Original subtitles

American poet Ron Rash is quoted as saying,

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Appalachia is a region of contrasts,

beauty and desolation, wealth and poverty,

Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX

culture and isolation.

It is a land that is both real and mythic,

inspiring the imagination and challenging the soul.

I have always felt this quote spoke to the heart

of not just the mountains,

but the creative people inside of them.

While Eastern Kentucky gets a negative view

from the national media,

one cannot undermine the amount of musical talent

that has come from these hills.

From the high mountains to the foothills,

Appalachia's produced so many prolific songwriters

and musicians, one cannot view, travel through,

or think of the hills of Appalachia

without thinking of a song.

I was always inspired by writers, travelers and singers

for as long as I can remember.

I still remember the first time

I heard the song "Cowboy Boot Heel."

The song was filled with such heart,

and the singer was right out of a Western novel.

This singer was known other than Rob McNurlin.

For the past 30 years,

Rob McNurlin and his Beatnik Cowboys

have performed over 1000 shows,

providing a backdrop in song to all those that listen.

I first met Rob in the year 2004

when Rob would play in the coffee shop I worked at

in Morehead, Kentucky.

Rob always had time to talk to me about harmonicas,

Bob Dylan, Western poets,

and of course great Western wear.

His music spoke to others.

I even had the chance to have

Rob on my old TV show, "Art This."

Rob's songs tugged on heartstrings

and spoke to me as a fellow Appalachian.

I have seen Rob perform less and less as I have grown older

and have had less time to travel because of work.

I was surprised in 2024

when I saw a post on Rob's social media

about Rob stepping away from playing music.

I immediately reached out to Rob

and asked him if I could tell his story in a film.

So here we are, and this is my take.

My name is Steven Middleton,

and for the past 20 years I've been fortunate enough

to make documentary films.

Through highs and lows,

I have told the story of people, places,

and remarkably interesting things.

This is a film about a poet, a songwriter,

a trailblazer, a troubadour,

and, most importantly, my friend.

This is From the Cowboy's Boot Heel,

the musical journey of Rob McNurlin.

♪ Early morning, almost gone ♪

♪ The sad old pony I rode in on ♪

♪ You know I told you I must go ♪

♪ As my cowboy boot heel taps out the rhythm of my soul ♪

Then let's go ahead and do it.

Okay.

My name is Steven Middleton,

and for the past 20 years I've produced documentary films.

In 2004, I worked at a coffee shop,

and in that coffee shop, I had a job

of making drinks, food and running sound.

And I worked with a lot of musicians running sound,

some who weren't so kind to me, others who were very nice.

And it was there that I met

this very tall, very interesting,

and very kind man named Rob McNurlin.

He had a post about a year ago on his social media

that he was gonna retire

and he was hanging up the hat and the guitar.

So I wrote him and asked him

if I could produce this piece on his life and career.

He said yes.

So I hope this lets the audience,

people, especially younger people,

understand who Rob is and his music and his contributions,

especially to all of the current people in the business,

not only just Nashville

but all over the U.S. that Rob inspired.

But to understand Rob's music

and his value and his worth in this field

after all these years.

] Now here's the cowboy himself, Rob McNurlin.

Well, I grew up in West Bridge,

right outside of Ashland here.

And music was all my mom and dad's fault.

They had the greatest record collection.

Mom had a whole box of 45s from the '50's

with Elvis and Chuck Berry and Little Richard,

and especially those Sun Johnny Cash records.

That's what really got me.

And dad had Hank Williams albums and Tex Ritter,

and they played 'em all the time.

And dad got one of those big furniture stereos.

And at night we would go to bed,

and however many albums they would hold, five or six,

and I remember going to sleep listening to Johnny Cash.

And at Christmas of '69, I asked for a guitar.

Started taking lessons.

And it's so funny because for some reason

I ended up with an electric guitar.

Which was weird

because Johnny Cash didn't play electric guitar.

But, so when I started lessons,

the teacher's like, what do you wanna learn?

And I said, Johnny Cash.

And so he was trying to teach me the Luther stuff.

And after two or three lessons, I told him, I said,

look, Johnny Cash is hitting all the strings at once.

And he goes, oh, you wanna play chords?

And I said, I don't know,

I wanna play like Johnny Cash, you know?

It was after high school that I really,

probably during high school,

me and some friends started playing.

We never played out anywhere.

We weren't good enough to play out.

We weren't even really good enough to play in the basement.

But we were having fun.

And that's why it's called playing.

And it was probably the early '90's

before I really started playing a lot.

And then in '93 is when I went, you know, full-time music.

And that's what I was doing for a living.

It was the Beatnik Cowboys.

I just put out my first CD.

And it was pretty much those guys.

Darrell James played guitar and produced the CD.

And later, he just wanted to play blues.

Great blues musician.

So when he left,

Dave Prince moved from bass to guitar

and John Gostovich took over bass.

And that was the lineup

for, gosh, probably 10 years maybe.

Or close to it, anyway.

There was a music store in Ashland, Kentucky

called The Guitar Store.

And I was going down there

to try to find some cool instruments.

And there was a guy down there,

kind of a cowboy-looking dude.

