HEATHER PLATT: Music is just a universal language.

Everybody speaks it.

Everybody understands it.

Everybody is moved by music.

It takes precedence over everything else.

[MUSIC] STEVE BAKER: A bluegrass band is the only band that's going to keep playing when the power goes out.

[And I'm singing this Idaho mountain song] CONNOR JAY LIESS: The possibilities of writing music about Idaho are endless.

[MUSIC] ANNOUNCER: Funding for Outdoor Idaho is made possible by the Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation, committed to fulfilling the Moore and Bettis family legacy of building the great State of Idaho.

By the Friends of Idaho Public Television, by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and by the Idaho Public Television Endowment.

[SONGS PLAYING OVER EACH OTHER] [GUITAR STRUMMING] ♪ BELINDA BOWLER: If you're wondering what to do, feeling happy, feeling blue, be outside.

Be outside.

Take a stroll.

Take a hike.

Catch a fish.

Do what you'd like.

Be outside.

Be outside.

There's wonders in a stream.

Running through a forest green.

Be outside.

Be outside.

Amid the trees or desert sage there is fun for every age.

Be outside.

Be outside.

♪ BOWLER: I picked up the guitar in the first grade, and my sister taught me three very easy chords and a song that.

Tell me, where have you been, Billy boy?

Billy boy.

Tell me, where have you been?

Charming.

Billy.

And when I went to the university, there were some chances to play at the coffeehouse.

And some outdoor festivals, and I was amazed that I would get money.

They would pay me to play.

And so I came down and I played at Pengilly’s, And I never went back to Seattle.

I think it's healing.

I think it brings joy.

I think it opens emotional doors in oneself.

It's comfort.

What would you do without it?

♪ Be outside.

Let the colors of the day wash all your cares away.

♪ BOWLER: Be Outside has been a beautiful thing to me.

I was commissioned to write the song for a campaign called Be Outside.

A book had just come out and it dealt with how we were experiencing a disconnect for children and nature emotionally, physically strengthening children in nature.

And so when I got back to my classroom, I taught it to my students, and it became something that we loved to do.

[amid.

kind of get the mid in there on one syllable.]

♪ Amid the trees, or desert sage ♪ BOWLER: Music in the classroom teaches concepts.

I think it frees up your brain to learn a different way, ♪ CLASSROOM: It’s up to you just be outside.

♪ [WATER RUSHING] BOWLER: Music throughout history, it's the natural cycle.

It's the waving of the leaves in the trees.

It's the rhythm of a brook.

It's everywhere.

It doesn't have to be melodic like we lalala know that.

But it's everywhere.

And you just need to open your eyes and your ears and your heart and it's there.

When someone says your song made me cry, I'm.

I kind of think, well, that's good.

Not that I want to make people sad, but but you need to let it out.

And I want them to feel some emotional connection.

Not with me necessarily, but with something in themselves.

♪ On Lake, in a canoe, or stay on land, It's up to you.

Just be outside.

♪ You might not like the story, but let people hear the arc of the story.

I do know that it is primal as humans, but music has brought us together and it brings people together.

And it's important in ritual, and it's important in celebration and right and joy.

And that's how I connect with my audience, hopefully touching into some of that deep, deep stuff.

♪ Be outside, be outside.

Be outside.

Be outside.

♪ ♪ Be outside ♪ [STRING INSTRUMENTS PLAYING] JAKE SAUNDERS: It started with inspiration from my mom.

I come from a family of musicians.

And so when it was time for me to choose an instrument in fifth grade, she helped me out and helped me choose a cello.

And it was kind of a love at first play, almost For me at a young age.

It was kind of more of a social thing.

Maybe I fell in love with the instruments and the sound of it later on.

[STRING INSTRUMENTS PLAYING] And it's become the center of my life and kind of like the axis.

And so music is something I really love, but it's also the culture in the context, surrounding it.

[STRING INSTRUMENTS PLAYING] SAUNDERS: A lot of people talk about the cello as the closest relative to the human voice.

And so we occupied something that's a little bit lower and kind of mellow, but also higher too.

I'll play basslines.

I'll keep rhythm and sort of support the group from the ground up.

I can also play melody and utilize the higher register to cover that role.

