Home Ranch Bottoms summer lineup includes touring performers and Montana favorites

Home Ranch Bottoms has announced its summer music lineup, bringing a mix of Americana, folk, country, bluegrass and comedy performances to its outdoor beer garden stage in the North Fork Valley. 

The summer lineup includes nationally touring performers, acclaimed songwriters and Montana favorites.

The series opens at 6 p.m. June 25, with Missoula singer-songwriter Tom Catmull, whose blend of storytelling and Americana music has earned him a following throughout Montana and beyond. Catmull has recorded seven albums in the past two decades and performed at a variety of venues. He’s been the supporting act for Robert Earl Keen, Charlie Musselwhite, Junior Brown and Asleep at the Wheel. 

Martha Scanlan and Jon Neufeld will perform at 6:30 p.m. June 26-27, bringing an intimate blend of songwriting and innovative guitar work rooted in folk and Americana traditions. According to Scanlan’s bio, she and Neufeld met while playing together at Portland’s Indie-Roots festival Pickathon in 2010, shortly before recording “Tongue River Stories,” an album of field recordings captured on film at the 120-year-old family ranch where she was living and working in a remote corner of southeast Montana. Tickets are $20 (not including services fees) and may be purchased at events.sellout.io/Marth-Scanlan-Jon-Neufeld. 

At 7:30 p.m. June 30, Cruz Contreras and The Black Lillies, an Americana band he founded, take the stage with music that taps into blues, country and folk influences. Contreras, who also co-founded Robinella and the CCstringband, has collaborated with musicians such as John Oates, Jim Lauderdale, Langhorne Slim and The Turnpike Troubadours. Tickets are $30 (not including services fees) and may be purchased at events.sellout.io/cruz-contreras-the-black-lillies. 

His projects have topped both the Billboard and Americana radio charts, won Independent Music Awards, and been nominated for the Americana Music Association’s Emerging Artist of the Year award.  

Folk singer-songwriter Olive Klug performs at 6 p.m. July 2-3. Known for thoughtful lyrics and candid storytelling, Klug's music explores themes ranging from relationships and personal growth to social issues. Influenced by artists from Joni Mitchell to Kimya Dawson, Klug’s unfiltered vulnerability is at the forefront of every song. 

The Erik Koskinen Band performs at 6 p.m. July 4-5. Koskinen is recognized for his distinctive approach to American roots music. “Koskinen has reverently entered the anthology of uniquely crafted wry songs with the likes of Woody Guthrie and Ry Cooder while speaking as plainly as your neighbor,” his bio states. 

Montana western music duo Open Range performs at 6 p.m. July. Members Ric Steinke and Linda Hausler perform old Western standards, contemporary Western music, Swing tunes of the 1940s and original compositions. The duo take musical inspiration from Montana’s open spaces, including their home in Shields River Valley near Livingston. 

Ian Thomas and the Band of Drifters are set to perform at 7 p.m. July 10-11 with a dance-friendly mix of Americana, blues and honky-tonk music. Hailing from Montana, Tennessee and points between, they keep their music varied in arrangement, instrumentation and regional influences, including their latest release, “Heavy on the Lightfoot: Songs of Gordon Lightfoot.” 

The Polebridge Bootleg Band with its rotating cast of mostly Butte-dwelling musicians will perform at 7 p.m. July 16.  

On July 17, Junior takes the stage at 7 p.m. “At the junction of folk, pop and cosmic country, you’ll find the Montana based trio composed of songwriters Hermina Jean, Caroline Keys and Jenny Lynn,” their bio states. “Set in an unsentimental West, their songs explore themes of grief, aging, ending relationships and life transitions. Their work captures the magical thinking required to endure such changes, drawing comparisons to artists like Mazzy Star, The Cowboy Junkies, S.G. Goodman and The Roches.” 

Formed in Missoula in 2019, Junior began collaborating with Grammy winner Eric Heywood in 2020, who contributed his psychedelic pedal steel to their debut album, “Warm Buildings.” Their sophomore album, “Alive in Another Way,” recorded at the Rope Room in Astoria, Oregon in 2025 is in the final stages of production, slated for an early 2027 release. 

Walkerville, Montana-based musician and construction worker, Catfish Carl performs July 18, bringing his blend of roots-inspired songwriting and working-class perspective to the stage. The concert starts at 7 p.m. 

