Wyoming People: Casper's Spencer Bohren, Master Of American Roots And The Blues

Born and raised in Casper, he sang for his supper and opened for B.B. King on a Paris stage playing some blues of his own.

The long-running public radio show “A Prairie Home Companion” hosted him on its platform, and he called New Orleans iconic musician Dr. John his friend.

Over five decades of creating music and art brought Spencer Bohren a lot of friends as one of the most respected American roots and blues musicians in the country.

Despite his loss to prostate cancer in 2019, Bohren’s name and legacy are still creating new opportunities for his artistic work to reach out and touch a new generation.

Bohren’s been reported as the highest-grossing Wyoming-born musical artists.

His son, Andre, also is an accomplished professional musician based in New Orleans, who said he’s not sure that’s accurate. But he witnessed his dad work hard to raise a family and make a living singing, writing songs and playing guitar, lap steel guitar and the banjo.

“His specialty was getting emotions out of people without playing … flashy,” Andre Bohren said. “He would play very spaciously.

“It was like a scene in Wyoming (where) you can’t really explain it, but you’re feeling something you never felt before — it’s just this sort of unspeakable beauty.”

Spencer Bohren was born into a musical family April 5, 1950, in Casper. As a young man, Andre Bohren said his dad and his two brothers and two sisters would sing songs for their supper. The family would sing in church, but by his dad’s teen years in the 1960s he was embracing “hippie culture,” not the church.

Casper musician and long-time Bohren friend Cory McDaniel said that at one point, a teenage Bohren was exiled from his house for a season and lived at McDaniel’s home.

McDaniel, a guitarist in a Casper rock garage band at the time, said embracing the hippie culture like Bohren did in those years was not popular in Casper.

“His dad really wanted him to be a straight-ahead kid,” he said. “My mom always took in the strays, so he stayed with us awhile.

“I think his dad finally realized that this guy’s doing OK with his music thing.”

The Graduate

After graduation, Bohren played with several rock and country bands touring the Western states.

McDaniel said he connected with Spencer Bohren again when Bohren joined his band based in Seattle. They toured the West Coast for a time.

“He played guitar and he sang, and I forgot that he played trombone on some stuff,” McDaniel said. “It was kind of a whack band, but we did really well.” 

Andre Bohren said his father met and married his mother, Marilyn, after moving to Boulder, Colorado, to get involved in the folk music scene there.

While there, he had an opportunity to be the opening act for New Orleans musician Malcolm John Rebennack, better known as Dr. John.

“Dr. John just regaled him with all these stories of New Orleans and so they just went,” he said. “They planned to be there for a couple of days and ended up being there for seven years and three kids. So, New Orleans kind of became a second home.”

During the initial years in New Orleans, Andre Bohren said his father, who was often away from the family playing gigs, decided to take everyone on the road. The family had three children at the time, a fourth would come later.

Marilyn Bohren, a midwife, had a patient whose family owned elephants and traveled on the road with circuses. The family advised the Bohrens what kind of trailer they needed for touring and the right kind of horsepower to pull it.

Andre Bohren said his dad and mom bought a 27-foot Airstream trailer and a 1955 Chevy. His dad had a big V-8 engine installed in the Chevy, and they traveled between 1983 and 1990.

His mom booked the gigs and homeschooled the children while his dad took care of the mechanical side of things in addition to playing the shows.

The ’55 Chevy was chosen because of its classic look by his hot-rod loving dad, Andre Bohren said.

“He was very aware that when we arrived in town with that rig that it turned some heads,” he said. “By the time I was 7 years old, I think I’d been to 46 states. They really did coast-to-coast.”

The family would stop in Wyoming to see family often — but play gigs not so much.

Andre Bohren said his dad initially wanted to get out of Wyoming as soon as he could after high school, but the state drew him back. The family lived in Wyoming for Andre Bohren’s junior high and high school years.

They eventually moved back to New Orleans.

An Encourager

As a father, Spencer Bohren encouraged his children to be creative.

He made models with them, drew and played music. Andre Bohren said he decided at 7 that he was going to be a rock guitarist, so his father bought him a guitar and showed him some chords.

At 11, Andre Bohren took up drums and piano as well. His dad was always an encourager.

