Wilmeth's West - The Delk Band Project

Call to Order

The Next Greatest CD

The Delk Band Project

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

     On a night in 1934, Forrest Delk and his cowboy band fought floods and the dreaded Needles Eye to play at a dance in Apache, Arizona.  It was on that trip that the Gully Jumpers were transformed from a bunch of young wannabes to a musical institution in southern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona.  For 77 years, the Delks have played at and made places like Hachita, the Mimbres, Lake Valley, Cliff, Glenwood, and Fence Lake one night musical capitals of the West.

     Forrest was born near the thriving junction of Little and Big Rustler Canyons, northeast from Apache Tejo and southeast from the Kneeling Nun in Grant County, New Mexico.  He was a gentle man who made his living ranching and his life riding pretty good horses and playing the fiddle.  He was a better than fair roper, a life long friend to many, and the father to Joe, Linda, and Jimmy.  His lovely wife and the kid’s mom, Gertrude Twiss Delk, sat for years at Saturday night dances watching Forrest under the constant threat of having to dance with whatever elder bachelor that, for fleeting flights of fancy, thought he was the best dancer in the hall.

Forrest Delk & Gully Jumpers (circa 1949)

    One of the most astounding feats of cowboying that Forrest ever performed was not witnessed by a paid audience.  It isn’t even yet recorded in the town records, but it was witnessed by the Delk kids.  They were gathering under the Nun and had held a bunch of cows up in a little place awaiting the arrival of their dad.  They could hear him coming.  Rocks were rolling, brush was popping, and from time to time they could hear him providing commentary on the proceedings. 

     Out into the clearing he exploded trying to get a shot at a yearling heifer that was running with her ears laid back.  They came through the gather and the heifer went right on through the fence that formed the backside of the hold.  Forrest never stopped.  He baled off his horse and over the fence he went with his batwings slapping him in the back of the head and in the face with every step.  On out of sight and into the brush the calamity proceeded.  Brush continued to pop and then the calf started bawling . . . well, sort of bawling. 

    Finally, here he came dragging the calf back to the bunched cattle holding on to the only thing he could get his hands on . . . the calf’s tongue!  He yelled for somebody to open the gate and on into the mix he came.  When he got to a point the calf could be released, she shook her head and ran to the middle of the bunch and wouldn’t come out!  Never missing a lick or saying a word, Forrest got remounted and the work continued.

     A mix of the Headquarter and West Camp crew

     The other night, the modern version of the Delk Band once again made Cliff, New Mexico the music capital of the West when they played for a benefit dance.  This time it was a fund raiser to help in the locals’ fight against their government’s ‘blitzkrieg without recourse’ to disrupt their lives and their limited game herds with the reintroduction of the Mexican wolf.  At a point in the dance, Forrest’s grandson and Joe’s middle son, Mark, sang a Delk Band classic, ‘Fräulein’. 

      Grey haired matrons needed only to close their eyes and remember the rendition of that song that his now deceased granddad used to play.  Press the issue very hard and misty eyes and a lump in too many throats would have occurred.   The Delk sound and its history just make that sort of thing happen.

      Recapture the past

     Joe Delk has announced that the band will make a CD of songs that people request from the present and past crews.  No doubt stuff like the ‘Westphalia Waltz’ and ‘San Antonio Rose’ will be in the mix, but, if band fans are allowed to offer suggestions, Mark’s ‘Playboy’ and ‘The other Woman’ must be included.

The Delk Band (circa 2010)

     Any album cover picture must include now deceased band members Ed Werner and Robbie Arnspiger, but modern day guitar player Robert Flowers and his palm leaf tipped in retro fashion must be there, too.  The problem becomes how do you get 77 years of history into a single album?

     The obvious answer is to take a page out of the 1998 “The Recordings of Forrest Delk and Gully Jumpers” and make it a twin pack album.  Joe and his boys, Neal, Mark, and Byron, need to close the doors and come to the decision of how to best present the past.  Those decisions should be made on the basis of all the history and the blend of talent that the family has experienced in that long period of time.  That needs to come from within the Headquarter crew.    

     Delk fans will not be disappointed in the decisions.  Guaranteed results of the first of the two discs in the album will be judged by the need to roll the rug back and dance to the great swing sounds that resonate Delk history.  The challenge will be how to set the stage for the music of Delk future.  That must come from the second disc.

     To the Future

     A suggestion that was thrown at Joe needs serious consideration.  The suggestion was the idea that, out there in music land, there exist 10 songs that should have been number one hits, but, for one reason or another, they failed.  For example, one of those songs, Robert Earl Keen’s ‘Maria’, should have been a number one hit by George Strait.  Why George didn’t release that song we will never know, but its haunting love story and soft subtle island rhythm is beautiful.  Many think it is the best song Robert Earl ever penned.

     There are two or maybe three songs on Ray Price’s recent year album “Time” that, if released when Ray was still king, would have been monster number one hits.  Similarly, there is yet another on Mr. Price’s “Prisoner of Love” album.

     If it had been Ray singing with Neil Diamond in Diamond’s ill fated “Tennessee Moon” album instead of Waylon Jennings on the cut, ‘One Good Love’, it could have been a winner.  Similarly, if Diamond’s selection of ‘Marry Me’ on the same album would have any radio play, it was and remains a song for the ages.  It is that good. 

    There are others out there.  If they could be incorporated into the Delk ‘Here and hereafter’ disc on the basis of five two steps, two waltzes, two swing songs, and a specialty ballad (or just a plain winner), a little help and urging from our good friend, DuBois and his merry band of Westerners, would set such an anticipated album on course for special things.

     The Song yet sung

     There is yet, though, an undiscovered and perhaps unwritten song that exists only among the Delks.  Mark has felt it at times.  Neal and Byron need to reach for it, but it is there.  It is a key element to this album and the future of Delk music.  The other top ten songs can be considered and suggested, but this most special song cannot come from outside.  It must come from a Delk. 

     When it is discovered, it will reflect the simplicity of the swing rhythms that started with Forrest and continue today.  It will catch the fancy of yet unnamed little cowgirls of tomorrows just like it would have in those western maidens that night at Apache, Arizona so many years ago.  It is there . . . and it, too, has number one written on it. 

     Reach out and urge Joe Delk to undertake this project.  Suggestions are in order and DuBois is the assigned steward of the suggestion archives.  It is time to be insightful and helpful . . . or forever hold your tongue . . . and now you know that, in Delkdom, holding your tongue has a whole different meaning!

Fiddlin' Forrest Delk

Stephen L. Wileth is a rancher from southern New Mexico.  He met Joe Delk at a basketball game at the then Western New Mexico Teachers College’s Field House on a cold night in 1957.  He was just a button and Joe was already . . . Joe.  “As far as I am concerned, Joe Delk was always mature beyond his years.  His sense of right and wrong is a tribute to his mama and daddy.  We all need a constant reminder of that . . . the simplicity of right and wrong.” 

The Westerner met Joe Delk in 1965 at the NMSU library as we sought to quench our thirst for knowledge (or maybe it was a keg party as we quenched a different kind of thirst).

You can check out the Delk Band's website where you can read about their history, look at their bookings, and see many pictures.