[STRING INSTRUMENTS PLAYING] SAUNDERS: Music and outdoors connect in many different ways I think about it very kind of basic ideas.

So for example, our instruments are just an extension from the trees that are around us.

We have spruce and pine instruments.

Historically our strings were made from, you know, animal parts and our bows are made from horsehair.

It's really just sort of natural ingredients reshaped and formulated into something that produces a sound and even that sound itself, you know, vibrations are naturally occurring.

I think it's part of the reason why it's so fundamentally human to want to listen to music and engage with music is, is that is so intrinsic to you life, you know, vibrations all around us.

And so it makes sense to use that expressively and to create tools to manipulate that.

[STRING INSTRUMENTS PLAYING] SAUNDERS: So Appalachia Waltz by Mark O'Connor is a really lovely piece, and I think it just pays homage to the culture of Appalachian communities.

And their connection to nature, which really hasn't changed you know, undisturbed for so many generations.

And so it's a contemplative, sort of plaintive, beautiful piece.

It's relaxing and introspective too.

When it's feeling good, and I'm at my best.

There's a real connection and sense of oneness and people talk about flow state.

And so there's a real sense of calm.

The other side of that spectrum is, you know, like deep frustration and anger.

I think of it very much like a human relationship.

You love each other.

that means that some days you get along great, And other days you, like, never want to talk to that person.

You know, it's a dynamic relationship that we have with our with our instruments and we strive towards those beautiful, wonderful moments.

But it takes a lot of like nitty gritty, hard work to get there sometimes, actually a lot of the time.

But when it's good, it's the best.

[STRING INSTRUMENTS PLAYING] [MUSIC STOPS] [Nudity is allowed, right?]

[Nudity is allowed.. No kids, no dogs.

But nudity is fine.]

[No, just until the cameras shut off] CONNOR JAY LIESS: Yeah, we're play some songs for you guys.

[MUSIC STARTS] ♪ Oh.

Camas Prairie, I've been missing your plains too long.

Sweet ponderosa Cresting them snowy mountain tops And I'm singing this Idaho Mountain song.

And I'm singing this Idaho mountain song ♪ [these crickets are something else, aren’t they?..

..123 go!]

[UPBEAT MUSIC] ♪ When I was a young boy We hopped a stage and set out for the West Grueling was the trail Wagon wheels carving graves for the dead.

And I'm singing this Idaho mountain song.

LIESS: Idaho mountain music is a genre that is rooted in a sense of place and nostalgia for that place.

I think it's it's really cool.

We live in a state where you can spend 12 lifetimes trying to explore every single corner of it, see every nook and cranny, every fold, every patch of timber that might be hiding an elk or an arrowhead or something.

♪ Soon I was a young man ♪ LIESS: And so the possibilities of writing music about Idaho are endless.

The most important thing about Idaho Mountain music for me, is when you're playing music for folks, transporting that listener back to a specific place and or time.

♪ All I found was trouble Drinking and gambling away my finds I sold my rusty shovel And I hopped a southbound stage on my last dime And I′m singing this Idaho mountain song.

[INSTRUMENTAL] ♪ I built a log cabin In the heart of the Payette was my home I thought I′d find a woman.

But besides my mare this old soul lives alone.

And I'm singing this Idaho mountain song.

♪ [Alright, Man bun.

Ha!]

[INSTRUMENTAL] ♪ Blue Salmon River You're the blood that flows through my veins Gem of the Union Idaho, my home you′ll remain And I'm singing this Idaho mountain song.

♪ [From the top now boys and girls] ♪ Oh, Treasure Valley I′ve been missing your plains too long ♪ LIESS: Since I was a kid, I've always been super fascinated with 1800s history.

When I went to college, I studied how to write, and I wasn't very good at fiction writing.

But when I picked up a guitar, those kinds of stories came a little bit more naturally.

And it was kind of a nice marriage of the two to combine, like my fascination with 1800 history and combine it with the outdoors and writing songs on the guitar as well.

[INSTRUMENTAL] [MUSIC ENDS, CLAPPING] LIESS: When I write a song about either an experience in Idaho or a story I've read in Idaho, I kind of want the song to almost be like a soundscape or kind of a soundtrack to that story, or that experience.