He was very tall.

And he was off to one side,

and he was playing a song by The Band.

I think he was playing "The Weight."

And, you know, people were just kind of listening to him,

and maybe somebody grabbed a guitar.

And I thought, you know, I know that song.

So I grabbed a guitar and jammed with him.

And that was the first time I ever met Rob.

Well, he was super nice.

He was just the nicest guy.

You know, you meet people,

and it's hard to get to know 'em

or they're standoffish

or they don't attempt to get to know you.

But I felt like I'd known Rob for a long time

from the first time I met him.

And, you know, music was a good connection for us.

But, still, he was just a nice guy.

You know, it was really interesting.

We had been playing together for probably a couple years.

We had a pretty tight-run unit going.

And the guy playing guitar at the time

was a guy named Darrell Hall,

and Darrell was also an engineer

at the studio here in Louisa.

So Darrell was like,

hey, if you wanna come up after midnight,

we can slip in, and we can record your record.

It won't cost you anything.

And so we were slipping in under the cover of darkness,

and we would set our drums and stuff up

and get everything sounding good,

and just started playing.

And most of the stuff on that first album,

I mean, it was pretty much the second or third take

'cause we didn't want to fool around too much.

It was pretty much dead live too.

So what you're hearing there is pretty much what went down.

Dave had an old Volkswagen hippie van.

One morning, after setting up all night

at Dave Prince's house, just having fun,

in the early morning hours,

we decided we were taking the hippie van

on tour to California.

And we did.

We booked shows for the way out and on the way back

and had a blast.

Well I gotta tell you,

you know, Rob and I hung out a lot together.

We'd just get together and ride around.

And I had a Volkswagen van,

which made me even more cool.

And so we would get together

and just cruise around in that van, listen to music.

And he comes up to my house one morning,

he said, man, I got an idea.

He said, let's get in your hippie van

and let's go do a tour out to California and back.

And that was like getting the Apollo rocket

and going to the other planets.

I mean, it was so far away,

and no one we knew that was playing music

had ever tried anything like that.

And, honestly, Rob just didn't know enough

to know you can't do that.

And it was great.

So I said, well, let's do it.

So I said, I rebuilt the motor in the van and got it ready.

Had a couple months.

And Rob got on the phone,

'cause this is pre-internet,

and booked the tour.

And one night, we just all got in the van,

and we put all of our equipment in it,

and we headed west.

♪ Summer fanfare ♪

♪ I'm looking through ♪

We wanna hear anything.

Your favorite song.

You like The Grateful Dead? - Yeah.

No way.

Do a Grateful Dead tune, Rob.

♪ I've been out in Amarillo ♪

♪ Day by day now ♪

♪ We didn't sleep until the sun go around ♪

Oh yeah.

While we were out there,

we visited Rambling Jack, hung out at his house some,

and you know, just, it was all just living a dream.

You know, we didn't have phones

to tell us where the gigs were.

We're just trying to find them.

We didn't know how to do anything, but it worked.

And it's just because Rob, just, why not?

Why can't we do that?

And that was his attitude with a lot of things.

And it was great.

We had one flat tire.

I mean, the whole trip to California back

in a '71 VW van with 10 million miles on it.

We had a flat tire and you know, any tire can go flat.

It wasn't the van's fault.

And you know, I drove the whole way

'cause I don't trust any of those hooligans to drive my van.

And Rob was the copilot.

And you know, we'd traveled

like the first time we left Ashland

and our first show was in Omaha, Nebraska.

And we drove straight through

and it felt like it was about 24 hours worth of driving.

And we had to play as soon as we got there.

And we didn't know up from down.

But again, none of us knew enough to know not to do this.

And Rob had a vision, Rob was always a step ahead.

When you would talk to Rob, he's like, man,

I'm gonna make a record and we're gonna make a video for it,

and then we're gonna do this tour.

And he would plan things out.

And I never really met anyone who did that.

You know, he did the first music video I'd ever seen

and he made friends with a guy named Richard Friley.

Rob goes, we'll get in to make his video.

So he gets to know Friley

and they put together a video for "Lotta Good Men."

And you know, he used a lot of footage from us out West.

Man, this is awesome.

Rob has a legit music video

and that's just the way Rob was

Oh, I was just completely ate up with it.

I played and wrote and thought about music 24 hours day.

But Rob had really transitioned a lot

because when we made the first album,

we're a rock and roll band.

And a lot of nights we just sounded like Neil Young

and Rob was writing a lot of real powerful,

just what I call rock and roll songs.

But over time Rob transitions more into that Johnny Cash,

you know, Tennessee Two thing.

♪ Your season's through ♪

I played acoustic, you put the paper

and string so you can get that Johnny Cash quick, you know,

and I understand for Rob, it's fewer moving parts.

And when you're trying to keep a band together

and get people to go play,

the more people you have, the more problems you have.

So he'd really part it down.

♪ Buffalo trail ♪

♪ And also lose your day ♪

On the Rob McNurlin folkumentary.

Mr. Nashville here.

The next record didn't come along until 2000.

I had a stockpile of songs.

