Gordy Pratt

He was a classically trained guitarist, a songwriter, a lyricist, a playwright, and a producer. He picked up the guitar at ten. Summers at the Black Hills Playhouse, where his father worked, pointed him at this life. He studied at Ithaca College and spent a semester at the Royal Academy of Music in London. He lived all over. The Black Hills became his true home.

In Deadwood he built Deadwood Production Company and put up more than a dozen musical comedies. The Desperate Damsels of Deadwood. Virtue, Villains and Vixens. Wild Bill Hiccup. He wrote them, produced them, and played them, often more than one a day, in a town that had just opened the tables. Winters, he took a one-man show on the road.

His other one-man show was Seth Bullock: The Spirit of the West. He performed it more than a thousand times. ABC's Good Morning America had him on to sing “The Days of '76,” a song from that show. As The Original Fabulous One Guy he carried a stand-up musical comedy of parodies and originals into rooms across the region. He opened for Kenny Chesney, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and the Beach Boys.

He wrote more than fifty original songs. Some poked fun at South Dakota life. Some did not. He played satirical revues at the Bullock Hotel and historical nights at the Adams Museum. He spent summers in Hill City at the Chuckwagon with Paul Larson. At home in Spearfish he kept a song circle and house concerts going. No microphones. Songs and the people who write them.

South Dakota Country Music Hall of Fame, 2017.

The records are still here. Seth Bullock: The Spirit of the West (2010). Rusty Old American Dream (2012). Son of a Gun (2014). Hear them on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4aEoUklXzkBYXewDv0vNMZ

We remember him. If you have a song, you have a seat at the table.