[NEW SONGS STARTS] I like to kind of get off the beaten path, follow Forest Service roads, and get kind of as deep as I can and write about those experiences, writing about hunting trips and fishing trips and times that, you know, I got stuck in some crazy situation in the backwoods and when I go to places like that and I see, you know, the sagebrush taken over a head frame from an old mining mill, to me, that's it's it's this weird kind of contrast between, like, this manmade thing and then nature and, nature's kind of kind of coming back.

I want folks to kind of feel that as well.

Again, this nostalgia for a past, but also kind of just an appreciation for where we live and all the things that we have just right in our backyard.

♪ To think of you, and the man you choose Puts scorpions in my chest.

Well bolo ties and whiskey eyes Are all I got left To think of you, with the man you choose Puts scorpions in my chest.

In my chest.

♪ LIESS: I've done, like, shows in downtown Boise where there's, like, 5000 people.

And I've done shows up in places like Atlanta and Yellow Pine where there's five people and they're both really special in their own ways.

But even more special than that are playing in places that are off the beaten path, where they don't get live music a whole lot.

They sure as hell don't listen to... Oh, sorry, I shouldn't say that.

It is Okay?

♪ That kid you said, "By god Will get his father's auburn hair And cry when his bottle's gone" But that's all gone, and the memories long For the day you take me back ♪ LIESS: My job as a songwriter and as a folk musician is to kind of preserve some of those stories.

At least that's kind of how I see it and what I'm telling those stories or singing them in a live performance setting.

I'm really trying to give them justice because I want people to kind of understand that, there's somebody who was murdered up on Harris Creek Road up here, or somebody who got crushed to death by a ponderosa pine tree.

And Placerville, like, those are all real stories that I've written about and that I've come across in just kind of my historical nerd research.

But a lot of people don't understand it, that it's right in their backyard.

There's these really cool stories and, you know, just kind of barely scratching the surface at this point.

♪ and that man you choose Puts scorpions in my chest in my chest.

[Ready man bun?]

[MUSIC PICKS UP SPEED] LIESS: The feeling of Idaho mountain music has always been, at least for me.

Like like you take a cup of Appalachian mountain music, traditional fiddle driven music from the South, and you mix it with more contemporary American folk music.

And maybe throw a little bit of bluegrass and folk in there if you're feeling frisky or whatever.

To me, it's, it's it's meant to be upbeat.

It's meant to be stompy and also meant to have a story or a story component to it.

That's at the end today.

What makes Idaho unique.

♪ Your bed and your soul will always stay cold But I'm sure that whiskey will keep you warm Better keep you warm.

♪ [INSTRUMENTAL] ♪ Well bolo ties and whiskey eyes Are all that I got left.

And to think of you, and that bottle of booze Puts scorpions in my chest.

Well bolo ties and whiskey eyes Are all that I got left And to think of you, and that bottle of booze Puts scorpions in my chest.

In my chest.

♪ [INSTRUMENTAL] ♪ Well I can't go home cause I poured the loan Into my aching heart And I sit and pray, today's the day You call me from that bar Well I guess I best be on my way How much do I owe?

Can I pay your keep sometime next week But take one for the road?

For the road.

♪ [SONG ENDS, CLAPPING, CHEERING] [GUITAR STRUMMING] [PIANO COMES IN] ♪ It’ll take three days by the river.

To wet my soul again.

It’ll take three days by the river.

To feel at home in my own skin.

It’’ll take three days under the blue sky.

‘til I’m as free as the wind.

Three days under the blue sky.

To fill my blood with good oxygen In the great cloud of uncertainty.

I’ve been coiled up an alarm clock spring.

I’m too tired spiraling.

It’s time to take time.

♪ BRUCE MICHAEL MILLER: My mother was a nightclub singer.

And I remember from a very early age her coming home from clubs, smelling like smoke and complaining about the music that people wanted to hear, compared to what she wanted to play.

She used to bring home all the new music.

One of the albums she brought home was a band called cream, which was Eric Clapton, and something about his guitar playing.

Really just I don't know what it did to me, but I heard that so clearly and I just wanted to do that.