Getting ready to go back

to Nashville, Tennessee, hang out with John Cash.

We're gonna be with Johnny Cash on Grammy Day.

John Carter Cash at the Cash Cabin Studio.

Wave to the camera. - Hey.

- That's John Carter. - The door kind of opened

that I could go to,

to the Cash Cabin.

And I thought, well this is a once in a lifetime chance.

All kinds of cool toys.

You know and there's another example, it's like,

well we're gonna go record at Johnny Cash's studio,

so, you know, whatever, nobody goes

and records at Johnny Cash's studio unless you're somebody.

We drive down to Hendersonville

and we're on Johnny Cash's property

and there's Johnny Cash's car

and we're going in his studio to record.

And I'll tell you what, I was scared to death.

It's one thing to slip in and record in Louisa, Kentucky,

but now we're at Johnny Cash's house and we're gonna record.

And you know, it said the same thing.

We're playing live like John Carter, turn it on and say go.

And man, I've never experienced anything like that.

This is Dave Prince and our photographer John Flava

walking down the road at Johnny Cash's cabin.

Ain't this cool?

We just cut a hit record that nobody will ever hear.

Hear about this RC Cola?

Johnny Cash's RC Cola

direct from Johnny Cash's refrigerator,

in Johnny Cash's cabin.

On Johnny Cash's land

in Hendersonville, Tennessee, United States of America.

Oh yeah.

I thought I was king of the world at that moment.

Johnny Cash should be the fifth head on Mount Rushmore.

Johnny Cash is the father of my country.

Amen.

They should have left it that way,

then people that misspelled it

can still get a hold of the record.

Yeah, that's true.

♪ I'm working on a building for my Lord ♪

♪ For my Lord ♪

♪ I know I told you I must go ♪

Hillbilly music's country music.

And I, you know, used to be growing up I thought hillbilly

was a derogatory term,

but it's not, you know, it's like Cajun

or anything, you know, it's something to be looked up to

and it's real music.

♪ Sometimes up and I'm sometimes down ♪

♪ Coming forward to carry me home ♪

He just was part of your life all at once?

Yeah.

And it was like, I don't know, there's something

that happened and then all of a sudden Rob's in my life

and we hit it off pretty well

being both from eastern Kentucky.

He was so

sweet of a guy and loved music

as much as anybody I'd ever met.

And we got to end up playing music a lot together

in the coming years.

He called me up, asked me if I wanted to play in prison,

like, you know,

at the time I was taking every gig I could get, you know,

and the first gate opens up, like he talks to somebody,

they buzz us through the first gate, we're in,

the gate closes behind us,

and then the next gate opens up

and we're just driving through the prison

like kind of yards at that point.

And we get out

and we are just in the middle of the general population

of the prison and getting the PA out,

setting everything up

and people are coming up and talking to us.

All this stuff is going on.

It's like.

♪ Six inches of snow ♪

♪ Two hours the cock will be crowing ♪

I hit a point where I'd stopped playing in my rock band.

I was playing my wife Theresa's band called

In the Mountain Jets and we were doing that,

but I just wanted to do something.

I just felt like I had something I needed to accomplish.

So, you know, I told Rob one time, I said, you know,

I'm probably not gonna play with you a whole lot anymore

'cause I'm gonna try and get something going.

And to not be doing that,

and, you know, it was kind of tough

'cause I was proud to be Rob's guitar player

and I go back and listen to those records, like, man,

that's me playing with Rob

and I'm really proud of the work we did and I missed it.

I miss playing with Rob,

but I just really thought I needed to focus on trying

to do something I wanted to do.

In 2009, I moved to Nashville in the spring.

Well, I was going through a bad spot myself, which is,

we won't go into that detail,

but that's why I moved to Nashville

just to kind of get away from everything.

And I was living with JT Cure for a couple of months

and we really helped each other

and it was just such an honor to be around him.

It was good for him and good for me too.

You know, it was fun having him around, getting up

and, you know, going having some coffee

and just, it's interesting

to see him, you know, as to see that side of him

because I had known him, he had always had the get up on,

you know, he's always dressed to the nines,

you know, shows up like he's in a show.

But then seeing the Rob McNurlin as he's about to go to bed,

you know, like just in his pajamas and stuff like that.

It's an interesting perspective.

And in the morning, you know, it's like crazy hair

and you know?

For a long time,

and we played music all the time.

I mean all the time.

That's all we did, just played music.

♪ One little boy at the big Rodeo ♪

♪ The props were all busted ♪

♪ The lights dimmed low ♪

Live hillbillies. - Live on stage.

Well, me, my dad and a good friend of ours,

Gerald McCormick, went to almost every

Marty Stuart TV show taping.

And one day this guy came in

and Rob kind of, you know, he always looks like stage ready,

you know, and he walked in,

we all kinda looked at him like, who's this guy?

You know, we never had met him.

And so a few minutes later Marty came through

and Marty asked Rob said, hey,

do you have a rhinestone coat in your van?

You know?

And he said, put it on.

Said that'd look cool sitting in the audience, you know,

so we thought that's kind of weird.

And so Rob went out

and he came back in, had like a real

Manuel coat on, you know?

