Help: Cowboys and Concertinas

Subject: Cowboys and Concertinas
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 11 Aug 00 - 04:25 AM

I heard, some time ago, that the Concertina was the favoured instrument of the Cowboy on the range. Seemed to make some sort of sense in that it is a much more portable instrument than the guitar and the time period was probably about right. Can anyone -
a) Confirm or deny this and
b) If true, provide any sources.

PS - I know quite a bit about the Anglo concertina (apart from how to play it well!) but very litte about cowboys.

YeeeHa.

Subject: RE: Help: Cowboys and Concertinas
From: Stewie
Date: 11 Aug 00 - 05:35 AM

I recall reading that the cowboy most often sang without the benefit of any instrumental accompaniment. The guitar was associated with him more in the popular imagination than in reality - guitars were few and far between. The banjo was more familiar around cow camps, but not too familiar. The preferred instruments were the fiddle and the harmonica, particularly the latter which was easy to play and carry around. The concertina may well have been another - I don't know, but I am sure Sandy, Art, Joe and others will be able to fill you in.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Help: Cowboys and Concertinas
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 12 Aug 00 - 01:46 AM

G'day Dave the gnome,

This is speculation from the other side of the world, but I suspect that we need to define exactly which period we are discussing. Here, in Australia, there was a a progression in popular instruments among rural workers - including drovers and stockmen (the Australian equivalents to cowboys ... a term which here means a young boy or an infirm old man who looks after a few milkers back at the homestead).

The early favourite was the concertina, because of its portability, which allowed it to be carried in a saddle bag. The button accordion became more popular after the goldrush days (say, post 1870s) probably because of the level of German immigration in this period. The button accordion was more at home in the settler's house, but still was portable enough to travel with a horseman.

The 20th century and closer settlement saw larger instruments - the piano accordion and modern guitars (made with tougher glues and some amount of plywood,that didn't disintegrate with the first weather change).

I suspect that a similar progression occurred in America.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Help: Cowboys and Concertinas
From: GUEST,The gnome at home
Date: 12 Aug 00 - 03:59 PM

I think I am probably talking from 1870 to 1900. The concertina seemed to have been popular then and I understand this was the time of the big cattle droves. (Watch me be shot down by all the people in the know now!)

Cheers

D the G

Subject: RE: Help: Cowboys and Concertinas
From: GUEST,VG
Date: 13 Aug 00 - 12:48 AM

I collect songs from Cowboys, Miners, Mormons etc from the Mountain West. I have quite a few pictures from ranch life from the 1870s - 1910 or so. There are a few pictures of folks playing German Concertinas (large rectangular jobs) which I suppose are the same as button accordians. I bought one of these a few years ago marked from the M. Hohner company. Mostly the pictures show "cowboys" playing fiddles. In homes for dances there are fiddles and parlor guitars, and occasional banjos. I know ranchers in my great grandmothers family played mandolins. The mandolin was very popular because it was portable too and not as hard to play as the violin. On the cattle drives which only lasted for a period of about 20 years it is likely that any musical instruments were carried in the chuck wagon, I suspect musicians were not very numerous but I'm not sure where you could find out. You mike check books from Austin Fife or check Hal Cannon of the western folk life center in Nevada, probably one of the best experts I know of on western folk music.

Subject: RE: Help: Cowboys and Concertinas
From: Bernard
Date: 13 Aug 00 - 12:53 AM

Dave, I seem to remember some cowboy once tuned your concertina...

Or was it me?

All together, now,

'John Kanaka-naka to-ri-ay!'

(Spelling approximate)

Subject: RE: Help: Cowboys and Concertinas
From: Les B
Date: 13 Aug 00 - 01:12 AM

I think Stewie has it right. From the journals and books I've read, and the pictures I've seen, the banjo, mandolin, and fiddle all seem more prevalent than the guitar. I haven't see any images of the concertina in old photos of the Rocky Mountain region. That's not to say they weren't here, they just probably weren't as common.

Subject: RE: Help: Cowboys and Concertinas
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 13 Aug 00 - 07:47 AM

G'day again Dave the gnome,

I think the dates probably fit for concertinas being around early in the piece but replaced by small button accordions by the time when we start seeing photographs. Photography with the "wet plate" process was complicated and messy, needing immediate acces to a darkroom, usually a wagon in country areas. The dry plate was invented in 1872 and came into wide use in the 1880s but most pictures come from after the availability of the simple box camera from ~ 1890 - by which time concertinas were less common.

Of course the small stringed instruments - particularly fiddle and then mandolin - were around and popular all the time. Photos I have seen from this period in Australia (were the droving period runs from the 1850s to the 1940s - with somewhat of a revival in the present days) show concertinas (both cheap German types and quality English models ... probably the bosses', since they cost up to 10 x as much) along with mostly fiddles, zithers and occasional woodwind instruments. That said, all types of concertinas are found in mail order catalogues ~ 1905, along with button accordions (the rectangular ones with bass key or buttons on the left hand).

There were some strange instruments brought out by people who played in bands in Britain and turned to more rural pursuits in Australia! Of course the quality concertinas, the English ones have survived where they stayed in families and the 20 and 22-key anglo concertinas I play date from 1867 and 1880. Cheap German factory mass-produced ones tended to wear out quickly. I have some of these in my collection but few are still playable.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Help: Cowboys and Concertinas
From: GUEST,richard wright
Date: 13 Aug 00 - 01:03 PM

Banjos and fiddles were the early instruments by all accounts, following on the Civil War. Mandolins became popular much later. The early photos we have research for various recording projects show a variety of instruments, including one great shot of cowboys in Alberta with an autoharp (not a zither). Guitars, modern stuff, aside, was not an instrument common with cowboys. For a good discussion of the bajo in the Civil War and later cowboy life go to www.drhorsehair.com; Bob Flesher's site. He has losts of disucssion and you can order a copy of the "The Banjo of the Cowboys"

Bob made the banjos shown in the film "Andersonville".

Another point to be made is that msot early "cowboy" music was acapella.

I doubt there were many insturment in the chuckwagon. There were other more important things to be carried.

Richard Wright

Subject: RE: Help: Cowboys and Concertinas
From: Bernard
Date: 13 Aug 00 - 01:16 PM

Like chuck, for instance?

Subject: RE: Help: Cowboys and Concertinas
From: Bernard
Date: 13 Aug 00 - 01:17 PM

Sorry, explanation needed!

Round here, 'chuck' = vomit!

Subject: RE: Help: Cowboys and Concertinas
From: Downeast Bob
Date: 13 Aug 00 - 02:31 PM

I don't know about the concertina, but by the 1930s and 50s, lots of western bands used accordions

Among these, were Sons of the Pioneers, Gene Autry & Roy Rogers.

Several contemporary western bends, Lone Prairie has performed at many Cowboy Poetry and Music Gatherings, Such as the Arizona Cowboy Poetry Festival in Prescott, Arizona.

Lone Prairie has a web site: http://www2.cruzio.com/~zozobra/

Subject: RE: Help: Cowboys and Concertinas
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Aug 00 - 03:04 PM

Well, yes, but then Roy and Gene and the Sons were not cowboys. They were performers. Depends on whether we are talkin' cowboy music or Silver Screen or western or ...

richard