Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?

Subject: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: olddude
Date: 29 Oct 10 - 11:53 AM

How about some cowboy songs from our Catters ... I will start off with Art Thieme

Santa Fe Trail

How about posting some folks?

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: olddude
Date: 29 Oct 10 - 04:28 PM

Hey Art
I guess all the cowboy's on Mudcat retired when you did my friend. Geeze I thought I would get to listen to a bunch of catter music ... naw ... Makes me want to write a song "Where have all the cowboys gone"

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 29 Oct 10 - 04:32 PM

Where iz? Iz at blue super-search box under , which netz DT and Forum resultz.

Iz Catter cowboyz in Youtubez, hm?

~S~

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: olddude
Date: 29 Oct 10 - 04:40 PM

ok but people are recording all the time here, how about some stuff that hasn't been posted ...

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: gnu
Date: 29 Oct 10 - 04:44 PM

Ooooohhhhh.... kinda lonely in the saddle since ma horse died.

I used to be a cowboy but I'm alright moooo.

Hey, it's Friday night.

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 29 Oct 10 - 04:47 PM

Hey Old, here's a contribution, and a song I like to play. In Colorado, we have a mixed-up relationship with that cowboy state north of us, but for anybody who has spent much time there, there's something about the long views, the majestic cap rock, the ever-present durned wind, and the no-nonsense folks in Wyoming that draws you back. Here's Old Double Diamond sung by Ian Tyson.

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: Rapparee
Date: 29 Oct 10 - 04:53 PM

What about that album Seamus Kennedy did a little while back, pardner? He was yodelin' up a storm an' all.

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: catspaw49
Date: 29 Oct 10 - 04:56 PM

I heartily endorse the famous Belfast Bronc Buster ........Seamus Kennedy.

No shit..... I really DO!!!!

Spaw

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 29 Oct 10 - 05:18 PM

Of course Seamus is not the only Irishman to do a Cowboy Song. Phil and the lads rip it up back in the day.

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: olddude
Date: 29 Oct 10 - 05:22 PM

Lonesome, I never heard double diamond before ... Incredible thank you. And yea I am a big Seamus fan ... I have all of his CD's ... and the guy can yodel up a storm for sure ...

Subject: ADD: Evil Freddy (Mike Campbell)
From: Alaska Mike
Date: 29 Oct 10 - 06:24 PM

wHere's olne I wrote awhile back, pardner.


EVIL FREDDY
by Mike Campbell 1998

Well I used to be a cowboy down in southern Arizona,
Use to ride along the border on an old Appaloosa,
Mending all the broken fences so the cattle don't stray,
Oh, down Mexico way.

Now there was a senorita living down in Sonora,
And I used to go and see her when I's working on the border,
And I'd bring her little presents so her eyes would shine,
Oh, trying to make her mine.

But she had an evil brother by the name of Frederico,
Everybody knew that Freddy was a bad bandito,
He was wanted by the Sheriff for breaking all the laws,
O-nly just because.

He had robbed all the stages and he'd stolen from the banks,
And when he'd go into cantinas he would really get tanked.
He'd pull out both his pistols and he'd fire 'em in the air,
Oh, everybody got scared.

Evil Freddy had a habit when he was drinking at the bar,
He liked to dance "La Cucaracha" to the music of guitars,
And everybody had to join him or he'd shoot them in the head,
Oh, until they was dead.

One sunny day in Yuma I was having me a toddy,
It was hot enough to vaporize the sweat off of my body,
I had just finished pouring me a giant glass of gin,
Oh, when Evil Freddy walked in.

He'd been riding real hard trying to out run the posse,
He was hot and he was sweaty, he was acting real bossy,
He drew his big pistola and he stuck it in my ear,
Oh, and then he said real clear.

"You been with my little sister and that makes me very mad,
She's the only hermanita that this hombre ever had,
So you better say your prayers to the man up in the sky,
Oh, 'cause you're going to die.

But before I shoot you I am going to drink this glass of water,"
I just didn't have the heart to say I didn't think he ought to.
So he grabbed my glass of gin and then he chug-a-lugged it down,
Oh, then his eyes spun round.