I said, wow, this guy must be somebody, you know?

And so anyway, and Rob came to almost every taping too.

He lived here then at that time.

And so we just kind of got to be buddies

hanging out at Marty Stuart TV tapings.

And he pretty much came one of my very best friends,

you know, so, and yeah, he actually, our last house,

he actually recorded a couple albums in our basement,

you know, and JT Cure and Kayton and Kenny Vaughn

and those guys come over and played on it.

And it was just, yeah, everything he does,

he keeps it simple, but quality.

So I'd had Manuel start making me some rhinestone outfits

and I get invited to his birthday party,

but there was Kayton kind of playing in the house band.

I concocted the idea, well I'm gonna do a new record.

I want Kayton play steel guitar on it.

And Kayton's wife had passed away

and Kayton told me, he said, where are you living down here?

'Cause we were playing a lot of music together.

But then, and I told him, he said, well,

anytime he said, I got plenty of room.

My wife passed away.

And so I ended up living at Kayton's.

He got into playing with Kayton Roberts.

And then you joined in with them at that time, right?

I did, yeah.

Kenny was playing with us some.

Chris Gruggs would be in and out with us.

We've got these great photos of us playing down

at Layla's all together.

And it was awesome for me to get to meet Kayton

and to have that experience, you know,

as a musician, to get to play with somebody like that

and a link to the history of the music that you love

was really cool.

And on top of that, he was just such an awesome guy,

one of the funniest guys I'd ever met.

And to travel with him

because we traveled a little bit together.

It was always a good time.

Always looked forward to those shows.

Rob had sort of moved into Kayton's house

sort of as a roommate and musical co-conspirator,

which I think was great for Kayton.

You know, his wife, Iva Lee, and he

had played music together for so long

and one of my concerns for Kayton when she passed away

was, you know, losing that musical connection.

And it seemed that when that door kind of closed,

this door opened up with Rob

and Kayton hadn't really been on the road

or toured since, you know, Hank Snow had passed away,

which had been, you know, maybe 10 years at this point.

And I feel that that friendship between Kayton

and Rob McNurlin sort of gave Kayton a sort of second wind

and a new chapter in his career.

All of a sudden Kayton was out working the road

and he was playing shows around town

and it was, you know, usually him and Rob

and early on JT Cure, Kentucky Boy who plays

with Chris Stapleton on bass.

And then a little later on it was Roger Carroll

from Hank Snow's Rainbow Ranch Boys.

So that was through Kayton that I got to know Rob.

He taught me, I know the first time

we actually sat not recording on my album,

just sat down to Jam.

I started playing some Hank Snow song

and I didn't make it through half the verse.

And he goes, now son, and real nice in a very kind way.

He said, you're leaving out some chords.

And I said, well, you're gonna have to teach 'em to me.

And he just perked up.

He just knew if I was willing

to learn, you know, that was great.

And he did, he taught me passing chords

that I'd never even heard of or thought of.

And I know I came back up here,

they had a guitar show on this stage here,

and I came back up for it

and I was just sitting behind the booth

and one of my friends, Richie Collins was sitting there

with me and I was playing something and he looked at me

and goes, wait a minute.

He said, Rob McNurlin don't know those chords,

what happened to Rob McNurlin?

And I said, well, Kayton's teaching me a lot.

They had a really special bond and just,

and it was great for Kayton too, you know,

after Hank died, Rob kind of kept him on the road

and kept him going and kept him lively.

You know, I think Kayton probably wouldn't have lived near

as long as he did if he hadn't been out with Rob

and Rob keeping him playing

and keeping him in the music business, you know?

And I think Rob was, you know,

a really good friend to Kayton

and really helped him out a lot, a whole lot.

And Kayton knew that and Kayton appreciated it

and so did Kayton's family, I think, you know,

and they had a really special bond

and they did a lot of great music together.

And Rob even, I'm sure you've probably heard about,

but he even produced a record on Kayton

and I had Marty Stuart come in and play on it.

And me and Marty got together and collaborated

and I do some graphic design stuff

and we did the cover for it

and all the artwork for the CD and everything.

And Marty took the pictures for the cover, you know,

he's a great photographer too.

And Rob really stepped up

and just really took care of Kayton in the last few years

with a lot of, you know, kept his legacy.

Really helped with it, you know.

Hello, this is Rob NcNurlin.

Thanks for tuning into the Rob McNurlin Ranch Party.

Just wanted to let you know that starting in November,

we got some all new episodes,

one even featuring the legendary folk singer

Rambling Jack Elliot.

Lot more surprises for you.

Log into RobMcNurlin.com to learn more.

Thanks again.

Me and Richard stayed friends all the time

and so we wanted to do a TV show

and we made a couple of pilots

and so we started trying to get some sponsors for some money

and we did, Richard and also a guy named Brad Bearer

helped film when Richard was out of town.

And we put the TV show, you know,

it was on three years, I think.

From the Country Music Heritage Hall,

It's a Highlands Museum

and Discovery Center in Ashland, Kentucky

on the Country Music Highway, Route 23.

