Gordon Pratt

South Dakota entertainer Gordy Pratt passed away Wednesday, November 13, 2024 at the Monument Health Rapid City Hospital. 

Gordy was a classically trained guitarist, a singer-song writer, a lyricist and playwright, and producer. While he lived all over the country throughout his life, the Black Hills of South Dakota became his true home. He was known in the Black Hills for his satirical revues at the Bullock Hotel, his one-man show of Seth Bullock in numerous locations (which he performed over 1000 times!) and his hilarious Christmas extravaganzas. As “The Original Fabulous One Guy, you know, that One Guy” he traveled the region performing his one man show filled with comedic parodies and original songs. Gordy enjoyed playing many genres music including pop, country, classical and musical theatre. 

Gordy was happiest playing gigs or just jamming with musicians at his home or theirs. In addition to his love of music, Gordy was also a loyal friend and could always be counted on to lighten your spirits if you were down. He lived by the mantra “anything for the joke” and often used himself as the butt of the joke if it would brighten someone’s day. He loved good stories in any form – books, TV, movies, theatre – and could always be counted on to cry at the sappy parts. 

Born in Corpus Christi, TX in 1952, Gordon Glen Pratt was the son of Robert and Velma Pratt. He spent his early years in western Colorado where his extended family operated an apple ranch. Gordy attended high school in Morgantown, W.V. and summers at the Black Hills Playhouse in Custer State Park with his father who was a theatrical technical director. He started playing guitar at age 10 and his early time at the BHP inspired him to focus on music and entertainment. Shortly after he would have graduated from high school, he toured the country with his friend Becky Bell in a quartet known as Fresh Air. This adventure led him to discover and fall in love with classical guitar. He then studied guitar at Ithaca College, Ithaca, NY and spent a semester at the Royal Academy of Music in London. 

 In 1975, he visited the BHP where he met Janet Brown - they were married on a day off from the Playhouse in June of 1976. That year, they moved to San Francisco and Gordy was accepted at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Initially, he studied classical guitar but was inspired to explore medieval and Baroque music by his mentor, internationally known harpsichordist, Lorette Goldberg. This led to his becoming proficient on the lute and oud, a medieval Hispanic stringed instrument. He toured up and down the West Coast with La Corte Musical playing the oud. He also taught at the Cazadero Music Camp north of San Francisco. In 1980, he and Janet moved to New York City where Gordy utilized his theatrical skills and union membership to be a sound technician for the US national tour of Pirates of Penzance and an international tour of Ain’t Misbehavin’, spending a year touring Europe. He returned to Europe on two occasions as a sound technician for the “I Love NY” campaign. 

In 1984, they returned to Rapid City, SD with their one-year-old son, Jason. In 1985, their daughter Miranda was born and Gordy took up music once more, focusing on writing his own material and honing his classical guitar playing style. In 1991, Gordy and Janet moved their family to Deadwood where the couple established the Deadwood Production Company creating more than a dozen shows that were performed more than 3,000 times in the newly designated gambling community. Summers were spent in multiple productions a day of Gordy’s “The Desperate Damsels of Deadwood”, a musical melodrama, as well as “historal entertainments” focusing around Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, and (of course) Seth Bullock. Winters were spent touring his one man show and producing Christmas productions. Gordy even appeared on ABC’s Good Morning America performing his song “The Days of ‘76”. 

In 2000, the family moved to Sioux Falls and Gordy extended his touring reach into Iowa, Minnesota and Nebraska. During this time, Gordy saw the height of his time as “The One Guy”. He also toured as a featured performer on several occasions with A South Dakota Acoustic Christmas, performed multiple times at the Sioux Empire Folk Festival, and opened for Kenny Chesney, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and the Beach Boys.

In 2007, Gordy and Janet divorced and Gordy moved back to Spearfish. He continued performing as The Original Fabulous One Guy until he got bored of it and performed Seth Bullock: The Spirit of the West at the Adams Museum in Deadwood. Never losing his passion for music, he always found a new place to play and friends to play with. He and Dalyce Sellers were performing partners for a number of years, he spent several summers in Hill City playing with Paul Larson at the Chuckwagon Dinner Show, and he often teamed up with fiddle player Kenny Putnam, to name a few. In 2018, Gordy met Patty Roadifer and (after nagging from his daughter and advice from his financial advisor) they were married in May of 2022. Gordy and Patty host a song circle regularly as well as producing a number of House Concerts at their home in Spearfish.

Gordy’s life was not all jokes and laughs - he also struggled throughout his life with bipolar disorder and was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in his 50’s. In 2019, Gordy was diagnosed with tonsillar cancer, which he fought and beat, although he was never really able to sing and play the same way again. But he always found joy in listening to others and would play when he could. In the last couple of years, he also got a stand up bass and was teaching himself how to play it.

Gordy is survived by his wife, Patty Pratt of Spearfish; children, Jason Pratt of Pittsburgh, PA, Miranda Mikolaizik of Seattle, WA, their spouses Becky and Chris, and their mother, Janet Brown of Sioux Falls; step-mother Jan Pratt, Sierra Vista, AZ; step-children Josh Roadifer of Bozeman, MT and Megan Roadifer of Las Vegas, NV; and step-grandchildren Tia Larson of Belle Fourche, and Oz Fowlks of Las Vegas NV as well as many loving friends. Gordy’s music also lives on and can be found on Spotify.

Services to celebrate Gordy’s life will be held in the spring. Arrangements are with Leverington Funeral Home of the Northern Hills in Belle Fourche.