He was coughing, he was wheezing he was trying hard to breath,
He dropped his pistol on the table when he stumbled to his knees,
I picked it up and turned it round and gave his head a clout,
Oh, then Evil Freddy passed out.

When the Sheriff and his posse finally stumbled through the door,
I was standing over Freddy who was unconscious on the floor,
We took some rope and tied up both his hands and his feet,
Oh, then the Sheriff gave a speech.

He said, "Cowboy listen to me for you've done your country proud,
You have captured that bandito who was ugly, mean and loud,
And tonight we'll all be thanking both you and the Lord,
Oh, now about the reward."

Now I own El Rancho Grande and I'm living pretty high,
Got Evil Freddy's little sister, she's the apple of my eye,
You know we've got a dozen children and we're happy as can be,
Oh, now about Evil Freddy.

Well he'd been a model prisoner so they let him out early,
He had found himself religion and he saw his life more clearly,
But he didn't want to work around anybody else,
Oh, he had to be by himself.

So I hired him as a cowboy up near southern Arizona,
Where he rides along the border on an old Appaloosa,
Mending all my broken fences so my cattle don't stray,
Oh, into the U.S.A.


Enjoy, Mike

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: olddude
Date: 29 Oct 10 - 06:31 PM

I like it !!!

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 29 Oct 10 - 08:49 PM

Dude, Did I send you the 2-CD bootleg I put together of all my cowboy material? If not, I will. (I figure you've got some of it on my various CDs.

Art

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: olddude
Date: 29 Oct 10 - 08:58 PM

You did my dear friend and I cherish it.   I Love every song on them also. Play them about every couple of days ... Your version of lone prairie is the best I ever heard barring none

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: katlaughing
Date: 29 Oct 10 - 08:59 PM

Dandarlin'...if I haven't already sent you a set of THESE, I will. I've got a rough CD of my dad doing the old "cow songs" as he called them, I could send you, too.

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: olddude
Date: 29 Oct 10 - 09:01 PM

Kat
I would love it but let me pay you for shipping hon. Wonderful stuff

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: katlaughing
Date: 29 Oct 10 - 09:08 PM

Naw, Dan, not at this late date. Consider it an even swap for all the stuff you've sent me and shared. Just give me a little time to get it done, okay?:-)

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: olddude
Date: 29 Oct 10 - 09:12 PM

Thanks KAT!!

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: Amos
Date: 29 Oct 10 - 10:01 PM

Buffalo Skinners


Sweet Wyoming Home

High Chin Bob

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 29 Oct 10 - 10:10 PM

I did "Goldmine in the Sky" at the Getaway in the mining songs workshop, and then again in the Peace Cabin about 2 AM or so.   I just can't get enough of that song.

Yes, I know it's Tin Pan Alley, and a movie to boot.

So shoot me--I'll still love it.

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: olddude
Date: 29 Oct 10 - 10:16 PM

Wonderful work Amos, I am a big fan my friend. Ron Goldmine in the sky is a great song. Wish I heard it

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 29 Oct 10 - 10:46 PM

Art-
No, you didn't. And btw, did you come up with the turtle soup ending for the Great Turtle Drive? It's not in Jack Thorpe's book.

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: katlaughing
Date: 29 Oct 10 - 11:25 PM

Amos, how come it seems like this is the first time I've seen/heard your soundclick files? Regardless, after listening to several versions of My Sweet Wyoming Home, including Bill Staines, himself, Chris LeDeux, and Jed Marum (sorry Bill and Jed,) I have to say I prefer your slower, deeper version and that is a song which lies close in my heart. Well-done and thanks for sharing. Have I missed a CD thread somewhere, too?

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 30 Oct 10 - 12:02 AM

Dick,
Maybe I did. Stuff happened on stage and set-in-stone tales just "changed." And then, some of it would stay, but some wouldn't. "Studs Turtle" happened one New Years Eve at the yearly live party us singers were invited to at radio station WFMT. Studs' radio show aired on that station for many years. As one came in the door, they would hand you a bottle of champagne---and then tell you that you were responsible for what you said on the air! (Gimme a break!?) --- A week after mayor of Chicago, Richard J. Daley, died, there we all were, rather high and on the air live. I was NOT a fan of R.J. Daley after his police beat and gassed Viet Nam war protesters at the Democrat's convention in '68. I took note of the fact that Daley had been laid out naked and face down------so everyone could kiss him goodbye! I still hear about that one every so often -- pro and con.