I wanted to be able to make that sound, whatever that was.

♪ to take time.

HEATHER PLATT: I was 12 years old and kind of sounds funny, but my mom used to listen to Neil Diamond growing up, and I just decided one day that writing songs would be the coolest thing in the world.

So I just started doing that, you know, just feeling the power of music, because I really felt music from a young age moved my soul and so I just kept doing it.

MICHAEL MILLER: For me, it's a process of songwriting.

It's like being in nature.

It feels like church to me more than anything else.

I love it so much that I can't imagine doing anything.

I mean, I do other things, but that's like my favorite thing to do.

♪ Three days by the River three days, under a blue sky.

Three nights with my baby.

Three days by the river.

Three days under a blue sky three nights with my baby.♪ PLATT: Music is just a universal language.

Everybody speaks it.

Everybody understands it.

Everybody is moved by music.

It's one of those things that takes precedence over everything else.

If we have disagreements and certain parts of the way we live or in society, music always seems to supersede that and bring people together.

[Thank you.]

MICHAEL MILLER: Something that really inspires me, which which is like the amazing geology of of Idaho, especially southern Idaho.

It's really stark.

And there's not a lot of trees.

There's sagebrush and a lot of basalt.

So that's inspirational.

[WATER RUSHING] Someone listening, going to be able to experience what I'm what I'm experiencing right now.

And I don't think there's anything as cool as nature to do that.

♪ Just a mile or two upstream.

I was a mountain river flowing.

This is where I say goodbye to the rattlesnakes, sage and open sky.

A little lost, a little lost.

PLATT: Our recent album is called Idaho Originals, and it's eight original songs about the people and places and stories of Idaho.

We have a song called A Little Lost, which is about the Little Lost river near Mackey that disappears underground.

It can take 200 years, actually, for this water to infiltrate underground.

And then it comes out at the Thousand Springs near Ritter Island in Hagerman.

And how that's such a kind of a metaphor for how we sometimes get a little lost in ourselves.

And then come out good as new.

There's so many unique things about Idaho that are inspirational and so many unique places.

I mean, we're so lucky to live and have this much nature around us all the time to just take a few steps in any direction.

[WATER] MICHAEL MILLER: Music is vibrations, right?

And so is nature.

I mean, we're all vibrating.

These things kind of start to vibrate together in kind of in harmony with each other.

♪ A little lost, traveling underground A little lost A little lost Little lost river Then I'm a thousand springs.

When I'm found.

PLATT: So the name Crazy Love.

When we first started playing together as a group, as a duo, we actually got called for a gig to play on Valentine's Day.

And literally at the time that we got the call, we were working through the cover song Crazy Love, and Bruce just said “Oh, Crazy Love!” and then it stuck, and I feel like it ended up making a lot of sense, because a couple years later, we ended up having this incredible experience of, in 2019, I donated my kidney to Bruce, and that just felt like that fit.

You know, it's kind of crazy love that we are about.

And so making we kept the name and it's crazy love ♪ A little Lost, A little Lost, A little lost river Then I’m a thousand springs When I'm found.

A little lost little lost little lost, little lost river.

a lost a little.

Lost.

Little.

Lost river.

And little lost a little lost.

Traveling underground A little lost a little lost, little lost river but i’m a thousand springs a thousand springs I am a thousand springs When I found.

♪ [Thank you wind!]

[Hey, we're the Lonesome Jetboat Ramblers.]

And, the last time we played here, it was snowing pretty hard.

So I know.

And the time before that, it was a torrential rainstorm.

It was a rainstorm.

Yeah] [GUITAR STRUMMING] STEVE BAKER: So this is a song I wrote about Idaho.

And see if.

See if you get it.

♪ Well, I'll tell you a little story about the place I'm from.

Where the rivers from the mountains.

Make the salmon run.

Tell the folks across this country about this promised land.

And they give to you, the look that says they don't understand Ohio.

No, I didn't say Ohio.

Well Cleveland's nice, And so are Mennonites, but there's no Frank Church, and there's no Weippe.

BAKER: So I play banjo and guitar in The Lonesome Jetboat Ramblers.

There was a request to play at a wedding at Mackey Bar Ranch on the main salmon.

