The Yard Dogs Road Show’s “hobo cabaret” act is no act.

“That blows my mind, ’cause I thought we were avant-garde!” Cotton laughs. “But I think what they’re getting out of it is the simplicity of that time: the campfire as opposed to the light bulb. [Nowadays] everybody wants the perfect family, the perfect car, the perfect this, the perfect that. It’s a whole world of toys; everybody’s got a big playbox.”

Cotton has never been the type to depend on possessions and creature comforts for his happiness. While still in his late teens, he left his home in Denver, Colorado to train-hop around the country for a full six years, during which he had “all sorts of misadventures”—to name a few, getting locked in boxcars, falling off trains and getting held up with a shotgun in a Wyoming train yard. An account of Cotton’s experiences riding the rails can be found in his book “Hobo - A Young Man’s Thoughts on Trains and Tramping in America” (Three Rivers Press, 2003).   

Cotton, now 35, says that for better or worse, his gig with the Yard Dogs is simply an extension of his life as a hobo. “I’m still on the road a lot,” he states. “Now I do it with a show, whereas before, I just did it with a bedroll. It seems like a natural evolution for myself and for other people in my group who also have that kind of mentality.”

Like many other Yard Dogs members, Cotton has performing and traveling in his DNA: His great grandfather was an accordion player, and his mother is a dancer who was once engaged to a member of the ’60s psychedelic drag queen troupe The Cockettes. “That’s the only way you’re going to be able to even survive in a touring show: You have to have a little bit of it in your blood,” he asserts. “It’s a challenging life, and I think most people would probably want to jump ship.”

True, but there are also plenty of people chained to their office cubicles who would envy the Yard Dogs’ freedom. For this reason, a concert by the group is more than just entertaining—it’s also inspiring. Those in attendance at their Rio show on Thursday, May 22 will be witnessing a traveling art gallery created by people who live, work and think outside the box.

“The more of the world you see, the more you’re able to be a citizen of the world,” Cotton muses. “We’re trying to bring the world to people in the best way we can, and it’s a very personal, creative world that we bring to them. When people are riding their bike home from the show, we want them to maybe feel like they could take a different way home or something—maybe go somewhere they haven’t gone before, maybe talk to someone they haven’t talked to before, maybe wear something they haven’t worn before … just to see what happens.”

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