And the "hurtle turd--turtle herd" was a mistake I made one time---but then it stayed.

Dick, I really don't remember about the turtle soup. Sorry.

But thanks for asking.------Art

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: Amos
Date: 30 Oct 10 - 12:18 AM

Kat,

Thanks so much!! Oddly enough, I often think of you when I sing it. You can thank Dan for the sound-click files--he did all the work on his own bat. Most of them are from the "Beyond the Lighthouse" CD I made a few years back.


A

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: katlaughing
Date: 30 Oct 10 - 12:49 AM

Well, jeepers, again, Amos, I don't know how I missed it. Can I send you a check or paypal for a copy?

I think THAT song and Chris' Paint Me Back Home in WY are two that really resonate in my heart...but then I think of others...like almost anything Art sings...but well, those two and the Cowboy's Barbara Allen...ol' Wyoming is just stuck in my heart.:-)

Dick, I can remember reading a small paperback, an old one, of cowboy tall tales or some such and being so shocked to find the Turtle Drive story in it. I was SURE it was a Fine Art original! I'll have to see if I still have it. I remember telling Art about it, maybe in a PM. I might've said something about the soup.

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: Artful Codger
Date: 30 Oct 10 - 01:22 PM

Kat, you gotta love the Delmore Brothers' "Back to My Wyoming Home"! (From a pair of Alabama boys, no less.)

Someday I plan to get some of my cowboy settings put up on YouTube or SoundClick... I still owe you my "Paul Venarez" (Billy Venero)--I haven't forgotten.

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: Artful Codger
Date: 30 Oct 10 - 01:29 PM

Oops, misattribution: Gerald & Dixon recorded (and I presume wrote) "Back to My Wyoming Home"; the Delmores wrote "Fugitive's Lament", another of my favorites.

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: open mike
Date: 30 Oct 10 - 02:43 PM

here is the ultimate (penultimate?) cowboy song Night Rider's Lament

I recorded this about a year ago...

http://www.myspace.com/video/laurelwoodsorrel/night-rider-39-s-lament/64359202

if you are not able to see it let me know and i will try to post it another way.

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 30 Oct 10 - 03:21 PM

Dan, I'm so glad to see that your thread took off. The thread title alone will be a great resource next time someone searches, and it gives not only newer stuff but the DT info too-- win/win.

~Susan

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: Artful Codger
Date: 30 Oct 10 - 03:34 PM

Couldn't view it.

A pretty song, but shouldn't that accolade be reserved for a song that actually was sung during the cowboy era, rather than one riding the shirttails over half a century after that era's passing? The cowboy life may still live on as a ghost of its former self--a day job with the truck and feed lot more integral than the horse and open range--but none of these modern songs, written more for the recording studio than the campfire, qualifies as a real cowboy song. IMO, of course. (Sorry, that remark just touched one of my pet peeves, as do any that include claims like "ultimate".)

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: Deda
Date: 30 Oct 10 - 11:14 PM

Does anyone do "Oh that Strawberry Roan"? Amos does it on occasion, by request, but I don't think he's recorded it.

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: olddude
Date: 30 Oct 10 - 11:38 PM

better record it bro, i wanna here that one

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: katlaughing
Date: 30 Oct 10 - 11:57 PM

Artful, dang! I'd forgotten that one and yes, I love it, too...that tune is pretty darn close to the Strawberry Roan, isn't it? Which, Deva, was a fav. request of ours when my dad would sing.

As to "Paul Venarez"...when you have time. I know I will enjoy it greatly!

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: katlaughing
Date: 31 Oct 10 - 12:21 AM

Meant to say that looking for My Old Wyoming Home, I found a wonderful CD called When I Was A Cowboy - Volume Two. Just listening, now. Wonderful stuff!

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: Artful Codger
Date: 31 Oct 10 - 04:33 AM

Yep, "The Fugitive's Lament" is also on that WIWAC CD, which is one reason I get the artists confused. Volume One is great, too. Those CDs been mentioned in several of the cowboy song threads here, so I'm surprised you've missed them!