They give us a ride on a jet boat, and we put the band together and we didn't have a name yet.

We're trying to come up with a name.

We thought, well, they brought us here on a jet boat.

It kind of rambled far from home and everybody else is coupled up at this wedding, and we're kind of lonesome, so it's kind of a classic bluegrass name.

The Lonesome Jetboat Ramblers came up from that, and it's been years now.

♪ Middle Fork They don't compare.

Iowa that's a long way from Idaho.

♪ RYAN BLIZZARD: We just have a great time When we’re together.

and I think we are all in it for the same reason.

If we can get paid to be in the mountains and play music, it's what we'd be doing if all of us were together anyway.

[INSTRUMENTAL] ♪ Well, bridge, here's a bridge.

I put one in a song for once.

It's that bridge in Twin Falls.

Where all the dude bros jump.

Idaho.

What I said was Idaho.

♪ BAKER: For years I was a firefighter in the in the west, in Alaska, down in New Mexico.

And, and you'd be just digging line and sawing down trees and look down, in the river, and there'd be rafts, beautiful bright green, blue, red, pink rafts and people just having a great time and just be sweating and dying up there, just going on someday, someday, when I'm done being a smokejumper, I'm going to be down there in the summertime with all those people.

And eventually I started being able to be that guy down there on the river.

And, I always went with my guitar, and my favorite time was when somebody else would pull up from another party and they'd have a guitar, too, or a mandolin or a banjo, and we'd all get together and play.

And some of the most beautiful music I've ever heard has been on the the banks of the river, the Grand Canyon or the Middle Fork.

[NEW SONG STARTS] ♪ On the road to see, my darling, just so we can go today I was two days south of heart broke I was north of Santa Fe.

♪ BLIZZARD: What makes us unique, I think, is that we all sing.

We do a jam sitting around a campfire playing music where one guy will play a song and sing, and then the next guy, I'll play a song and sing.

We just go around the circle the whole show.

Each one takes a turn singing a song ♪ And that absence made your heart go wander And it roamed and rambled right away Now I headed down and homebound.

Going back to where I came.

♪ BAKER: A bluegrass band is the only band that's going to keep playing when the power goes out.

And so when we're out there with our instruments, we don't need a generator.

You don't need a plug in.

We just have the sound of the water, sound of that squirrel back there, and the sound of our instruments and our voices and I don't know, it just makes a lot of, a lot of joy around the campfire.

♪ Well, I knew that when I got there that something wasn’t right I can hear it in your temper.

♪ BAKER: The best part of playing in The Lonesome Jetboat Ramblers is that we're all really good friends.

And, we love playing together.

And I think people can tell that if our energy is good, they're happy.

We're happy.

We created some great memories in a beautiful place.

And, you know, success.

That's really what it's about.

♪ And that absence made your heart go wander And it roamed and rambled right away I headed down and homebound.

Going back to where I came.

♪ ♪ And that absence made your heart go wander And it roamed and rambled right away I headed down and homebound.

Going back to where I came.

♪ [Thank you.

Thanks a lot.

It's called “Absence Made Your Heart Go Wander” Wer’re Lonesome Jetboat Ramblers if you’re just joining us.

But, You guys have been here the whole time.

Thanks for sticking with us.]

♪ Oh, babe.

I gotta get better at being me, before I can get better with you.

God I hope you know that my love for you ain't over.

But it sure feels like we’re through Hope you know that this ain't planned.

I still want you to be my man.

In the dreams we were making.

We were singing in the mountains.

While a kid played wild in the creek.

Your working hands are caring for the needs of our family.

My heart's so happy, I’d weep.

It felt so real.

It felt so close.

It's the dream of you I miss the most ♪ ASHLEY ROSE: We're in the beautiful lost River valley near Mackay, Idaho.

What they call Idaho Base camp.

I'm here participating in my first ever artist residency.

Am thrilled to do so.

So cool.

The contrast between being gifted time and space to create versus a life grinding as a gig workers immeasurable.

First of all, the offering is beautiful.

Before I received it was granted the residency.

I just admired that it existed out there.

It's a complicated relationship, money and art.

To be on the receiving end of a true, classic act of patronage is amazing.

