The Monterey Cowboy Festival (formerly the Monterey Cowboy Poetry & Music Festival) has become an important cultural event in our community. For almost twenty years, the Festival has brought the masters of cowboy music and poetry to Monterey and the Central Coast. These singers and poets are authentic working cowboys who have created and carried down a true Western phenomenon that is born of a life lived on working cattle ranches. This lifestyle is slowly disappearing across the West, and festivals like ours are a way of preserving their unique culture and exposing new generations of Californians to a vanishing way of life. In 2019, the Monterey Cowboy Festival will celebrate its 21st year with another gathering that showcases poets, musicians, musical groups, and performances from the country and cowboy genres. Past performers have included Kacey Musgraves, Jon Pardi, Midland, Corb Lund, Ned LeDoux, Ian Tyson, Baxter Black, Juni Fisher, Paul Zarzyski, and Mike Beck. This year, the Monterey Cowboy Festival will continue to keep the songs, poetry and spirit of the West alive in celebration of our 21st anniversary.