Rick Crowder This is Me

 Web References

1. 1. Washington State Fairs Association

   www.wastatefairs.com/service.h - [Cached]

   Published on: 2/14/2006   Last Visited: 11/20/2007

   Rick Crowder P.O. Box 2021 Paradise, CA 95967 Phone: (530) 872-1187 Fax: (530) 872-3525 E-mail: sourdoslim@aol.com

2. 2. Chico News and Review - Music - July 29, 2004

   www.newsreview.com/issues/chic - [Cached]

   Last Visited: 7/29/2004

   Clarify by adding, "You know--Rick Crowder."
   
   "Huh?"
   
   Never mind that he has performed at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall; that he's yodeled on commercials for Hershey's and McDonald's; that he tours with Grammy- and Oscar-winning Western music group Riders in the Sky; that he has a sizable following in England (where he is tentatively scheduled to play a festival in Bath in 2005); and that he hails from just up the hill--Paradise--where he lives with wife Rocki and their 12-year-old son Carson. Most people around here still don't know Sourdough Slim.
   
   Sourdough Slim, a.k.a. Rick Crowder, would certainly not call himself famous, despite how widely known he is in cowboy music circles across the country. "I'm just a regular guy who was given a gift to be able to yodel and to be able to be this character, Sourdough Slim," explains Crowder, who also sings, plays guitar, ukulele, harmonica and accordion and does rope and hat tricks and slapstick comedy as part of his act.
   
   "Even the biggest stars in cowboy music, nobody knows who they are," Crowder reminds me, referring to such greats as Wylie Gustafson (of Wylie & the Wild West), the Academy of Western Artists' 2004 Will Rogers Yodeler of the Year, and the aforementioned Riders. (Crowder himself was 2001 Will Rogers Yodeler of the Year, a fact he modestly never brought up in our phone conversation.)
   
   Crowder used to be active locally back in the '70s and '80s (he still performs occasionally at the Paradise Performing Arts Center), playing "two to three times a week" at places like LaSalles and the now-defunct Canal Street with the local group 8th Avenue String Band and a spin-off, The Twilight Trio. Those local performances eventually led to gigs farther from home, such as playing weddings in the Napa Valley, exposing Crowder to a wider audience.
   
   Crowder decided to start a solo act, creating Sourdough Slim in 1988. He began to play at fairs and festivals around the country.
   ...
   Crowder sees himself as "an anachronism," doing something that "go[es] back to the '20s." But he is very much of today, riding high on the resurgent tide of interest in cowboy poetry and vaudeville à la San Francisco's Teatro Zanzinni (in May, Crowder performed at S.F.'s Broadway Studios' "Circus Cabaret," following a contortionist).
   
   From the lows of being heckled by a gang of 20 skateboarders riding back and forth in front of him during his performance at the Springville (Calif.) Rodeo, to playing before a sold-out house the following night at The Palms in Winters, Crowder is used to the ups and downs of being "the only accordion-playing yodeling cowboy to ever grace the stage of Carnegie Hall."
   
   "I just enjoy the challenge," he says, "Dodging the spitballs. ...

3. 3. WFA - Western Fairs Association

   www.fairsnet.org/memberservice - [Cached]

   Published on: 2/17/2000   Last Visited: 3/21/2003

   Contact: Rick Crowder Phone: 5308721187 http://www.sourdoughslim.com/
   
   Western fun for the whole family. Hot cowboy yodeling, comedy and music with lots of audience participation. A fast paced show that always leaves 'em smilin'.