It's the Rob McNurlin Ranch Party

starring Rob McNurlin and his Beatnik Cowboys,

Kayton Roberts, Kenny Vaughan, JT Cure

with Kim Johnson, Bobby Taylor,

Andrew Dunlap,

and Les Worley, plus today's special guest.

I'm your announcer Chance Martin.

And now here's the star of the show, Rob McNurlin.

♪ There's no rules on the road ♪

♪ That's why the road rules ♪

♪ Now there's rules on the road ♪

♪ But the road can't be ruled ♪

But you know who else?

It's so foreign

of a thing to me to be like,

I'm gonna make a TV show or I might have that idea,

but nothing ever happens to it.

He saw the whole thing through, he just did it all.

And it was a really cool thing to be a part of

and to see it, you know,

and Kayton was involved with some of those,

it's almost like he could see

the whole thing from beginning to end.

And from our perspective, we just kind of showed up

and he's like, okay, let's play this song.

And we'd play that.

Good take, good take, yep.

All right, then we'd play another song,

then we'd maybe change clothes.

And then he just knew all this stuff

to make it work.

But he is always in, you know, he was always making films

and had an eye for that kind of thing too.

Why is the phone ringing?

I'm busy, I'm trying to do a show.

Hello, Ranch Party, Rob speaking.

Well, hey baby, how are you?

What are you into today?

Oh, well that's good, that's good.

Yeah, we're having a good time down here

playing a little bit of music.

Oh, the show went fine last night.

It went fine.

While we were playing, this three-legged dog

walked into the bar and said, I'm looking for the man

who shot my paw.

Yeah, I love you too, baby, I'll see you later.

All right, welcome back to the Rob McNurlin Ranch Party.

Thanks for tuning in

and we have a very special guest today, Mr. Marty Stuart.

Marty, thanks for being here.

My pleasure, Rob, heard all about your show,

cousin Kenny's been telling me about it.

Well bless you, sir.

I saw one of your DVDs

and I had to get in on it.

Well, I appreciate it.

Thank you so much. - You stylized.

Oh yeah, we're sparkling today.

♪ Then he went ♪

Yeah, we worked hard on those shows

and I think they came out pretty good.

You know, I really enjoyed it.

It was me and Kayton and JT Cure

and Rob, I think just the four of us.

It was really fun.

And he had some good guests on there,

you know, he had Marty Stuart

and Larry Cordle and all kinds of folks.

Well, I was playing with Marty Stuart

and His Fabulous Superlatives

in some outdoor show in East Kentucky

on a nice night.

It was well attended, lots of hillbillies there.

And he kind of appeared into my world there.

And I remember, you know, I saw, you know,

I saw this guy's cool, you know, just, he cuts a, you know,

when he walks in to wherever you are, you know,

you immediately notice him.

'Cause you know, he's put together

and he's has his own sort of aura about him, you know?

And I thought, this cat's cool.

And then Marty must have known him, I'm not sure,

but Marty got him up on stage that night.

Where are you Robert?

Come on son.

Got a fine looking cowboy suit on.

They played a song by Rob called,

"Is Your Name on the Rock and the Roll?"

And they tore it up.

Marty played the mandolin and Rob played his acoustic guitar

and Rob sang and the audience went crazy, you know?

And I was like, hm, this guy's different.

And then, you know, the more I got to know him, you know,

I realized that not only was he into old country music

and bluegrass music and knew a lot about all that stuff,

but he was also into Jerry Garcia and Bob Dylan.

He knew a lot about that stuff.

And I said, oh, all right, I can relate to this dude.

I like him.

And we've been friends ever since.

I think it was JT Cure on bass

and Kate and Robertson Seal

and me on electric, Rob,

and sometimes Chris Scruggs played with us,

various instruments, I'm sure.

And, you know, we played some shows

and yeah, we've worked together in the studio.

Has Rob been easy to work with?

Oh, what do you think?

Yeah, he's the easiest to work with.

Well, you know, the thing about Rob is he knows his music.

He has his style

and when he steps up to the mic in the studio

with his guitar and to sing, he's ready.

There's no guesswork there.

He's already ready to go.

You hit the button and he lays his part down and it's done.

And so it's pretty easy to work with him

because he knows his style

and he understands what, you know, his own music really well

and it's fun and it's easy

and it always sounds good because he's good.

Yeah, Kenny played,

he's played on my most recent three albums

and he produced the two latest albums,

he produced, played on 'em.

And actually all of Marty's band played on

the two most recent ones, you know,

but that "Tent of the Wicked" I was just talking about,

may be my best record.

I mean, I really love the songs on there

and the the musicianship on it is just unbelievable.

I mean, I think it's human nature

that if you played in a band

and someone takes your place, you're gonna go look at him

and go, well, how good's that guy?

Well, I look over and it's Kenny Vaughan.

It's like, well, that guy's pretty doggone good.

I couldn't tune Kenny's guitar.

He went to Nashville and again,

his way of getting in with people.

And all of a sudden he and Marty Stuart are best friends

and he's got Kenny Vaughan

and he's got JT Cure playing,

which he knew JT from back in the Moorhead days.

He'd known JT for a long time.

But Rob had just continued

to play with better and better people.

