Subject: RE: Lyr Req: My Home's in Montana
From:
Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 16 Jul 06 - 05:30 PM
Perhaps notes from thread 42786 should be amplified and repeated here:
"My Home's in Montana"
"Henry M. Halvorson, former editor-in-chief at Ginn and Company, told Judith McCullough that Christine Turner, who wrote many music lyrics for Ginn, paraphrased the words of Larkin's "The Cowboy Lament" for use in "Singing Days," World of Music Series, a one-book course designed for use in one-room rural schools. The song was included on the first of thirteen 78 rpm records pressed by Victor to accompany "Singing Days;" it was sung by Olive Kline, soprano, with piano accompaniment by Myrtle C. Eaver.
"A. Larkin, pp. 14-15 (for the model on which Glenn's text was built). [This refers to the verses and music in Ohrlin's book]
"[B.] Lingenfelter, pp. 426-27 (for the tune only).
"C. Marguerite V. Hood, Glenn Gildersleeve, and Helen S. Leavett, "Singing Days," (Boston: Ginn & Co., 1936), p. 18.
Janet E. Tobitt, "The Ditty Bag," (New York: Tobitt, 1946), p. 50.
"D. Olive Kline (1935), "The Cowboy," Victor 25300.
"E. Glenn Ohrlin, "The Hell-Bound Train," University of Illinois, Campus Folksong Club CFC 301. The text is transcribed in Austin E. Fife and Alta S. Fife, "Songs of the Cowboys by N. Howard ("Jack") Thorp" (New York: Clarkson N. Porter, 1966), p. 170.
[NOTE: The song "My Home's in Montana" did not appear in either of Thorp's books, 1908 and 1921; it would not be written for another 15 years. The title of this rather scholarly study by the Fifes has mislead many who have not read their book].
"----, "Montana is My Home," Traditional Music in Newport, 1964, part 2, Vanguard VRS 79183." (end of quote).
From Ohrlin, Glenn, 1973, "The Hell-Bound Train, a Cowboy Songbook," p. 246, Biblio-Discography, University of Illinois Press.
In the text of the book, Ohrlin titled Ch. 1 "My Home's in Montana."
He wrote: Among my very earliest memories are the Montana broncs my grandparents farmed with all through the thirties at Winger, Minnesota, in the Red River Valley of the North, where the northern prairies begin. Somewhere along in those years I learned this song, "My Home's in Montana," from my Aunt Irene .... and other neighbor kids who learned it in school from Ginn and Company songbooks. It was a favorite song and very common in that area. Boys from that country often went to the Dakotas and Montana to work with wheat harvests and some just naturally got a start on the cow and horse ranches in the same states....................
"Anyway, "My Home's in Montana" painted a vivid picture for us then and is still among my favorites."
Because of its appearance in the school songbooks, and reprints in scout and other song books, it became known to children in both the United States and Canada, and in their minds, became a 'real' cowboy song.
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