"Back to My Wyoming Home" starts out similarly to "Strawberry Roan" in the first two lines (a fairly generic melodic pattern), but otherwise the tunes are different and "Wyoming Home", with three discrete parts, has more melodic content. I'm not even sure that the now popular "Strawberry Roan" tune is any older--has anyone traced it back farther than the Howard/Vincent reworking in the early 1930s?

Pardon me for the off-topic digressions.

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: open mike
Date: 31 Oct 10 - 03:58 PM

i plan to feature cowboy and cowgirl songs on my radio show next month.
I hope the streaming will be working..i will post an invite here the week before and the day before....tune in for 2 hours of yippee ki yi yo and more....november 13--

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: katlaughing
Date: 31 Oct 10 - 04:09 PM

I must've been out on the range, Artful.:-) I don't think anyone would call those off-topic digressions, either.*bg*

open mike, kewl! I'll mark my calendar.

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: Amos
Date: 31 Oct 10 - 08:56 PM

Artful:

A lot of today's cowboys earn their spare change riding the rodeo circuit. That doesn't make them any less cowboys, in my book.


A

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 01 Nov 10 - 09:31 AM

I wrote this one

http://www.bigalwhittle.co.uk/id4.html

Its about Wyatt Earp

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: olddude
Date: 01 Nov 10 - 09:54 AM

Some fine guitar playing Al ... I like it ... you rock

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: Rex
Date: 01 Nov 10 - 01:25 PM

Kat, I sure do appreciate you mentioning WIWAC Vol. 2. I knew of it but never looked into the tracks. Good stuff. I have ordered it along with Vol. 1. Much obliged.

Alright olddude, I run in the cowboy song circuit. I humbly offer my website and Jack Thorp's Songs of the Cowboys that I recorded with historian and author, Mark Gardner.
http://www.timetravelmusic.com/recordings.html

For a great resource of cowboy culture in poetry and song, you cain't do better than The Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry. They have a great array of early and current writers as well as news of cowboy poetry and music gatherings. They've done a nice job promoting Mark and me as well.
http://www.cowboypoetry.com/sincenews.htm

Lastly, seeing as folks are tossing in youtubes, here you go, folks seem to like this one. It is on my latest CD yet to be released.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29AfAE7Syjk

Adios,

Rex

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: olddude
Date: 01 Nov 10 - 01:27 PM

Wonderful Rex, Thank you !!!

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: Artful Codger
Date: 01 Nov 10 - 04:56 PM

Synchronicity: I just ran across this song, which shares the tune (and some of the words) of the first part of "Back to My Wyoming Home":
Rocking Alone.

Rex, your recording of "Songs of the Cowboys" is the one I first turn to for the Thorp songs. It's refreshing to hear these songs done with simple settings rather than the usual overblown accompaniments totally anachronistic to the period.

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 01 Nov 10 - 06:35 PM

Well, Dick, and all, I just dug out my old copy of N. Howard (Jack) Thorp's book named "Pardner Of The Wind"------The Caxton Printers, LTD., Caldwell, Idaho 1945. I found page 221 and began reading the 'turtle drive tale' for the first time in over 30 years.

At the start o9f the story, they are in a San Antonio "high-toned" eatery. "They sat down at a four-seated table where two men were already eating."-- is how it is told. They begins on soup...Say Mac, what kind o' soup are we eating? It's pretty fine."

"It ought to, says his friend; costs six bits a dish. If you ordered it up north, it'd be about two dollars.'

------Dick, Thorp's original just goes on and on--quite verbose and flowery if ya ask me. At the end, you are very correct; there is no sign of the Red River all hot and flowing with turtle soup. So there!
I guess that was me putting that in there after all. The half million Land Turtles got drowned and were dead! (Very sad. I'm choking up as I recount this.) I suspect I extrapolated the idea of heating up the entire river to save the day and make turtle soup out of a bad situation --- a solution (no pun intended) that ended up helping out the Indian tribes through a very tough winter!

On Kicking Mule KM-150 this tale sort of just ended---the way tall tales (and lives too) usually do end. Dead silence -- pretty much.