I remember being in a building in Nashville,

I looked out the window and there was this guy

all by himself just walking down the street

and he had on the most gorgeous coat,

Porter Wagner would've been jealous of it.

It was fully rhinestone, beautiful, just by himself.

Who's that character?

And then come to find out, it was Rob McNurlin.

I remember we did an old Johnny Cash song,

a song that John and Bob Dylan wrote called "Wanted Man"

on Rob's TV show.

So I love that performance.

♪ This next time go ahead ♪

♪ Had all that I wanted ♪

♪ Moved a lot of things I've had ♪

♪ And a lot more than I needed ♪

♪ Of some things that turned out bad ♪

And sometimes it was reruns,

we didn't have three years worth of shows.

But yeah, we had some, you know, great stuff.

I mean, and there again, I was blessed with guests.

I mean, Marty Stuart and Larry Cordle

and John Carter Cash,

just blessed with such great guests.

And there's a whole list of 'em

that I'm drawing blanks on now.

So when I first reached out to you,

you had a Facebook post

that made me think you were retiring from music.

Well, I probably wrote the post wrong,

but just because of some family situation,

my dad passed away

and somebody needs to take care of the property

'cause mom's in a rest home.

And plus they were raising my great nephew.

Now, you know, I could abandon all of that

and go on the road playing music,

but I wouldn't feel good about myself if I did that.

So I'm gonna play music around here and occasionally travel,

but I just can't like I used to.

I can't be on the road for three or four weeks

'cause I wanna be able to visit my mom

as long as I can, help my little nephew with all he needs

and take care of the home place.

♪ In the courtroom for the judge's gavel falls ♪

♪ Defended the innocent and righted many wrongs ♪

♪ But my books of law were traded for these songs ♪

♪ I might've studied medicine and healed my fellow man ♪

♪ Picked the lame and crippled up ♪

♪ Helped make 'em stand ♪

♪ Is there someone dying that should be standing strong ♪

♪ 'Cause my healing powers were traded for a song ♪

♪ Do you remember ♪

My dad worked in a Steel Mill

and Johnny Cash sang, man, you know,

to me they were like the same though.

And so when I got into it, it was purely for music.

And then of course I started trying to make money

and things, and eventually you got the point, oh yeah,

you wanna be a rock star, like everybody does.

And then common sense kinda drifts in

that not many people make it as a rock star

and especially the kind of music that I picked

because I can play it with a rock and roll band,

I can play it with a country band,

but I'm really a folk singer pretty much.

And I realized that there wasn't

that many rockstar folk singers.

So I was just trying to make a living at it.

And I did, I managed to do that.

♪ You ain't gold ♪

♪ All you are girl is flesh and bone ♪

♪ You're the best at these eyes have seen ♪

When I moved to Nashville,

I never planned on moving back here,

but circumstances brought me back here and this is home.

No matter where I've ever went in the world,

you know, this is still home.

I never could distinguish,

and I run into this a lot people, some people say,

well you play secular music, you know,

you don't play all gospel music

and some people that, you know, some Christians

that's not right to them.

But I don't see the difference in it.

You know, when I read the Bible, there's all kinds

of stories about love, hate, murders, you know?

Yes, the gospel is there

and that's the main reason that's there.

But life is in those too, just like in the songs,

you know, those old folk songs have.

So to me, I'm not saying they're all gospel songs to me,

but all of it's important.

It all just deals with life.

♪ Do you remember ♪

If anybody remembers it, it'll be amazing to me.

It still amazes me if somebody shows up

and knows one of the songs.

The trick is, I mean, it's not gonna matter

to us anyway, you know?

I mean, I'm 60, I'll soon be 61.

I had a long run, you know, I'm closer to the end

than I am to the beginning, you know,

but now I'm just a hillbilly on my way to heaven.

♪ I was born in the country ♪

♪ Then I moved to town ♪

♪ I was born in the country ♪

♪ When I moved to town ♪

The first ever Rob McNurlin promo picture.

♪ Hillbillies hanging around ♪

It's us recording at the Cash Cabin Studio.

It was February 14th of 2000.

So whole big spread in off-label photos

and okay, here's what, so I did the soundtrack

to a movie about Bullfrogs in Kentucky.

And so here's the promo for that.

So I went to England with Dave Prince and his wife Luna.

Here's the poster from that.

The Blue Cat what?

The Blue Cat Cafe, wherever that was.

You know, you just think of the theme to Barney Miller

or Sanford and Son or something.

Hank Snow's toupee.

What more can you say?

You know, the reason I ended up

with this when I was living in Nashville,

I got wind that a lady who ran an antique shop

had some Hank Snow stuff.

And I said, well, do you have anything else Hank Snow?

She looked at me really weird and said, I got a toupee.

And I went, now you're talking.

And so the toupee came in the original shipping box

and it came with a box of the little stick on things,

the little double sided things

you stick 'em to your head with.

But also in the box was this unsigned check

and these keys and bullets.

And there's a couple of famous stories

about Hank Snow using his gun.

You have to look those up yourself,

well he tried to shoot his son one time too.