It's really special.

[SINGING] The environment here has its own gravity.

It really pulls you into a sense of dropping into yourself.

I spent a lot of time as a child in the wood River Valley, so a lot of the flora in this area feels native to me and and supportive to me.

I have relationships with a lot of the plants in this area.

♪ like the present mind was buried ♪ ASHLEY ROSE: when I was eight years old.

I was obsessed with classical music and my mother was a music teacher.

She taught piano, so my first instrument was piano, and I've sang ever since.

I'm a second generation songwriter.

My mom was a folk singer.

♪ Oh babe, I Gotta Get Better.

at being me before I Can get Better With you.

God I hope you know that my love for you ain't over.

But it sure feels like we're through.

Oh, I hope you know that that this aint planned.

I still want you ♪ ASHLEY ROSE: I don't really know any other way to live.

But hand-to-mouth.

Making music.

The songs that I'm working on are partially constructed.

They were born in other places in Idaho, a lot of them in Boise, some another remote locations in Idaho.

I do a lot of my writing on the road, and interestingly enough, a lot of it is through the passage from Mountain Home into the wood River Valley.

There's some some sort of magic in magnetism of that area going over the pass there.

[DOOR OPENS] And I don't know who said it, but boredom is like one of the first steps to creativity.

You've got to have nothing to do to channel something.

And also it's really lovely to be disconnected.

[SONG STARTS] ♪ I still want you to be my man.

In my dreams we were making we were singing in the mountains, while the kids played wild in the creek working mans a caring for the needs of our family My hearts so happy, I weep It felt so real.

It felt so close.

♪ ASHLEY ROSE: the name of the record that I'm working on is is Through the Body.

So a lot of the songs on this album are about relationships, and either the failure of relationships, or the way a relationship can enhance your wellness and your sense of safety.

One of the songs on this record is called I've Gotta Get Better, and one of the lyrics is I've gotta get better at being me before I can get better with you.

So the idea of taking distance from an otherwise loving relationship, knowing that self-responsibility is so essential to healing, so our relationships, but that that particular song is about taking time and responsibility for your own patterns and behaviors.

♪ So heavy don’t flow So it's been so long since I felt safe.

I love my body is the only place.

oh babe, I gonna get better, at being be before I can get better with you.

ASHLEY ROSE: The beauty here is shocking.

Your jaw will drop.

It's so beautiful.

But also felt very familiar.

I do feel like the sound of this place, the water moving the wind in the morning is an invitation to wake up and be alive.

The sun is shining and the place is so inviting, and I feel so much more in touch with natural rhythms.

When I'm not disrupted by a city, it is inspiring.

[SONG FADE, BIRDS CHIRP] TRAVIS WARD: Hillfolk Noir is a musical project that has been in the works for almost 20 years.

It's a group that we like to think of as not having a lot of boundaries.

♪ There's Rattlesnake in Infirmary, and there's a dead man in a bulletproof vest.

There's some booty whacking back in the parlor and it's a singalong.

for soldiers at war.

Rita's sitting on an old bar stool.

In the corner of the open hall.

What's the matter with Rita?

♪ TRAVIS WARD: It's been a real minimal set up, but with, like, a big clattering sound with a big rhythm.

So with the suitcase as a bass drum and a stand up bass as the low end, and then with a washboard, kind of like a snare drum or a mandolin or a banjo would be.

And then the steel guitar.

So it's kind of like, a story with a lot of movement.

♪ Her lips spoke meaningful words to me, but they're silent by the open bar.

♪ ALI WARD: I think I was just very drawn to the fact that these instruments didn't need amplification.

I love to sing harmony, so to be able to play instruments and and that allow me to sing the songs that just as my joy.

♪ Nobody knows ALI WARD: Then at some point when we started playing more together and Hillfolk really formed, I started playing a small drum set, a cocktail kit, TRAVID WARD: and I played electric guitar.

ALI WARD: And Mike played the bass.

So that was like first generation of Hillfolk.

Then we had another baby, so I wasn't able to tour and whatnot with the band.

So we had another friend who started playing drums.

[INSTRUMENTAL] ALI WARD: During that time I had been learning the saw.

