BY KAREN BOSSICK

When Hal Cannon moved to a pioneer pecan orchard near Zion National Park in southern Utah, he thought he’d sit on his porch and play a little music.

The co-founder of Hailey’s Northern Rockies Folk Festival is playing music, but he’s playing it around the world far away from the parched desert land he calls home.

And on Friday he and his compadres who make up 3hattrio (Three Hat Trio) will perform their American Desert Music at the Sun Valley Opera House.

The show starts at 8 p.m. Tickets are $25 in advance and $27 on the day of the concert, available at www.sunvalley.ticketfly.com.

“We call it American Desert Music. I know it’s kind of audacious to call it a new genre of music, but we can’t figure out what else to call it,” said Cannon. “It sort of defies fitting in any category because we come from three very different backgrounds. It has some Caribbean overtones, some cowboy soul, some real classical and sort of spaced-out desert sound to it. So, it’s an odd kind of music.”

Odd or not, it seems to be intriguing enough that audiences are responding. 3hattrio played Scotland’s Celtic Connections, the largest music festival in the world, earlier this year. They head to England this coming week and will perform in Denmark next year.

They’ve also been featured at the Moab Folk Festival and the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, where they reportedly “blew the lid off the joint,” according to critics.

“The trio captures the essence of the desert—its landscape and people and our stories transformed into unique sound and style,” wrote Nora Zambreno, a member of the Bridger Folk Music Society.

“The vocals are spooky, which fits,” added cowboy singer/songwriter Ian Tyson.

The group is composed of Cannon, who worked on Sun Valley’s Institute of the American West with Richard Hart before moving away to organize Elko’s National Cowboy Poetry Gathering. He started playing banjo and guitar with the Deseret String Band with Ralph Comstock and found it suited his folklorist leanings.

Greg Istock, a reggae musician from Florida dreadlocks and all, moved to the canyon lands of Utah from Florida to climb and work as a backcountry guide. Though you might think him a most unlikely match for Cannon, he actually fits in quite well, playing acoustic bass and foot percussion.

Eli Wrankle, the third player, joined the group as a 15-year-old classically trained violinist who loved to improvise.

“We nurtured him along. Now he’s 20 and we’ve been together five years,” said Cannon. “They’re superb musicians. Greg Istock has just an extraordinary musical mind and Eli Rankle is an amazing young violinist.”

The trio has recorded four albums with such titles as “Dark Desert Night.”

They write most of the music they perform--usually about things that happen in their community.

“We’re very much plugged into where we live,” said Cannon. “The desert has an undeniable power and allure to it that we want to capture. So, we sing song about sandstorms, Native Americans losing their language and what happens when you steal Indian artifacts. “

3hattrick will perform many of their originals Friday night, along with a rendition of the old cowboy song “Goodbye, Old Paint” that they have very much made their own. They’ll also perform a 300-year-old English Ballad called “Carry Me Away” and a Bob Marley reggae tune called “Get Up, Stand Up.”

“We take people to another sphere,” said Cannon.

Flat Top Sheep Rancher Diane Josephy Peavey, a longtime friend of Cannon, agreed: “It’s wonderful stuff. It’s really edgy, real out there.”