Yiddish cowboys

Subject: Yiddish cowboys
From: Jack Campin
Date: 30 Apr 09 - 01:09 PM

From Leo Rosten's "Silky!", Home on the Range in (semi-)Yiddish:

Oy, gib mir a haim,
Vi di buffalo geyn,
Vi di deer ubd di entelope play.
Vi kaynmul kumt fort,
Ah discouraging vort,
Und der himmel
is rayn gontze taig!

Did Rosten make that up?

Subject: RE: Yiddish cowboys
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 30 Apr 09 - 04:03 PM

Frank Gallop, the voice-over announcer on the old Perry Como TV show, once recorded the following ditty on an album, as I recall it, named "When You're In Love, The Whole World is Jewish." It was done in the style of a talking blues...more or less.

"He was short and fat, and rode out of the west
With a mogen david on his silver vest.
He was mean and nasty right clear through,
Which was kinda weird, 'cause he was yellow too.

They called him irving.
Big irving.
Big, short irving.
Big, short, fat irving.
The hundred and forty-second fastest gun in the west.

He came from the old bar mitzvah spread,
With a 10-gallon yarmulke on his head.* [see below]
He always followed his mother's wishes,
Even on the range he used two sets of dishes.

Irving.
Big, fat irving.
Big sissy irving.
The hundred and forty-second fastest gun in the west.

A hundred and forty-one could draw faster than he,
But irving was looking for one forty-three.
Walked into sol's saloon like a man insane,
And ordered three fingers of two cents plain.

Irving.
Big, fat irving.
Big sport irving.
The hundred and forty-second fastest gun in the west.

One day bad max happened into town.
His aim was to shoot fat irving down.
Bad max said, "draw, and draw right now!"
And irving drew, drew a picture of a cow.

Irving.
Big, fat irving.
Big gunfighter irving.
The hundred and forty-second fastest gun in the west.

The james boys was comin' on a train at first sun,
And the town said, "irving, we need your gun."
When that train pulled in at the break of dawn,
Irving's gun was there, but irving was gone.

Irving.
Big, fat irving.
Big help, irving.
The hundred and forty-second fastest gun in the west.

Well, finally irving got three slugs in the belly.
It was right outside the old frontier deli.
He was sittin' there twirlin' his gun around,
And butterfingers irving gunned himself down!

Irving.
Big, fat irving.
Big dum-dum irving.
Big dum-dum dead irving.
The hundred and forty-second fastest gun in the west.
Really."

Subject: RE: Yiddish cowboys
From: Artful Codger
Date: 30 Apr 09 - 04:37 PM

Probably so.

Sounds like a good song challenge: write an original Yiddish or Jewish cowboy song. (Oy, gewalt, my tuckus is so sore from all that riding, riding, riding already! I should be so lucky to find a decent Reuben out here.)

Subject: RE: Yiddish cowboys
From: Sorcha
Date: 30 Apr 09 - 05:07 PM

See Gene Wilder in Frisco Kid.

Subject: RE: Yiddish cowboys
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 30 Apr 09 - 05:57 PM

There's actually quite a lot of it.

I used to hear a radio program in New York City on WKCR-FM (and WBAI-FM) called "Cowboy Joe's Radio Ranch." The period was the late 1970s, early 1980s. It played on NPR for a while. WKCR was a station with lots of little specialized programs, and is out of Columbia University. The same guy did a program called "Cajun Jamboree." Paul Aaron. I remember that he was very proud to have been awarded the Western Heritage Wrangler Award for his contribution to cowboy music collecting and scholarship. This came from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City, OK.

I did a search and came up with a short mention in the New York Times from 1997:

UPPER WEST SIDE

Cowboy Joe Rides Again At the Lincoln Center Ranch

Both country and Western music will get their turns in the spotlight at the Lincoln Center plaza on Thursday night in the Midsummer Night Swing series.

The audience will be able to "watch" a radio show as Cowboy Joe (also known as Paul Aaron, pictured below) recreates his award-winning "Cowboy Joe's Radio Ranch," which was broadcast for 12 years on WKCR-FM in New York and around the country on National Public Radio. The Cowboy Joe show featured Western swing from the likes of Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys, as well as cattleman lore and humor.

Before the show, Meredith Stead and John Knapp will give country and Western swing dance lessons at 6:30 P.M. And after the show, the Nashville band BR5-49 (taking their name from the phone number for Junior Sample's used car lot on "Hee Haw") will take the stage.