Comedy takes center stage July 23, with the Fourth Annual Comedy in the Woods event, featuring Rich Hall. Hall is an award-winning comedian, writer, documentary maker and musician, who rose to prominence as a sketch comedian in the late 1980s, writing and performing for shows such as “Fridays,” “Not Necessarily the News,” “Saturday Night Live" and “Otis Lee Crenshaw: Live.” Doors open at 6 p.m. and the show starts at 7 p.m. Tickets are $20 (not including services fees) and may be purchased online at events.sellout.io/rich-hall and at the door. 

Missoula-based Cash for Junkers performs July 24-25, bringing a repertoire of covers and originals inspired by early honky-tonk and Western swing, colliding with post punk and Tom Waits. The concert starts at 6 p.m. 

Maple is scheduled to perform at 6 p.m. July 30-31 and Aug. 1. The trio is made up of three friends with their own touring bands: Glenn Fields of "The Revelers,” Matt Morelock of "Ferd,” and Paul Lee Kupfer of "Paul Lee Kupfer.”  

New Orleans-based country folk singer-songwriter Chris Acker performs at 6 p.m. Aug. 4-5, sharing songs that blend traditional country-folk influences with humor and honest storytelling. His latest record is “Odd, Ordinary & Otherwise.”  

“In a genre full of tall tales and marketable lies, Chris Acker crafts candid songs – weaving his wit and woes into a body of work that exposes the stale plight of the American Songster to the honest, and sometimes hilarious, light of day,” his bio states.  

Oregon-based acclaimed songwriter Anna Tivel performs Aug. 11. Praised for her vivid character-driven songs grounded in the quiet stories of daily life, Tivel has released seven albums and earned recognition from NPR, Billboard, Rolling Stone and Pitchfork. The concert starts at 7 p.m. Tickets are $20 (not including services fees) and may be purchased at vents.sellout.io/anna-tivel. 

Butte-based musician Christy Hays performs at 6 p.m. Aug. 13. Hays cut her teeth as an Americana folk, alt-country, psychedelic rock and roll, singer-songwriter in Austin, Texas, touring nationally for a dozen years before heading north. Settling in Butte, Hays also runs the nonprofit Working Quiet and a writer-in-residence program Dear Butte. 

Aug. 14-15, Sheridan, Wyoming-based Americana group The Two Tracks takes the stage at 6 p.m. The band, which includes husband-and-wife Dave (guitar and cello) and Julie Huebner (guitar), Taylor Phillips (bass) and Fernando Serna (drums), fuses expressive storytelling, sonorous four-part harmonies and a lively authenticity. Dave Huebner’s classical cello training coupled with bold bluegrass riffs and rock melodies add a unique character to many of the band’s arrangements.  

Alex Dunn takes the stage Aug. 18-19. Dunn’s music draws from experiences from the American West and Alaska to craft folk and Americana songs rich in imagery and storytelling. Based out of the high desert of northern New Mexico, Dunn uses Folk and Americana influences to “reflect on the many lives he's led, from his youth along the border of Colorado and Wyoming to the quiet moments aboard commercial fishing vessels in the remote waters of Southeast Alaska.” The concert starts at 6 p.m. 

Singer-songwriter Lena Rich performs at 6 p.m. Aug. 20-21, offering a distinctive sound inspired by folk traditions with songs that celebrate the natural world and human connection. Within her songs, Rich paints a picture of hillsides of wildflowers in the Rocky Mountains and New England shoreline. Rich has shared stages with artists like Anaïs Mitchell of Bonny Light Horseman and Antje Duvekot and performed at the Red Ants Pants and Ossipee Valley music festivals. 

At 6 p.m., Aug. 22, Montana folk band Tin Finley performs, bringing the atmospheric arrangements, harmonies and intimate performances that pull from their individual stories and artistic points of view 

The summer concerts conclude Aug. 28-29 with the John Lowell Duo. His wife, Joanne Gardner, will accompany him on vocals.  

Lowell, a singer-songwriter, guitarist and recipient of the 2024 Montana Governor's Arts Award, has spent 43 years performing. He’s toured internationally with his bands Kane’s River, Growling Old Men, Wheel Hoss, the John Lowell Band and Coppo and Kaerner and Lowell. He has also appeared on Garrison Keillor’s public radio show, “A Prairie Home Companion.”  

Located at 8950 North Fork Road, about four miles south of the Polebridge townsite, Home Ranch Bottoms is a solar-powered bar, restaurant and music venue. 

For more information, visit homeranchbottomsmt.com or call 406-407-3863.