events throughout the year. So, from my perspective, Kaden and Darrell are two artists I work with, but also two very good friends.”Holden concurs.“It’s a small genre we’re in, even though Brenn could play Carnegie Hall, and the rest of us will be at the local pool hall,” he said with a laugh. “Our friendship is a brotherhood. Even though I’m old enough to be Brenn’s dad and Kaden’s grandpa, I think of them as brothers because we’re closer than friends.”Cowboy poet and fifth-generation rancher Darrell Holden will tell some of his stories during the Park City Performing Arts’ Cowboy Christmas: Country Music and Poetry concert on Dec. 21. Credit: Photo courtesy of Park City Fine ArtThat sentiment comes from the fact that all three share the same love of small towns and the cowboy/ranch hand lifestyle, Holden said.“It’s a heritage,” he said. “I’m a fifth generation (family member), living on the same ranch, and I have a great love of all things Western. So I’m blessed to rub shoulders with them.”Holden, who is fairly new to performing live cowboy poetry, said there are two eras of his craft.“There’s the old stuff, the stuff that happened around the 1880s to 1930 or so, when the old timers wrote about that way of life,” he said. “Then it fell out of the public eye until the mid 1980s when we had the renaissance of people like Baxter Black and Waddy Mitchell starting it up again.”Holden actually started writing his own yarns when he was in high school.“I grew up on an itty bitty ranch in a small town in Tooele County, called Vernon, and, of course, knew cowboy poetry,” he said. “In 1983, when I was a freshman in high school, we had a professor from Utah State University come down to teach us how to shoe horses, and he would recite poems he had written.”The professor would throw in lines of poetry during regular conversation, which intrigued Hoden.“I thought it was the coolest thing because it was like when my uncle would recite the classics,” he said. “And I’ve been writing ever since, even though I’ve only been performing for half-a-dozen years.”Holden refrained from performing in public because he thought there wasn’t any interest.“I just never thought anyone would want to hear what I had to say, except for my family,” he said with a laugh. “But I have since found out that one of the cool things about this genre is while you meet people who haven’t ridden the same exact trail or same exact canyon or horse, they have experienced the same thing in different parts of the world.”Cowboy culture is the same from Canada to Mexico and from New York to California, Holden said.“So cowboy poetry allows us to connect with the like-minded who enjoy this lifestyle,” he said.Hill got his start playing music in the late 1990s, and like Holden’s poetry, he writes and sings about the cowboy life.“I know my fans, and they are the most hard-working steadfast people on the face of this green Earth,” he said. “The core of our crowd is still ranching and putting food on our tables, and I’m fortunate to understand their struggle, even though I’m not a rancher. So I know when I’ve written something that speaks to their heart and souls. It will entertain them or it will inspire them and fire them up.”Kaden Miner, an upcoming, Utah-based country singer-songwriter, will round out the lineup of the Park City Institute’s Cowboy Christmas: Country Music and Poetry concert on Dec. 21. Credit: Photo courtesy of Park City Performing ArtsHill met Kaden through the rancher network. “He works for a family of brothers who are close friends of mine,” Hill said. “One night I got a call from one of the brothers, who told me that Miner got bucked off a horse and was in the University Hospital with a punctured lung and some busted ribs. Since they knew he was a fan of mine, they asked if there was any way I could go cheer him up.”So Hill packed up his guitar and visited Miner.“Kaden was in rough shape,” he said. “He had tubes draining fluid from his lungs, and he’s three shades of pale, so of course I start telling him some jokes to make him laugh.”“Because Brenn is a jerk,” Holden jokingly interjected.“I mean, Kaden’s parents were at the foot of the bed, looking at me like (they were saying), ‘Sooner you get this over with the sooner he can go back to sleep and start getting well,’” Hill said after laughing at Holden’s joke.After Miner recovered and was released from the hospital, Hill learned he played guitar and was a songwriter.“He would ask me questions that told me that he was on a quest to tell these types of stories as well,” Hill said. “Since then, I’ve had the opportunity to work with him in the studio. In all honesty, I feel like I’m the primary beneficiary of meeting Kaden Miner because he’s really dedicated to the craft and life as a working cowboy.”Since the Dec. 21 concert is about Christmases from a cowboy perspective, the performers have put together a program that is at times light-hearted and at other times poignant.“We’re playing a bunch of classic Christmas songs and original cowboy Christmas songs,” Hill said. “I’ve recorded two Christmas albums in my career, and Christmas concerts like this are something I look forward to every year.”Holden has a file of original Christmas poems.“I have funny ones and ones that are serious, and I’m going to share some other cowboy poems that I want to give like little wrapped up presents of wisdom, even though Brenn thinks I’m an idiot,” he said with another laugh. “But I represent those who have gone before us and those who are working ranchers today. It’s a struggle to do that in a state that has become more urbanized, and people forget every person in America participates in agriculture every time they eat. We’re just telling our stories.”Cowboy Christmas: Cowboy Poetry and Music with Brenn Hill, Darrell Holden and Kaden MinerWhen: 7 p.m., Saturday, Dec. 21 Where: Eccles Center for the Performing Arts, 1750 Kearns Blvd. Cost: $30-$55; student discounts also available Phone: 435-655-3114 Web: parkcityinstitute.org/main-stageThe post Concert tells tales of Christmas through a cowboy perspective appeared first on Park Record.