But anyway, and so I got all that

and since then, a good friend of mine, Doug Hudson,

who ended up with all the paperwork from Hank's office,

asked me, he said, you know what year he bought the toupee?

And I said, yeah, it's got the mailing thing on it.

And I gave, so he found me the return, you know, the check.

And so I have it, it's downstairs,

I have the check where he bought the toupee.

Yeah, and even a little bit, kind of the odd part of

history and leaning into that kinda stuff,

stuff people don't really necessarily think about

the whole case that he had made for the toupee lights up.

And we played a show.

I think the first time I saw that

was when we played a show over

at the American Legion here.

And he brought it out and had it sitting on stage.

But he does, he collects all these real cool

weird memorabilia pieces

and I could absolutely see him having

a little traveling freak show.

♪ Got the hillbilly blues ♪

♪ No cure can be found ♪

A great, he makes these big wooden Indians and bears

and stuff, carves them, magnificent work.

♪ Hillbillies hanging around ♪

♪ Gonna pick my guitar ♪

♪ 'Til I break the strings ♪

♪ Gonna pick my guitar ♪

Introduce one of your own, Rob McNurlin.

And I don't remember when I first met Rob,

it's been that long.

I do know that when I started Wood Songs,

Rob was the very first artist I brought on the show

because, you know, we only had one station

airing it at the time.

And Rob was a friend.

We were already friends at the time,

and I was like, I want to try this, what do you think?

And so he came on the very first broadcast of Wood Songs.

Rob's music is sort of a tapestry of many things,

all threaded through Appalachia in many ways.

You know, he grew up in the Appalachian Mountains,

but he was heavily influenced by the imagery

of early Bob Dylan

and the music of Johnny Cash, Woody Guthrie especially.

And all of this, I think as many artists do,

they allow that to gestate inside their musical heart

until they come out with something original.

And Rob was able to turn all that into something original.

Couldn't forget the first time I met Rob McNurlin.

So we had Rambling Jack Elliot was playing,

and Rob drove Rambling Jack up.

Now, you know, Jack had a horrible, horrible cold.

Rob, of course being Rob,

let me help out.

And so he did the show.

I'm not sure how Rob would characterize himself,

but to me he represents a certain, you know,

without putting a label on it,

he certainly represents a certain tradition.

And I think that as an artist, you know, he's a pure soul.

There's never, just a pure soul.

I mean, everything he does, you know it's real.

And I think that honesty, I think honesty is an artist,

is what I would describe him as.

In a just world,

Rob McNurlin would be a household name.

I think, you know, in show business

and probably I'd say in any business, you know,

there's moments where, you know,

it comes at you in waves.

And maybe better put with music

because of the the cultural connection

that music has for our lives.

It comes at us in eras, you know, Rob's career

and who he plays for

and then how he presents his music to an audience

sort of evolve over time.

You know, there was that moment

when he was talking about retiring

and then sort of almost denied making the claim, saying,

well, what I meant was I was gonna scale back

and reorganize.

But sometimes you gotta do that to not be afraid

to reinvent themselves.

And sometimes you have to burn it all down to the ground

and rise from the ashes like a phoenix.

Well, you know, Rob has always, like I said,

he's been one of my heroes.

He was one of the first heroes

that I had in the music business.

Like I said, I remember watching him on TV

from a really young age and thinking, man,

that's gotta be the coolest job in the world.

He's left a big influence on my life

and my music in more ways

than one could probably realize.

Even outside of the music though, Rob McNurlin as a man,

is a top shelf.

You're not gonna find a better human being

anywhere you look.

And that spoke volumes to me even more than the music.

Rob's legacy is gonna be huge.

I mean, throughout this region of Appalachia,

Eastern Kentucky, West Virginia, Southern Ohio,

of course it's gonna be huge,

but he's also been so much more in so many other places,

you know, all across the United States,

Rob McNurlin has toured, traveled and performed,

bummed a meal here and there and kept going.

You know?

I remember calling Rob a cowboy poet,

he just blew me away.

There was something about his authenticity,

the sound of his voice, the way that he played,

the way that he told the stories that he played.

It reminded me just like, you know, Jack Kerouac

in a cowboy hat, and it was deep.

It was just deep just like reading Kerouac.

But there is something, yeah,

when you're around him, pay attention.

Like, I feel like when you're around him,

you're chosen,

hear whatever he has to say.

That's just what I believe.

Retirement's a big word.

I don't believe it.

He'll be back.

Well, you know, you know, I've got

to know him fairly well over the years

and you know, he always took care of his mom and his dad

and, you know, still taking care of his dad's mules

and he's the father figure for his nephew

and he takes care of him.

And he's a good influence on his nephew, I do believe.

And, you know, he's just a standup character.

He's kind of a spiritual advisor

to a lot of people, honestly.

I mean, he can, I wouldn't say he's a preacher,

but he can lead a service at church

and everybody gets something out of it.

And even I've seen him in honky tonks, dive places,

whatever, and he'll get up and sing gospel songs

and when he does, it gets quiet, they all stop dancing,

they stop and, you could hear a pin drop

and you know, he touches people with it.

