In 1962 a friend and I were traversing the USA for the first time when we met Del Bray in a bar across from our hotel room near the old train station in Cheyenne, Wyoming. I had my guitar with me and was looking for folk songs. We decided to buy a 6-pack and swap some songs in the hotel room because the bar's juke box was just too loud to compete with. Del Bray was a retired beat up old cowboy. I mentionmed that I was looking for the old story songs---and he sang his "Cowboys's Barbara Allen" for us. I wrote it down the best I could on a found piece of paper and stashed it in my duffle bag.

I never found out from Del Bray where he got his song. He might've written it. He went home that night, and we headed to San Francisco and Mexico City. I put the song to what I remembered as the tune he used---but who knows? It could well be a mixture of tunes I'd heard the ballad "Barbara Allen" sung to. BUT Del's song was definitely a cowboy version of the ballad. It's in the DT.

The first verse hooked me in---and I was blown away by it even though I was really quite young---just 20 years old.

Near Medicine Bow where I was born,
There was a fair maid dwellin',
Made all the boys ride saddle sore,
And her name was Barbara Allen.

In 1976 or so I put Del's song on my first LP----Kicking Mule Records KM-150. Fantasy Records owns the entire Kicking Mule record label now, and they've shown no signs of putting it out until I pass on or whatever. SOOOO, I included a different performance of the ballad on my 1998 CD called "The Older I Get, The Better I Was" for Waterbug Records. www.waterbug.com

Possibly Del Bray re-wrote the old song to fit his life and what he knew. The Library Of Congress Archive Of Folk Song issued a whole LP of various collected versions of "Barbara Allen"--many different sets of words and different tunes. Samuel Pepys said in his diary that he'd heard B.A. sung in London --- in 1666. And here was Del doing it for us in Cheyenne almost three hundred years later.

Folks forgot words and tunes and patched it together as best as they could. Why? Because they liked the tale about two young lovers and their failure to honestly communicate their emotions and feelings---and the sad repercussions that led to. The lesson, I guess, was to not be like them!

Recreating and memorizing has a real part to play in the process called the oral tradition. Now it is an "electronic oral tradition" --- with recordings, of all types, greasing the interaction --- like K.Y. jelly !

And always remember, as I'm fond of saying, "When your memory goes, forget it."

Art Thieme