Event

Jalan Crossland

Jalan Crossland is an endemic Wyoming treasure (Rita Basom- Wyoming Arts Council). He is widely acclaimed by audiences, critics, and his musical peers as being a premier acoustic guitarist, as well as banjo player, singer-songwriter, and engaging showman. Along with dozens of regional contest awards, his extraordinary guitar work earned him National Fingerstyle Guitar Championship honors in 97 and the State Flatpick Championship title of his home state in 1999. In recognition for his contribution to the arts in Wyoming, he was bestowed with the Governors Arts Award in 2013.

Magazines as far-ranging as the New York Times and No Depression have run features on him, and Paste Magazine included him and his ensemble as being among Wyomings top bands. He has made numerous television and radio appearances and is portrayed in the short film Wyomericana, which won the Laramie Film Festival in 2014. Hes been invited as the opening act on two national tours with Texas songwriting legend Robert Earl Keen. Jalan has released 7 albums of primarily his own songs, and performs throughout the U.S. and occasionally Europe, when he takes the notion.

To pin any one label on Crosslands body of work would be a crime. Its not country. Its not rock. It sure as hell aint your daddys bluegrass! His characters and stories come alive to form an often dark, yet highly humorous interpretation of the American Experience. (Marcus Huff- Laramie Zine) Kanky songs about drinkin, fightin, hobos, roughnecks, trailer park fires, oil-patch strippers, and little neighborhood dogs that bite, are lent their truth-is-stranger-than-fiction wobble by virtue of the fact that Jalan was raised and resides in a rural mountain town, population >300. He casts a sardonic but affectionate eye on the roughhewn lives of Western people. Crosslands Big Horn Mountain Blues is so popular in Wyoming that it is practically the official state song. (Michael Segell- New York Times)