Dave Stamey has lived the life he sings about. His bio lists cowboy, mule packer, and dude wrangler as jobs in his past, but singers sing, writers write, and entertainers entertain. From his early years, Dave yearned to sing, write, and entertain.

Dave was born in Montana and spent his early years on a small ranch (Westerners would never call it a farm even when the term “ranch” stretches beyond the acreage) in Shepherd, then moved with his family to Central California. California never left Dave, so he never left California; he still lives there.

It seems that most Western singers who came of age during the 1960s and 1970s have roots planted in rock’n’roll and country music. Dave is no different. In high school and after, he had a rock’n’roll band that played a lot of bars. The band added a steel guitar but, like rock and country during that period, covered the spectrum from Your Cheatin’ Heart” to “Proud Mary.” They covered what was the most popular on the radio and what the beer-drinking crowds at those little bars wanted to hear while they were dancing.

Those were rough and rowdy places, but Dave Stamey is not the rough and rowdy type; there’s too much poetry in his soul. In those little bars, when you don’t like the music or somebody or nothing in particular, you start a fight. During a gig at an Elks Club one night, a customer pinned Dave to the wall in the bathroom and told him he didn’t like his song selection. Dave went home, put down his guitar, and didn’t take it up again for ten years. Writers write; that’s just what they do, so that decade was spent writing novels, but no publisher was found in the Big Apple.

To be a successful entertainer, you need a great manager or a great wife. Both are preferable but down the road during those ten years, Dave married a great wife, Melissa. Dave was leading a group of weekend cowboys on a trail ride into the Sierra’s when Melissa told him he should take his guitar along. It had been ten years; there were no calluses on his fingers. Melissa insisted. Dave took the guitar.

During the trip, Dave sang some songs around the campfire, and it struck a light. There would be no more ten-year gaps with that guitar. Dave started singing locally, started writing songs, and the subjects were Western. You write what you know, as they say, and that’s what Dave knew.

You really can’t imagine the future. No cowboy in the 1880s ever imagined driving in an air-conditioned pickup truck over to the next ranch while listening to the radio. Sitting around that campfire in the Sierras, Dave Stamey never imagined that in the coming years, Western Music Association would name him Entertainer of the year six times, Male Performer six times, Songwriter of the Year, five times, or that he would win Will Rogers Awards from the Academy of Western Artists or that True West Magazine would name him “Best Living Western Solo Musician” three times.

Writing songs is like having children; you give it your best shot, but they turn out how they want to, not necessarily how you thought they should. Dave has been fortunate with his song children. One of his songs, “The Vaquero Song,” has been voted one of the greatest Western songs of all time by Western Horseman Magazine.

You never get from here to there by a straight line if there’s a long ride in between. Dave has ridden that long and winding trail to the greatest honor a Western artist can receive, induction into the WMA Hall of Fame.
Don Cusic

Talents: Musician, Singer, Songwriter

Awards:

• 2016 Hall of Fame Inductees
• 2016 Male Performer of the Year
• 2016 Song of the Year
• 2016 Songwriter of the Year
• 2016 Traditional Album of the Year
• 2015 Entertainer of the Year
• 2014 Entertainer of the Year
• 2013 Entertainer of the Year
• 2012 Entertainer of the Year
• 2012 Male Performer of the Year
• 2012 Songwriter of the Year
• 2012 Traditional Album of the Year
• 2011 Male Performer of the Year
• 2010 Entertainer of the Year
• 2010 Song of the Year
• 2010 Songwriter of the Year
• 2010 Traditional Album of the Year
• 2009 Entertainer of the Year
• 2008 Entertainer of the Year
• 2008 Male Performer of the Year
• 2007 Male Performer of the Year
• 2007 Songwriter of the Year
• 2006 Entertainer of the Year
• 2006 Male Performer of the Year
• 2005 Songwriter of the Year
• 2000 Male Performer of the Year