Later, I told this tale in Winfield, Kansas---at the Walnut Valley Festival. It was much smoother than the way I'd told it on that live at the Old Town School of Folk Music first album of mine. But by then I'd realized that modern folks in bars etc expect a punch line of sorts at the end for them to feel the cloture of it. So I tacked on a punny punch line!: "Folks, you're probably wondering how I know that story!? Well, I have turtle recall!"

To end this, that set I did at Winfield, Kansas was issued as a cassette by those folks. It was a benefit for me after I couldn't pick or travel. I must say a HUGE Thank You to everyone at that festival. You all got us through some very hard times.

There's more, but that's enough! Love to you all on here at Mudcat. And thanks, Max, for making this place I can hang out and say my peace. (A "piece" is a gun---and a good lay---and a great bottom line!

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: open mike
Date: 01 Nov 10 - 09:31 PM

nice gee-tar there, Rex...prolly fit right in the saddle bag?!

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: katlaughing
Date: 01 Nov 10 - 10:09 PM

Let's hear the MORE, Art!!

Rex, my apologies for not posting about your wonderful book and CD with Mark. It is one of my favourites and I often wish I had it while my dad was still alive. I think he would have really enjoyed it...I'll bet it is very close to what he heard as a child. (BTW, found a great bow repair fellah & fiddlemaker in Paonia. Finally going to get both of my bows fixed and rehaired.)

Glad you found the WIWAC cds of interest. They're great, aren't they? I just found them, even though Artful noted they've been mentioned before.

Good to *see* you, again.

kat

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: open mike
Date: 02 Nov 10 - 02:17 PM

Here is one of the best sources for all music cowboy..including the "best of" (When I was a cowboy)disc mentioned by Kat above

http://www.westernjubilee.com/LittleGemsAlongtheTrail.htm

from Colorado where many of the good cowboys are from!!

check out all the http://www.westernjubilee.com offerings...

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: Artful Codger
Date: 02 Nov 10 - 02:59 PM

If ya gotta be good, what's the use of being a cowboy?

Subject: RE: Where is our Catter Cowboy Songs?
From: Rex
Date: 03 Nov 10 - 11:37 PM

I first started tuning into this Mudcat thing when it was a new idea. It was Digital Tradition then sponsored through Zerox maybe or something like it. I've enjoyed the use of this good resource. These days I don't get on this forum as much as I would like. And I'm not so savvy as to how to respond here so I'll just go one at a time.
olddude, thank'ee, its my pleasure.
Artful Codger, it is mighty nice of you to say such about our Thorp recordings. Mark and I try to get it close to the bone. I will offer that a big inspiration for Mark and me has been Hal Cannon and the Deseret String Band. I think the latest rendition was, Hal, Ron Kane, Meghan Merker and Skip Gorman. They have mostly gone separate ways but look for any and all of their recordings. They get it right.
I am delighted to share a thread with Art anytime. It is so right that we are bringing Jack Thorp into this. I love to hear Art's Hurtle Turd or ....
open mike, you may be aluding to the smaller size of that guitar. It was made around 1890 and is a good example of a parlor guitar from that time. Its pretty close to what a cowpuncher would have at the time. Check out the photos of Badger Clark and his guitar. I have a spanish guitar from around 1840 that is a touch smaller.
And Kat? why you need not worry about plugging my stuff! Not at all. I believe that is my job and I'm pretty sure I put in something about the Thorp book in this forum when it came out. Thanks again for mentioning that WIWAC CD.
It is good to mention the Western Jubilee Recording Co. (WJRC)
http://westernjubilee.com/
Scott O'Malley and crew offer much in the way of Cowboy songs and culture. They have the best talent in the business. It is quite correct that they offer the WIWAC CDs and much more. I will humbly mention that Mark and my Thorp CD was recorded there. Mark and I recently recorded a track there for my new CD.
Lastly, for those of you that are fond of Thorp, here's one you've never heard. It comes from his second publication of 1921 and as he didn't offer a melody for it, I fit it to Casey Jones, after a fashion. "Frijole Beanses"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bnrcV1ale4&feature=related
Adios,

Rex