Glenn Ohrlin

A longtime participant in both cattle ranching and the rodeo circuit, Glenn Ohrlin gathered an extensive store of Western folk material that later took published form as The Hell Bound Train, issued by the University of Illinois Press. His performances of this repertoire favor a stripped-down format built around voice and guitar, occasionally augmented by fiddle or a second guitar. Those same choices are documented on the Rounder collection A Cowboy’s Life, which presents, amid numerous other cowboy numbers, Ohrlin’s renditions of “Barnacle Bill the Sailor” and the mournful “My Bonny Black Bess.” The resulting style is unpolished yet engaging in its directness.