Honor Tom Peterson's Legacy & Final Wishes

Our dear friend Tom Peterson passed on to his next Grand Adventure on November 4, 2024, in Sioux Falls SD, and we need your help.

As a singer-songwriter, Tom touched many lives with his humor, his stories of music and musicians he's known, his travels, and history, especially of South Dakota. He leaves an amazing legacy of songs that musicians scattered around the country will continue singing and sharing.

Tom was a lifelong musician and songwriter. In 2009, the CD Dakota Lullaby, produced and performed by Chris Gage and Christine Albert, Austin TX, was released by MoonHouse Records of Austin, with twelve songs written by Tom. Tom’s Black Hills Gold CD, featuring Tom singing eleven of his original songs, was released in 2017 by MoonHouse Records, produced by Chris Gage with Executive Producer Tony Naatjes.

The Red Willow Band recorded Tom’s song “Magic Bird” in 1976, which has become a well-known and often performed anthem for many South Dakota musicians. Many other songs written by Tom have become standards for Tom and other musicians, including “Sweet Rejuvenation,” “Alien Driver,” “Big Fish Eat the Little Fish,” “Black Hills Gold,” “Dakota Lullaby,” “Goodnight Blues,” “Hell or High Water,” and “On That Beautiful Day,” and others. As Chris Gage says, Tom could write amazing songs in a wide range of styles: “…swing, bluegrass, folk, funny, and tender ballads.” Tom was inducted into the South Dakota Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015 and into the South Dakota Friends of Traditional Music Hall of Fame in 2017.

Health battles over recent years kept Tom home and off the road, leading a simple, mostly solitary life in Vermillion SD. He was retired and living on a fixed income, and unfortunately, like so many other artists and musicians, he died without the means to provide for his end-of-life care and wishes. So we're asking for your help to raise money for Tom's cremation, and for two memorial celebrations of Tom's life being planned for Vermillion and Sioux Falls SD in early spring, 2025. Any funds remaining after expenses will be donated, in Tom's name, to the South Dakota Friends of Traditional Music Foundation, an organization of South Dakota musicians and music lovers that meant a great deal to Tom.