"It’s the Jumas and the Jarmans and the Enanders/It’s the Strobecks and the Ogdens good neighbors for sure/The kind of people show up with a hammer in their hand
When your barn burns down to build it up again...Well it’s a Saturday night and everything is all right/The Tioga boys are here, there might be a fight/The girls are in the back seat playing with their dolls/And daddy’s shooting snooker down at the pool hall..." And so the song goes.
"They love it, especially in Stanley. There's a lot of themes in it that are relevant, no matter what your home town is," said the songwriter, Merrill Piepkorn.
The audience also goes wild for its Sons of the Pioneers medley, with tunes such as "Cool Water" and "I'm and Old Cowhand." It also performs the rowdy "Six Days on the Road," and the song "Prairie Anthem" by Williston native D.W. Grothe. Piepkorn first heard "Prairie Anthem" performed by Grothe about five years ago while at the Dakota Cowboy Poetry gathering in Medora. He then had bandmate Gregg "Smokey" Temple of Mendota Heights, Minn., listen to the song, and Temple was touched by it.
"It just really seemed to me, to fit the sense of what we're doing with this little group...It just takes on, it really delivers that sense of being in that part of the country...it always had a great feeling about the people and the country...in a lot of ways, it conveys the soul of the group," Temple said.
The country-Western band with regional ties is the inaugural act for the Old School Bed and Breakfast in Arnegard. The Radio Stars is performing at 7 p.m. on Thursday, July 2, in the room known as the "little gym" by Arnegard locals. B and B owner Milt Hanson is currently in the process of renovating the space for concerts and other events.
For those who haven't heard of The Radio Stars, the band consists of Stanley native Piepkorn, who now lives in Fargo, on acoustic and electric guitar, as well as harmonica; Temple on acoustic, electric and pedal steel guitar; Roger "R.P." Sell of Hawley, Minn., on bass guitar and Alex Rydell of Fargo on the fiddle.
All four are vocalists, and Temple is the musical director who arranged the material, recorded and mixed the music for "Headin' West."
The Radio Stars have included Arnegard in its Circle Tour of western North Dakota, a tour with stops in Stanley and Beach. Piepkorn was looking for a place in McKenzie County to include in the tour, and he asked Gene Veeder of the county's job development office where the band should play, and Veeder suggested the bed and breakfast.
Temple enjoys performing in western North Dakota and loves to tell the world about the beauty of the Badlands. But in a recent phone interview, he joked about wanting the band to play east of Fargo for once.
"I've just got a special place in my heart for western North Dakota. I think it's beautiful, a great spot to be," Temple said.
Piepkorn is familiar with the region, not only because he's from Stanley, but because of contacts he's made throughout the state through his career in radio sales.
The band's roots go back to 1972, when Temple and Piepkorn played together at coffee houses and bars while students at Concordia College, Moorhead, Minn. They continued to jam together throughout the years an, since 2005, have performed on a regular basis.
"Maybe we can get another 10 years out of this," Temple said with a laugh.
Williston businessman and singer Tim Ritter is the opening act for The Radio Stars, accompanied by Laura Enerson on the fiddle. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased at the door, at First International Bank and Trust in Watford City, at the branch in Economart in Williston or by calling Old School Bed and Breakfast at 701-586-3595.
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