Just in case you were wondering who made the guitars.
RED LODGE—A little before the High Country Cowboys took to the stage Friday night at the Pollard Hotel, lead singer Marty Kosel was talking about the kind of show they put on.
“It’s like sing a song and sing another song,” he said. “Not a lot in between.”
Sure enough, in the course of a show that ran for four hours, Marty and his brothers, John and Joe, addressed the crowd only rarely and briefly between songs. But their audience—which filled every available seat, leaving a dozen or more people standing—didn’t seem to mind.
“Your chin hits the table when you hear them,” said Louise Jenkins, sitting with her husband, Jim.
Vicki Quick, sitting with her husband, Sam, said “I get goose bumps sometimes because they harmonize so well.”
Sam Quick said they first caught the High Country Cowboys last May, not long after they started playing the Pub at the Pollard, as the tavern is called. How often have the Quicks been back to hear them?
Ed Kemmick/Last Best News
John, left, and Marty sing for a packed pub.
“About every time they play,” Vicki said. “We know they’re getting so good we’re afraid they’re going to leave.”
That’s a concern several other fans raised Friday night, and when you see these brothers play—and hear of their other amazing accomplishments—you will understand why their fans are worried.
The Kosel brothers, raised in a family of 12 children on Red Lodge Creek between Luther and Red Lodge, play old-time cowboy and country-western music with a sincerity and authenticity that are a wonder to behold.
Their harmonies are superb, their arrangements spare but compelling, and though they are all in their 20s you could close your eyes and swear you were hearing any of a number of singers who made their mark generations before the brothers were born.
They are all great singers, but Marty in particular has a voice that lives at some mystical intersection between Roy Orbison, Marty Robbins and Elvis Presley. Sometimes he sings with an effortless tremolo, and when he gets into an extended yodel you could imagine him reducing a Swiss mountaineer to tears.
They look the part, too, dressed impeccably in cowboy hats, snap-button shirts, scarf-ties, jeans, leather belts and cowboy boots.
Did we mention their other accomplishments? On the walls behind the stage are some of John’s oil paintings of western landscapes and cowboy vignettes. On display just off stage right is one of the beautifully tooled handmade saddles that Marty produces for a living.
And the guitars played by Marty and John? They were made by Joe, the bass-playing brother who says he doesn’t even know how to play a guitar. The instruments, made with exotic wood, look as good as they sound.
The boys grew up listening to country music. Their father, Andy, said his favorites were the Sons of the Pioneers, of which Roy Rogers was a founding member, and Marty Robbins. John said their dad also played guitar and sang some Hank Williams, “just around the house and that kind of stuff.”
Ed Kemmick/Last Best News
Joe shows off one of his handmade guitars.
The boys played brass instruments when they were younger, playing school-band music. Their careers as country singers began on Christmas Day about 10 years ago, when one of their older brothers (there are five boys and seven girls in the family) received a “how-to-yodel” CD and a DVD with lessons on singing three-part country-music harmonies.
John, the oldest of the trio at 28, said he first practiced harmonizing with his two older brothers, but over time it became a regular activity with Joe, 24, and Marty, 23. Then they took up their new instruments, Joe on bass, Marty on rhythm guitar and John on lead and rhythm guitar.
They figure they’ve been playing together about nine years and have worked up a repertoire of 200 songs or so, including a growing number of originals, but few people outside the family heard them until 2½ years ago, when they played for the lunch crowd at the Red Lodge Senior Center, where one sister is the manager and another runs the thrift store.
They’re still playing there a few times a month, regularly drawing crowds of 100 or more people, and last March they also started playing twice at month at the Pub at the Pollard. The first night was a big success.
“People didn’t know what to expect, but when they finished they got a standing ovation,” said Melissa Moore, sales manager for the Pollard Hotel. The acclaim has not died down.
“We had to tear down a wall they were so popular,” Moore said, and she wasn’t kidding. Six months ago, John and Joe, both of them carpenters, removed a wall to the pool room, which is now used for private parties and additional seating during shows at the pub. Moore said the pub, with seating for 85, is usually fully booked in advance when the High Country Cowboys perform.