The thing I love about Rob, when I first came

to Nashville, if you sat down at the table

of the family of country music, it was important that you

at that time that you bring your culture with you,

wherever you come from, you had to bring who you were

to the table and add into the spice of country music.

It's pretty much a homogenized table these days.

The thing I love about Rob, he carries that square piece

of Kentucky with him everywhere he goes.

And you cannot go out

and become a folk hero for any amount of money.

You have to earn it, you have to live it.

And that's what you have to be every day

of your life to become that.

And when I think of Rob, I know

that in truth, he's a folk hero.

His music, his art, everything from his chainsaw art

to the songs he writes, to his performances,

to everything about the shows he stages

and the people he hangs out with,

you know, he's a folk hero.

He represents the best of Kentucky

and actually the best in all of us.

Rob was a big influence on all of us,

and me in particular in that it was,

he was influential as far as being a musician

and a songwriter and a performer.

But also he was influential for me as just being a man

and being a good person to, you know, you know,

call me for gigs when I didn't have a lot going on.

And he always has kept in touch with me

on playing and he'll still call me even though

he knows I can't play it.

He'll still call me on certain stuff.

And it's very sweet.

And Rob's not trying to play popular music.

He's just playing music he believes in.

And you know, and you limit your crowd when you do that.

But I think the satisfaction is much greater.

And I think Rob has played the music he wants to play

and he doesn't care what the consequence was of that.

And he struck, stuck to what he thought was true.

And again, I've been in cover bands

where you play other people's songs for four hours a night

and you might make X amount of dollars,

but if you go play for 60 minutes

and play songs that you help create,

that means a whole lot more and it doesn't matter

what the money pays.

And Rob always gave me that opportunity.

And again, he never told me what guitar parts to play

and it's just been a thrill.

And I learned a whole lot from Rob McNurlin

about not only music,

but just how to be a good person and free people around him.

And Rob does that all the time.

I'll go back, I'm very blessed person.

I sure I wanted the tour bus and the big tours

and Rich and famous and all that.

I didn't get that.

And now I have to think to myself

either that's not the hand that God dealt me

or he dealt me that hand and I played it wrong.

Now I don't know which that is.

I was always blessed with all of these people

that were willing to help me

and most of the time I didn't have any money to pay 'em.

But it just, so, I mean, if you count success by friends,

I'm the wealthiest person in the world.

And so I'm proud of the records I've done.

I'm proud of the friends I've made,

the shows I've played

and I have, as far as a legacy,

I don't know that I have one.

It it still surprises me when somebody knows who I am.

♪ Come to mind in the misery ♪

It is said that a person's integrity is measured

when no one is watching.

This has been true for the career of Rob McNurlin.

As the world keeps on spinning, time seems

to move at an even faster pace,

yet a few things remain the same.

Rob McNurlin and his music is more than just carefully

crafted verses and melodies.

We are left with the endearing spirit of a man

who carries his home

and everything he touches from the Cowboy's Boot Heel

where the rugged hills of East Kentucky meet the open plains

of the American West, Rob has woven a tapestry of tradition,

storytelling and timeless sound.

Rob's journey reminds us

that music is more than entertainment, it is connection.

It connects us to our roots, to the struggles

and triumphs of those who came before us.

And to the unbroken spirit of those who choose

to carry the torch forward.

His music is a bridge between worlds

blending the soul of Appalachia with the dust

and grit of cowboy trails,

proving that authenticity transcends borders.

In the entertainment world where your success is measured

by album sales, streams and billboard fame,

Rob McNurlin did not make the so-called big time.

What Rob did achieve was something far larger

and greater as he blazed his own trail,

made lifelong friends and has left an impression

on everyone.

The road Rob travels on has not always been easy,

but it is honest.

His songs are a testament to the power of staying true

to oneself, to honoring where you come from

while carving your own path.

As Rob has shown us,

the Cowboy's Boot Heel is not just a place, it is an idea,

a rhythm, a heartbeat that echoes in the hearts

of all who love and live by the music.

A career that has touched many lives continues

to form a new story.

And so as the sun dips below the Kentucky Hills,

we leave this story as we began, with a man,

a guitar and a song.

A song that reminds us of who we are, where we have been,

and the endless journey ahead.

Thank you Rob McNurlin for sharing your honesty, your music

and your journey.

May the music play on

and be tapped out by the rhythm of our souls.

♪ Just what I find there ♪

♪ I don't know ♪

♪ Is my cowboy' boot heel taps the rhythm of my soul ♪

♪ May find danger ♪

♪ I may find strangers ♪

♪ Dressed as angels aware ♪

♪ I may find grief ♪

♪ I may find peace ♪

Hello?

Yeah, this is Rob.

Yeah, I'd love to play the show if I got the date open.

Let me look here.

♪ God will protect me as I sleep ♪

♪ My Indian blankets will keep me from the cold ♪

♪ As my cowboy boot heel ♪

♪ Taps out the rhythm of my soul. ♪

♪ Has it been a week or a day ♪

♪ Is this the trailer ♪

♪ Have I lost my way ♪

♪ Up ahead I see your ghost ♪

♪ As my cowboy boot heel ♪

♪ Taps out the rhythm of my soul ♪