Meet the Yahoo! yodeler

Posted April 20th, 2009 at 10:53 am by Nicki Dugan, Blog Editor

 6 Comments / Filed in: Behind the Scenes

In the two months we’ve been on Twitter, no tweet has gotten more replay than the one about the yodel that’s hidden in our homepage (just click the exclamation point in our logo and see for yourself). Clearly the sound of the Yahoo! yodel still makes people really happy. Which got me thinking about Wylie Gustafson, the guy who started it all back in 1996.

Wylie’s not some commercial voiceover talent. He’s the real deal — a true singing cowboy. He’s got the belt buckle, hat, ranch, and 20 horses to prove it. I caught up with Wylie to find out how on Earth he got his start in yodeling, how Yahoo! found him for our first ad campaign, how life has changed since then, what he’s doing now, and what it’s like to be the world’s most recognized yodeler. You can read a full transcript of the interview here. But for you multitasking, RSS feed-scanning, I-only-have-time-for-300-words-or-less types, here are some highlights:

• Wylie yodeled for brands like Mitsubishi, Taco Bell, Porsche, and Miller Light before creating his 3-note hit for Yahoo! in 1996.
• When our ad agency brought him into the recording studio, he came up with 10 different yodels of the name Yahoo! in a matter five minutes.
• Wylie yodels for a living with his “Wylie & the Wild West” band.
• Wylie’s yodeling notoriety has landed him gigs with A Prairie Home Companion, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, and the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering. He has appeared on the Grand Ol Opry more than 50 times.
• Wylie trains cutting (or cattle) horses on a ranch near Dusty, Washington (population: 11).
• His dad was a Montana cowboy and ranch veterinarian and yodeled on horseback.
• Wylie learned to yodel from a reel-to-reel tape his aunt received from an Austrian ski team.
• Wylie and Yahoo! settled a lawsuit in 2002 after we inadvertently used his yodel in a national ad without the proper contract.
• Wylie toured the country as the emcee for the national Yahoo! Yodel Challenge in 2003. The winner, via write-in submission, was Taylor Ware, a 9-year-old who went on to becoming a finalist on “America’s Got Talent.”

And, yes, we’ve sent him his very own Insta-Yodel button. No home is complete without it.

Here’s Wylie in action, singing his most popular live song, about some guy who made it big by yodeling for a little Internet company in the mid-90s. And you can learn how to yodel like Wylie here.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

Photo by Bill Watts

Tagged: Behind the Scenes, Q&A, yodel

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6 Comments Add your own

Linda | April 20th, 2009 at 11:24 am

I love the Yahoo yodel. I “discovered” the hidden yodel when I attended the Yahoo Teachers workshop in New York City and they used it to quiet down our rowdy group! It sure got our attention. By the end of the workshop we didn’t even need to play it, we were yodeling like crazy on our own!

tony clark | April 24th, 2009 at 4:21 am

What a great yodeler and singer ,a pleasure to listen to.

Tony | April 30th, 2009 at 5:19 am

great yodeler, and what a great band too,awsome.

Medyum | June 2nd, 2009 at 2:47 am

great yodeler, and what a great band too thank you

Bağlama Büyüsü | June 13th, 2009 at 5:16 am

great yodeler, and what a great band too,awsome.thanks

araç sorgulama | December 29th, 2009 at 4:59 am

What a great yodeler and singer ,a pleasure to listen to.