Country Music with J.B. Zielke: Six-Continent Cowboy

UNWON with Keely Covello

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Country Music with J.B. Zielke: Six-Continent Cowboy

J.B. Zielke on herdsmen, music, and founding the Woodstock of Western grit (it's happening this weekend in Gillette, Wyoming).

Keely Covello

May 28, 2025

Transcript

J.B. Zielke is a world-traveling cowboy, author, and the host of the latest and greatest event on the Western music scene: Dusty Vaquero Days in Gillette, Wyoming, set to launch its inaugural weekend this Friday and Saturday (May 30-31).

Buy your tickets to Dusty Vaquero Days!

I met J.B. years ago. He set me a pre-release copy of his phenomenal memoir “The Lost Cowboy” where he describes his adventures cowboying on six continents. He’s living proof that the West isn’t won and adventure is still out there for those brave enough to find it.

Shop *The Lost Cowboy* by J.B. Zielke here

Now, he’s launched a new project: Traveling with his camera, he is documenting emerging sound coming out of the northern American West, a movement he calls Western Grit. On his YouTube channel Dusty Vaquero, J.B. is recapturing the soul of country music by profiling artists with a strong connection to agriculture, often on their ranches or in their barns or backyards or saddle shops, raw, stripped down to the basics, recording a song they wrote that means a lot to them in a place they love.

J.B. and I talked about his storytelling, his world travels, cowboying in South Africa, the looming crisis in veterinary medicine, how a Mongolian herdsman kickstarted his friendship with Colter Wall, living out of a minivan, the top destination on his bucket list (not sure what I expected he was gonna say, but it wasn’t this), the world’s most dangerous place to be a cowboy, the historical figure J.B. credits with “making the cowboy cool,” and a whole lot more.

Follow The Lost Cowboy on Instagram and Dusty Vaquero on YouTube and be sure to buy his book. Whatever J.B. does next, I for one don’t want to miss it.