“I do traditional music, much in the vein of some of the old-timers that went by—everybody from Jimmy Rodgers to Woody Guthrie,” he tells SFR from his ranch in Hico, Texas, where the town motto is “Where Everybody Is Somebody!”

A true somebody, Grammy-nominated Edwards is an author, historian and musicologist. He’s been lauded by the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum and the Old-Time Country Music Hall of Fame, and played the character of Smokey in Robert Redford’s The Horse Whisperer.

This Sunday, Edwards performs in the New Mexico History Museum Auditorium in expectation of the cultural institution’s Cowboys Real and Imagined exhibit, which opens next month.