"Cowboy Joe's Radio Ranch," Lincoln Center Plaza; 8:15 P.M. Thursday; dance lessons, 6:30 P.M. to 7:30 P.M.; Cowboy Joe, 8:15 P.M.; BR5-49, 9:15 P.M.; $9; [phone].

I just put in an old cassette tape of one of the programs. His theme song was "Ragtime Cowboy Joe" and he had lots of versions of it. Anyway, I remember hearing one program with a New York City Yiddish Cowboy band that performed live on the studio.

I find an email [e-mail] on a page that was (apparently) last updated in 2004.

That's about as much as I can squeeze out of a net search. I might have some of the performance on a tape; if I do I'll add more information as I come across it.

SRS

Subject: RE: Yiddish cowboys
From: Artful Codger
Date: 30 Apr 09 - 07:09 PM

Well, considering how many "cowboy" songs were actually written by Tin Pan Alley songsmiths, I shouldn't be surprised.

Subject: RE: Yiddish cowboys
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 30 Apr 09 - 07:35 PM

That's one part of it!

Subject: RE: Yiddish cowboys
From: M.Ted
Date: 01 May 09 - 12:14 AM

The lyrics are from "Haim Afn Range" by Mickey Katz. For those that don't know him, he was
a Spike Jones alumnus who specialized in Yiddish parodies of popular songs. I tried to find the rest of the lyrics, but the Mickey Katz homepage has disappeared, my turntable is broken, and my Mickey Katz records are in a box in the garage.

Subject: RE: Yiddish cowboys
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 May 09 - 12:26 AM

If you enter "Wayback Machine" into your browser search bar, you'll land on http://www.archive.org/index.php. And it is absolultely amazing what you can find there. If you have Adobe Acrobat you can even use your browser to save a copy of those old pages.

Good luck!

SRS

Subject: RE: Yiddish cowboys
From: GUEST,Dave MacKenzie
Date: 01 May 09 - 03:26 AM

The wild west attracted all nationalities and races unlike the Holllywood version. Genuine cowboy songs in Scots Gaelic have been collected, so why not Yiddish.

Subject: RE: Yiddish cowboys
From: NormanD
Date: 01 May 09 - 04:18 AM

There was a documentary film made a few years ago about Hollywood and Yiddish films. These were developed, from the early 1930s in the early years of talkies, specifically for the different language markets. Invariably low-budget and lost-land sentimental, they did produce some cowboy films. One clip showed a character (the no-goodnik) ambling into a saloon and saying to the barman (or so it was subtitled), "Gimme a cherry brandy".

Which reminds me of the following joke.

I met this attractive woman in a bar the other night.

We started talking. She said, "You know what really, really turns me on? Jewish cowboys. My name's Mary-Jo. What's yours?"

"Tex. Tex Goldberg".


And Yiddish cowboy songs? A good Roseanne gag was, "I'm from Texas. Yippy Chai-ay".

And how come this thread has progressed this far without a mention of Richard "Kinky" Friedman and The Texas Jewboys?

Subject: RE: Yiddish cowboys
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 May 09 - 11:15 AM

It has been mentioned now!

Subject: RE: Yiddish cowboys
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 01 May 09 - 11:22 AM

Listen to Kinky Freidman and His Texas Jewboys...absolutely hilarious stuff.

in addition to Kinky there was Little Jewford, Big Nig, Panama Red, Wichita Culpepper, Sky Cap Adams, Rainbow Colours, and Snakebite Jacobs

Subject: RE: Yiddish cowboys
From: GUEST,Mark Ross at the pre-schools' computer
Date: 01 May 09 - 11:48 AM

The first star of western movies was Bronco Billy Anderson whose birth name was Max Aaronson. You can take this to the bank from the man who was once known as THE YODELIN' YID & THE HASID HAYSEED.



Mark Ross

Subject: RE: Yiddish cowboys
From: NormanD
Date: 01 May 09 - 12:36 PM

I'm waiting for a song about Billy The Yid. Anybody?

(in the event of any mispaced accusations against me of being anti-sem, I'll revert to my given name, for this thread)

Nachman

Subject: RE: Yiddish cowboys
From: Cool Beans
Date: 01 May 09 - 01:03 PM

Shameless plug: I sing "Home On the Range" in Yiddish (not Yinglish) on my CD "Drawerful of Fives."
http://cdbaby.com/cd/martykohn

FYI...Mickey Katz: Joel Grey's father.