Romance on the Range
By Melissa Piche Times Contributor
The Arts on 817 concert series resumes on Feb. 11 with Romance on the Range, featuring cowboy poet Doris Daley and singer/songwriter Doc Mehl.
Doris Daley describes herself as a “ranch girl born and raised in rural southern Alberta near Fort Macleod.”
She is a fourth-generation rancher who has fond memories of always enjoying language arts, reading and writing poetry. This is where her story begins.
“When I look back over my elementary school career … language arts was always my thing,” said Daley.
She reminisces about writing short skits or poems for nearly any local event. From anniversaries to family reunions, she was eager to showcase her talent.
After school Daley travelled the world and ended up right back in Alberta where she found herself attending a poetry gathering in Pincher Creek around 1991. She had every intention to attend as a spectator, however her brother encouraged her to perform.
This sparked something inside her and she knew she needed to explore this cowboy poetry more. She explained that at this reading “anyone who recites a poem they get a dance ticket for free. I like to dance so I thought why not.”
“I didn’t know that there was a life waiting for me in cowboy poetry,” said Daley. “I didn’t see myself as any wiz-bang on stage. I just said I needed to keep writing.”
She met a lot of good folk in Pincher Creek; her main reason for going to the poetry readings was the joy it sparked.
“My joy was going and listening to the ‘old timers’ tell their stories,” she said.
Cowboy poetry, for Daley, is writing about cowboy coffee, or the Chinook winds in southern Alberta.
As her repertoire grew, she found herself getting invited to more gigs, women’s gatherings, 4-H shows, and that sort of thing.
In 1999 her big break came when she was invited to Elko, Nev., the hub of Cowboy Poetry. Elko is a weeklong event that is held yearly to celebrate all things Cowboy Poetry including music, dancing, workshops and conversation with fellow performers.
After her first visit to Elko in ’99 more opportunities came her way and she began receiving invitations to more prestigious events. A lot of her gigs were in the US where she met Doc Mehl and friendship grew into a relationship
“And now he’s a Canadian citizen performing in Strathmore, Alberta,” she said. “We liked working together so much we got married.”
Although the two are a real-life couple, they both stand on their own as performers. “Doc and I are complimentary on stage, but we both bring our own style and our own game,” she said.
Both performers have been hitting 2023 hard right out of the gate as the world has opened and they are eager to be performing live again.
“We are two people who love, love, love the energy that people bring to a live show,” she said. “We feed off of that energy.”
Daley is an author of two books of poetry and has been named in the Top 5 Cowboy Poets three times. Mehl is also an author of a recent book of poetry, which includes 95 original poems, all with a western theme.
Tickets are available for purchase online (www.smoreuc.com), the Vault Cultural Collective (thevaultonline.ca) or call 403-901-1654.
The show is Feb. 11 at 7:30 p.m. at the Strathmore United Church.