The last best place
Singing history in the Flathead Valley of Northwestern Montana
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/pomh.27646Keywords:
Working-class Studies, Indigenous Music, history, identity, placeAbstract
Nestled beneath Glacier National Park, the Flathead Valley of northwestern Montana is home to a rich, working-class, musical culture led by local, professional artists. Through decades of solo and collaborative work, two of the area’s most celebrated artists, Blackfoot songwriter Jack Gladstone and singing cowboy Rob Quist, have written music exploring the history of northwestern Montana and its connection to people and places today. Weaving together ethnographic research and family history with Place Studies, working-class studies, Indigenous ways of knowing, and Hayden White’s ideas about historical narrative, this article shows how musicians in the Flathead Valley have collaboratively developed a song-based historical discourse that allows long-term locals and visitors alike to experience an emplaced understanding of northwestern Montana and its past. I will also discuss how famous cowboy painter Charles M. Russell serves as an inspirational figure and model of artist-as-historian for these musicians as they navigate the current moment of radical changes in the region. Ultimately, I will demonstrate how considering the layers of history present in this music can allow the listener to move beyond assumptions about this place and its history to hear the fears, hopes, struggles, and inspirations of these working-class artists and their audiences.
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Interviews
Rob Quist (29 December 2017).
Gary and Susan Snow (30 December 2017).
Jack Gladstone (1 April 2018).
Dave Griffith (1 April 2018), followed by regular informal conversations and correspondence.
Discography
Jack Gladstone. 1997. Buffalo Café. Hawkstone Productions. Compact disc and digital album.
Jack Gladstone. 2005. Buckskin Poetsongs: Complete Original Recordings. Contains out of print recordings including: 1988. Wolves of Sea and Plain. 2004. Blackfeet Storysmith. Jack Gladstone and Rob Quist. 2003. Odyssey West. Compact disc.
Jack Gladstone. 2008. Blackfeet Legends of Glacier National Park. Hawkstone Productions. Compact disc and digital album.
Jack Gladstone. 2010. Native Anthropology. Self-published. Compact disc and digital album.
Mission Mountain Wood Band. 1977. In Without Knocking. M2WB Records. Long play record.
Rob Quist and the Great Northern. 1989. Songs from Western Harmony. Slender Willow Music. Cassette tape and digital album.
