Mike Moutoux, a singer-songwriter and poet from Silver City, N.M., is making his way up to the Cortez Cultural Center for a performance on July 16. Moutoux, known largely as “New Mexico’s Enchanting Cowboy,” specializes in turning ranch work into cowboy songs and cowboy poetry that give listeners a rare look into the life of a working cowboy.

The Cortez Journal talked with Moutoux about how he got his start, and finds his inspiration.



How’d you get your start as The Cowboy Poet?

I sort of fell into this entertaining deal and think I hit my head, because how I fell is a blur. I’ve been singing and telling stories in front of people since 2002. The bump on the back of my head has gone away, and I think I get better all the time.



What is it about the ranching and cowboy lifestyle lends itself well to songs and poetry?

I think a lot of folks are very interested in what cowboys and ranchers do. As the song goes, “You just can’t see ’em from the road.” That makes cowboys a mystery. It adds to the mystique and helps romanticize the life. It’s a dangerous, challenging and yet rewarding life, and I think people get that. If you love the West – the incredible wide open spaces, the cool mountain forests and warm dry deserts found nowhere else in such beauty and abundance – well, you will enjoy what cowboys do and where the do it. I try to capture all that when I write and when I perform.



What are some of the most inspiring places you’ve traveled to, performed in?

I have performed in some stunning places – Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado sure come to mind. While they excite me and fulfill me, it is the people I’ve met along the way who inspire me. The young rancher who turns his back on the new ways of doing things, choosing instead to work cattle entirely by horseback; the lady farrier who also turns old horseshoe rasps into works of art: the guy up the road who works hard at helping people and horses to understand each other better. The clever poets and hard-working songwriters who know how to tell a good story – they all inspire me.



What can attendees expect at your Cortez show?

I’ll have much more time to share and get to know folks with a two-hour show. As an entertainer, I look for the combination of songs and stories that give folks a good look at this cowboy’s horseback career. I’ve been bucked off horses, fallen off once (wasn’t even drinking); been stepped on by both horses and cows, been kicked by a cow; lain in the mud and blood doctoring cows, and helped pull newborn calves and watched them take a breath they probably would not have if not for some help. I’ve ridden through some awful pretty country and met some wonderful people along the way. I’ve heard other performers tell folks that our work is helping to preserve the lifestyle. I don’t think that is true. We can describe and we can honor it, but it’s the ranchers and cowboys who are preserving it.