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The Guitar Fighting to Save a Forest – Rick Bass on the Yaak Valley’s Last Hope

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Rick Bass — petroleum geologist turned Montana Project director — explains how a 315-year-old spruce, felled during a Forest Service clearcut in Montana’s Yaak Valley, became the Black Ram Guitar. 

Jeff Bridges heard it once and commissioned six more. Now it’s touring with a busload of MFA students trying to get the Black Ram region of the Yaak designated as America’s first Climate Refuge. We talk old-growth forests, grizzly habitat, the politics behind a proposed 800-acre clearcut, and whether a guitar can actually stop a chainsaw.

Buy a ticket to the Black Ram Guitar Festival this October 2 in Bozeman, MT at The Ellen Theatre: BlackRamGuitarFest.org

Follow the students’ progress on their journey: GreenCurtainRoadShow.org

Check out this story about Rick and the Yaak in Mountain Outlaw: https://www.mtoutlaw.com/songs-from-a-climate-refuge/

And head to the Big Sky Events Arena for the free Wildlands Family Jam Saturday Aug. 1, from 10am to 12pm! 

Podcast cover for Outlaw Beat featuring two smiling men with teal overlay, 'Coming to Wildlands…' and 'Ep. 560' text, Jamie McLean & Willie McMillon at Wildlands Festival.

Jamie McLean & Willie McMillon on Wildlands 2026, the First-Ever Free Family Jam, and the Worst Gigs of their Lives

Two very different musicians, one festival weekend under Lone Peak. Jamie McLean — former guitarist for New Orleans’ legendary Dirty Dozen Brass Band, with stages from Madison Square Garden to Japan’s Fuji Rock — plays Wildlands Music Festival on Saturday, August 1 alongside Carrie Underwood and Kaitlin Butts, plus a free solo acoustic set at the first-ever Wildlands Family Jam that morning. Willie McMillon of Fader Magavin & the Risky Livers brings underground basement warehouse country from Jackson, Wyoming to Friday night’s bill with Riley Green and LeAnn Rimes — and explains why his band keeps writing checks to a festival they’re already losing money to play.

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