“I was kind of pulling from all kinds of different styles, but he was a huge source of inspiration,” Andre Bohren said. “I was kind of self-motivated to do it, so he never really asked me to practice.”

At 14, Andre said he started playing professionally with his dad, who taught him a lot about how to be a musician, not just mastering an instrument or writing a song, but staying dedicated to the little things needed to be an independent businessman and make a living for one’s family.

“I wasn't really aware of exactly how much work went into it, you know,” he said. “But now that I have a couple of kids of my own, and I have my own career going, I think of lessons that I learned from watching him, whether it was things that he intentionally taught me, or just things that I know how to do, or what to focus on because of the way I saw him do it.”

Over the span of his career, Spencer Bohren put out 18 solo albums, spent time teaching students about the blues and American roots music in schools, and traveled the U.S. and Europe extensively.

His first album “Born in a Biscayne” came out in 1984, and along the way he did an album to focus on one of his musical heroes, Hank Williams. He also recorded a few songs of his other musical hero, Bob Dylan, Andre Bohren said.

Singing With Ralph Stanley

Bohren’s career opportunities included singing a gospel tune with Bluegrass icon Ralph Stanley on public radio’s “A Prairie Home Companion.”

He opened a show for B.B. King in the La Cigale Theatre in Paris. Dr. John played on his first album. Bohren opened for blues great Muddy Waters and could be found at New Orleans venues playing with Aaron Neville or blues songwriter Earl King.

There were hundreds of other venues, stages and collaborations.

McDaniel said Spencer Bohren had a big following in Germany, Italy and other European venues. He and Bohren’s brother, Dale, who plays bass, were asked to back up Bohren on a tour of Italy.

And it was Bohren who opened a door for them as the group The Tremors to conduct their own European gigs.

An example of his role as a music educator can be found on Spencer Bohren’s website as he teaches “Down the Dirt Road Blues,” unraveling the history of a song from its beginning through genres of music.

Bohren friend, Carolyn Deuel, executive director of ARTCORE, said the group sponsored some of his performances before school groups in Casper over the years.

“One year he was doing a history of the blues,” she said. “And so that was a great program that he did in schools. … He played so well and sang so well, just a fantastic performer and did a nice job with the students.”

Andre Bohren said he loved playing with his dad.

At 45, he plays classical music in concert halls, and drums with his own blues/funk band in the same venues his dad performed, such as the legendary music hall Tipitina’s in New Orleans.

“I had a very different musical pedigree because I went to school,” he said. “But when I played with him it was all out the window because that's not what his music was, it was beautiful.

“It was really, really great to play music with him.” 

Cigar Box Art

Bohren’s creativity branched into a type of cigar box art in the early 2000s.

He started collecting rocks, sticks, keys and other arbitrary but interesting objects on tours. Using cigar boxes, he fashioned reliquaries.

In September 2025, a special gallery display is being planned in First State Bank’s Red Peak Gallery in Casper that will honor both Bohren’s musical and cigar box art.

When Bohren received his late-stage cancer diagnosis, he had to cancel a German tour, but he didn’t stop playing.

Andre Bohren said his dad “definitely lived on his own terms.” He rejected chemotherapy, changed his diet and eliminated foods that “cancer feeds on.” 

“I think it gave him eight really good months before the cancer just kind of became too much,” his son said. “He went out on his own terms, for sure. I admire that. He embraced that he had a full life and got to do some pretty amazing things. He definitely didn't let it paint the last chapter.”

As part of the last chapter, Andre Bohren approached his dad about letting him produce a song that a friend wrote about the cancer battle titled “You Can’t Live Here.”

His dad had acted as his own producer for most of his career.

“That song was kind of a conversation between my dad and cancer,” Andre Bohren said. “My role as producer was to take all the things off his plate except the actual performance.”

The song can be found on Bohren’s website, with Bohren on lap steel guitar, Andre Bohren on drums and bass piano, the song’s author on guitar and harmonica, and another musician on cello.

Andre Bohren believes a big part of his dad’s legacy remains his creativity and upbeat approach to life.

“He ended every single show for the last couple of decades by telling people to be good to each other and good to themselves,” he said. “And he meant it. He really did mean it.”

Bohren died June 8, 2019, in New Orleans, two days after his friend Dr. John. He left his wife and four children, Django, Andre, Corinna and Tucker, and their families.

Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.