JOn Chandler

Jon Chandler is a three-time winner of the prestigious Spur Award from the Western Writers of America.  Linwood, his moody examination of Doc Holliday’s life won the Spur for Best Song, as did his tribute to Wyoming’s Hole in the Wall country, Morning Star Moon.  His novel The Spanish Peaks received the WWA’s Medicine Pipe Bearer Award (Spur Award) and he was named True West Magazine’s Best Western Musician.  Wyoming Wind, A Novel of Tom Horn, was a finalist for the Colorado Book Award.  A seventh-generation Coloradan, Jon’s music and stories reflect his heritage, and his 11 CDs, two novels, three non-fiction works and myriad short stories and nonfiction articles are collected by western lifestyle aficionados worldwide.  10-9-21, Jon Chandler Live! Is his latest recording, released in 2022, while Homage, a highly praised collection of cover songs that have influenced his writing and singing was released in 2021.  He is at work on a new recording, I’m Still Here.  Chandler has travelled throughout the country performing at concert venues, honky-tonks, nightclubs, cowboy poetry gatherings and music festivals, and has appeared everywhere from the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville to the Congressional Earth Day Reception in Washington D.C. He is most recently honored with the Branding Iron Award by the Friends of the William S. Hart Museum in Newhall, California.     Jon's Website

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Jon Chandler is part Wallace Stegner, part Jack Schaefer. He’s part Bruce Springsteen, and part Rambling Jack Elliott. He’s part William F. Cody, and part Cole Younger. Yet he’s distinctively original, a poet laureate of the American West of past, present and future." 
- Johnny D. Boggs

 

The Los Angeles Daily News dubbed Denver native Jon Chandler the “...best western songsmith since Ian Tyson,” A review of Jon Chandler’s iconic CD WESTERNS includes the phrase, “Chandler’s music is literate and literary.”  That about covers it.  There’s not an ounce of stereotypical Gene ‘n Roy retro-cowpoke, Lazy Z Chuckwagon faux-western schtick in his music, voice or prose.  Chandler writes and sings of the historic and contemporary West - not particularly cowboy songs and stories, although they tend to show up with frequency.  His songs owe more to Larry McMurtry, Elmer Kelton, Robert Service and Mark Twain than they do to anyone in a band that ends with Wranglers or Ramblers.  Simply put, his music and his writing are reflections of his heritage.  A seventh-generation Coloradan, his novels, songs and poems

 
"It was a pleasure to see Jon and his ensemble of first-rate musicians on the Lakewood Cultural Center Stage.  Jon’s talent goes beyond his extraordinary way with words and deeply moving melodies; Jon is an artist in the truest sense of the word."
- Lakewood Cultural Center

 

"He walks onstage and it is like pouring cream for a bunch of cats.  The audience is slurping up everything he gives them and if they were any happier they’d be purring.”  -  Doris Daley
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"The first time I saw you perform was in Jackson, Wyoming a couple of years ago.  The performance was indescribably moving! Thank you for making great music with words that describe what we hold in our souls."
- Debra Brandsrub
 

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