Friday night, the Kosel boys demonstrated the hold they have on an audience. Marty deployed his awe-inspiring yodel on a handful of songs, did a fair imitation of an Australian on “Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport,” then did a hyper-fast rendition of “The Auctioneer’s Song.”
Ed Kemmick/Last Best News
One of Marty’s handmade saddles is displayed in front of the stage at the Pub at the Pollard.
John, when he sang lead vocals, displayed a clear, plaintive style reminiscent of Hank Williams. Joe, like Marty, impressed with his tremolo and his broad range. At one point, when Joe was singing Marty Robbins’ “Big Iron,” he suddenly forgot the words.
The boys kept strumming as they silently conferred and then, without missing a beat, Joe picked up where he left off. The packed pub erupted into cheers and applause. That’s how good the High Country Cowboys are: their fans even applaud their mistakes.
But when the boys sang their three-part harmonies, the crowd really responded. You could look around the room and see ear-to-ear grins, people laughing with delight, couples exchanging looks of wonderment.
Six of the boys’ sisters were there Friday, along with their parents, Andy and Margaret. Their mother said they don’t take in every show.
“We come out every month or so,” she said. “We hear them at home all the time. They have to sing for their Sunday breakfast.” As for their skills, she said, “it’s a natural, God-given talent.”
But even God-given talents must be honed. Margaret acknowledged it was something of a trial when four or five of her sons were all trying to learn how to yodel at the same time.
“It was painful to hear them learn it,” she said, “We told them, if you’re gonna yodel, you go outside.”
The Kosels moved from Washington state to the Red Lodge area 35 years ago. Andy was a Chevrolet mechanic in town for many years and these days he does chainsaw carvings. The children all attended public school until 17 or 18 years ago, when Andy and Margaret decided to home-school them.
A couple of John’s oil paintings hang behind the stage where the High Country Cowboys play.
Margaret said they are strong Catholics, and they eventually couldn’t tolerate what the public schools were offering, morally or educationally. In addition to regular subjects, the children were always working on crafts of one kind or another in a big shop attached to their house.
The brothers like to brag that their sister, Joan—they’re pretty sure she’s 31; they couldn’t quite agree on that—is the most talented member of the clan. She is an accomplished woodcarver, “what they call an award-winning artist,” in John’s words.
John, Joe and Marty all talk about their craftsmanship they way they speak of their music, saying they just picked it up, learning by doing, trial and error.
“We were just born into it, you might say,” John said.
Joe has sold 11 or 12 guitars for $1,500 to $2,000 each, John regularly sells his oil paintings and Marty makes a living off his saddle-making. John and Joe supplement their incomes doing carpentry. At the moment they’re engaged in building a big addition on the senior center, which will house a much larger thrift store.
They also record their own music at their home studio, having produced four CDs so far, and they’ve got two videos, one filmed at the Pub at the Pollard. The other features an original song of theirs.
There are still eight children at home. John said “everybody gets along good,” and they are also inclined to stay home because their mother has Lyme disease and uses a wheelchair.
“It works out, everybody living at home,” John said, “because we can take turns taking her where she needs to go.”
They’re willing to play music outside of Red Lodge, as long as it’s close to home. They’ve performed at a few private parties in Billings and at a few events, including the Cowboy & Cowgirl Reunion, sponsored last weekend by the Montana Pro Rodeo Hall and Wall of Fame in Billings.
They’re booked to play the Joliet Community Center on March 14, and their next show at the Pub at the Pollard is set for Feb. 14, Valentine’s Day.
The music, as their fans in Red Lodge would agree, seems destined to take the boys wherever they want to go, despite their reluctance to stray far from home. For now, they’re just enjoying how much people in Red Lodge enjoy their music.
“I’m pleased that they appreciate what the boys can do,” their mother said. “And the more they appreciate it, the more the boys can do.”
