Fairgrounds welcomes Monterey Cowboy Poetry & Music Fest and headliner Michael Martin Murphey

This year, for the first time, the festival makes a new home at the Monterey County Fair & Event Center (in the Monterey and Salinas Rooms).

For the 16 performers on hand – most of whom have shared stages many times before – home is wherever music is shared. From “Balladeers of the Plains” (7pm Friday) to “Salute to the Sons of the San Joaquin” (1:30pm Sunday), organizers have concocted eight music/poetry performances, showcasing all-star collaborations. Here, three of the best:

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (10:30am Saturday)

The one-name, 24-year-old country phenom Adrian, Cowbop’s Pinto Pammy and world-renowned “Cowboy Girl” Katy Moffatt join pigtailed Belinda Gail, whose Granite Mountain won the Western Music Association’s Album of the Year last November. (The WMA has selected Gail as the Female Performer of the Year seven times now.) While the Nevada native has become known for delivering an enchanting brand of Western music, Gail also has gospel chops. Her rendition of “Amazing Grace” moves mountains.

Cowboy Songs 25th Anniversary (7pm Saturday)

People magazine’s “Best Known Cowboy Poet” Waddie Mitchell, dynamic harmony trio The Sons of the San Joaquin and National Cowboy Hall of Fame Founders award-winner Don Edwards join Michael Martin Murphey to celebrate Cowboy Songs, the first album of cowboy music to score a gold record since Marty Robbins’ 1959Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs. The 70-year-old Murphey has six gold records, one platinum (Wildfire) and a few Grammy nods. The “Texican” singer-songwriter also has five Cowboy Hall of Fame Wrangler Awards and a spot in the Western Music Association Hall of Fame.

Remembering Cindy Walker and Marty Robbins (10am Sunday)

True West’s 2010 “Best Living Western Solo Musician” (Dave Stamey), WMA Hall of Famer RW Hampton, Katy Moffatt, Adrian and Don Edwards pay tribute to a pair of prolific legends.

You know Walker even if you think you don’t: Her “You Don’t Know Me” was recorded by Ray Charles, then Elvis; Gene Autry recorded “Blue Canadian Rockies.” Her songs made Top 40 charts 400 times.

Meanwhile, Robbins’ masterful narrative “El Paso” can make a case for the greatest love ballad ever written. Fueled by loose morals, revenge and death, it found new life with the Grateful Dead.

17th Annual Monterey Cowboy Poetry & Music Festival Friday, Nov. 20-Sunday, Nov. 22. Monterey County Fair & Event Center, 2004 Fairgrounds Road, Monterey. $310/weekend; $20-45/event. www.montereycowboy.org