TRAVIS WARD: ordered one online, came home one day.

I was like, what the hell is this?

It's a saw!

♪ My third was to tell her that I loved her and throw my hands into the air and run.

♪ ALI WARD: I spent most of maternity leave trying to get brave enough to order that thing.

I couldn't figure it out for a while, and thought it was broken or whatever, but finally, I've kind of figured it out that.

♪ What's the matter with Rita?

What's the matter with Rita?

♪ ALI WARD: We are also interested in psychedelic rock, which obviously Hillfolk Noir is not a psych rock band, but there is an element of psychedelia with that, you know, kind of spooky saw.

TRAVIS WARD: definitely add to a ghost.

to the song.

ALI WARD: It can be beautiful and it can be completely like a Foley arts, a spooky or funny, and that is fun to add.

So it adds a bit of playfulness.

♪ What's the matter with Rita?

♪ ALI WARD: I needed to play instruments where I could wear the baby in a backpack.

Then it just became so fun to try to figure out what instrument really fit the song, or the context of the song for that particular period of time, and sort of stay nimble rather than be like, I want to play guitar on this song.

What does the song want?

I could play washboard and that was fun.

♪ Footprints on my floor, Before the sun comes up.

It's by my bedside, and a big old moon shining on my floor.

♪ TRAVIS WARD: When we set up for shows, Ali calls her area the Ali's hardware store because there's like a couple washboards and she sits on a ladder and there's a banjo and a guitar and a little symbol, you know, and there's stuff that's falling on the ground all the time and getting knocked over the musical sides.

It's awesome.

Yeah.

Ali's hardware store.

♪ fingerprints on my door, before the rising sun.

Fingerprints on my door, before the rising sun.

Just by my bedside, big old moon shining on my floor.

TRAVIS WARD: It gives me something to be true to.

You know, it's something to keep me true to myself, maybe.

I know that I love this, this form of art so much that It helps me to be more humble.

[MUSIC FADES IN] ♪ I keep a jawbone on my wall, sing when the sun goes down.

Jawbone on my wall, sing when the sun goes down.

Just by my bedside, and a big old moonshine on my floor.

♪ [Come on big moon!]

ALI WARD: It brings an internal joy and quieter mind than anything else that I do.

Like it It is centering to be participating and making music with people or making music by myself, but it is It's a different frame of mind than anything else in my life, and I find that important to prioritize and and make space for.

♪ Footprints on my floor, before the sun comes up.

Reach by my bedside and a big old moon shining on my floor.

Yeah, Reach by my bedside and a big old moon shining on my floor.

♪ ♪ I've been wait’n on the side of the road Waita ride, all the way home.

Nobody stop for a guy like me, ain't nobody gonna sing like me.

When you get to the bottom, You get up again.

put your boots on the road again.

put your boots on the road again.

♪ When you get to the bottom, You get up again.

♪ ALI WARD: There's this gradual growth that can be, at times, incredibly frustrating.

But it's also fun to think back to.

There is improvement, you know, and there is joy.

And you can make other you can bring joy to others.

[MUSIC FADES OUT] [GUITAR FADES IN] ♪ 110 don’t mean nothing to me.

Seen 40 below.

When the rivers freeze.

But the ground is bare.

The skies are clear.

Packing my gear.

Getting out of here.

When the snow falls down.

I'll be on my way to a Western town When winter rolls around.

I'll be halfway home to a mountain town.

Where the snow falls down.

♪ ♪ Heading up north.

For some piece of mind.

Leaving my baby and my worries behind.

Going to find my freedom, brother.

You should too.

If you don’t do it now, you’ll be one year older when you finally do.

Snow falls down.

I'll be on my way to Western town.

When winter rolls around.

I'll be halfway home to a mountain town.

Where the snow falls down.

Where the snow falls down.

♪ [HARMONICA] WILLY BRAUN: Don't get much more authentic than that.

ANNOUNCER: Funding for Outdoor Idaho is made possible by the Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation, committed to fulfilling the Moore and Bettis family legacy of building the great state of Idaho.

By the Friends of Idaho Public Television, by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and by the Idaho Public Television Endowment.

To find more information about these shows, visit us at IdahoPTV.org.

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