Kristyn Harris, award-winning Burleson singer, trick rider, and rancher, grew up giving concerts under the Texas sky to her family’s animals. The accolades from her music career form a long landscape in Western Swing. “Joyful” is how she described her music to me, strumming her guitar and harmonizing.
“I hope to share the story of the rancher and ranching lifestyle — where our food comes from and the hard and unique lives of those who raise it,” Harris said.
Harris’ latest release, a full-length compilation of hymns entitled Give Me Jesus, was a step outside her style but not outside herself, as her faith and her rural lifestyle fortify her and give her strength, she said, strength and determination she uses in her riding.
Already in the process of writing her next album, a return to her original Western Swing style, she will record with her husband, Producer Aarom Meador, at his Allegro Sound Lab. The couple met when Harris came to record at his Burleson studio. The connection has led to a life of music and ranching ever since.
“While music is my bread and butter, horses have never stopped being an integral part of my life,” said Harris, who got her first horse at 11 years old, just a short time before falling under the spell of black-and-white Western musical film, discovering that these two passions were inseparable.
Photo by Kena Sosa
Simultaneously, while learning to play guitar, she also learned to train horses, including Velvet, a wild mustang she adopted from Wyoming who was as wild as they get. Years later, she still has Velvet, in addition to her colt, Keeper, and she trains her husband’s horse, Roy.
With Velvet, Harris not only accomplished taming her but did “everything from riding her into rodeo arenas while singing from her back, to riding bridleless, to trick riding, to being featured in documentaries,” said Harris, who also spends time tending to her Black Angus “Diamond K” cattle herd.
Harris mostly trains on Keeper, often getting up early to practice for an hour or so before starting the rest of her day. Maintaining a training schedule is important because safety is always a priority in working with large animals, she said, especially in trick riding.
“For several years,” Harris added, “I was very actively trick riding, which is definitely the most difficult type of riding I’ve done. It’s basically gymnastic stunts on the back of a horse moving at full speed. I love every minute of that.”
Not only are there precautions to take for the riders but also for the animals themselves. Tending to animals, whether pets or livestock, requires dedication and sacrificing comforts to ensure the animals’ safety.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s snowmaggeddon outside or a blazing bazillion degrees, you do whatever it takes to take care of your critters,” Harris said.
The singer-songwriter balances all the riding and recording with regularly touring the country. The National Cowboy Hall of Fame awarded her 2020 album, A Place to Land, as the Outstanding Western Album of the Year. Her previous LPs include Down the Trail (2015) and Let Me Ride (2013) and have also racked up a list of awards.
Harris is also the youngest person to achieve the International Western Music Association Entertainer of the Year recognition and went on to do it six times.
Just before releasing Give Me Jesus and working on her upcoming original album, Harris was asked to take the screen herself in the musical Western film A Ranch Musical, in which she sings and acts about family, identity, and the ranch lifestyle she adores.
