Cheyenne Musical Legend Michael DeGreve Dies At 78

Michael DeGreve, a musician whose life traced an improbable arc from the psychedelic scene of 1960s Hollywood to three decades as the beloved bard of Cheyenne, died on May 11, 2026, at his home in Grants Pass, Oregon. He was 78. The cause was complications from prostate cancer, said his wife, Kristen Reitinger.

Though his career began in the rowdy orbit of rock-and-roll icons like Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, DeGreve came to feel most at home at Cheyenne’s Hitching Post Inn, where his request-driven sets and storytelling skill turned a hotel lobby into the capital city’s preeminent social hot spot. “It was a meeting place… where we all got together and had a drink and felt like family,” DeGreve told Cowboy State Daily earlier this year.

Raised in a Catholic household in North Los Angeles, DeGreve became an All-American basketball player in high school and earned attention from legendary UCLA coach John Wooden. But after an ACL tear delayed his college start, he took a summer job at the Los Angeles Times, where he fell under the influence of a music critic. “The hippie thing bit me,” he said. He walked away from basketball, dropped out of college, and joined a band called the Lid before emerging as a solo performer.

By the early 1970s, he was a familiar figure in Hollywood’s creative circles. His band, the Truth, recorded an album with major Motown producers for an unlikely hybrid later described as “Peter, Paul and Mary meets Jefferson Airplane meets Motown.” He married actress Susan Sennett, a star of “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet,” and they were regarded as a young Hollywood power couple. But the marriage ended within five years.

Shortly after the divorce, DeGreve arrived in Cheyenne in a Volkswagen van for what was supposed to be a two-week gig at the Hitching Post Inn. He stayed for 30 years. “It was an amazing place,” he said. “It was my space, man. It was really a wonderful time.”

He played requests from a repertoire of roughly 500 songs, all committed to memory, and bantered with guests he came to know by name. “He’s not just a singer, he’s a classic entertainer,” said friend Mark Harris. “He interacted with his audience … It was kind of magical.” He drew crowds six nights a week and even had a superfan who bought him a $20,000 Martin D-45 guitar.

Beyond the Hitching Post, he co-headlined a benefit concert with Neil Young at Frontier Days Stadium for victims of a 1985 flash flood that killed a dozen people in Cheyenne. His album “Gypsy’s Lament,” recorded during his Cheyenne years, became an international success and made him rock royalty in Russia.

His time in Cheyenne ended in the early 2000s when new owners took over the Hitching Post Inn, which was later destroyed in an arson fire. After stints in Wisconsin and Las Vegas, he settled in Oregon in 2021, the same year he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. His heart, though, was always in Wyoming. “For everything I’ve done, that time in Cheyenne was my life,” he said. “It was a really, really wonderful place and time for me.”