Back in the Saddle Again
One of the earliest records I remember having was a 78 single with a picture on it of a cowboy playing the guitar by a campfire in the moonlight. The song was "Oh Bury Me Not On The Lone Prairie". Ever since then, I've liked western songs, especially cowboy ones. This was reinforced by a childhood saturated with TV westerns and western B-movie reruns on the local channels. I had a cowboy outfit and cap guns and a bed-cover with western figures and cacti all over it (on the roadtrip that just ended, I found myself with unexpectedly taken with the saguaro cactus – I just realized that this was the type depicted on my bedcovers!).
Our 2005 Roadtrip took us from John Ford Point in Monument Valley, Utah, (where he shot the stagecoach rolling past the awesome buttes and mesas) all the way south to Tombstone, Arizona, one of the highlights of the vacation for both me and Mrs. Djstan, another big fan of westerns. There we sashayed down the studiously maintained wooden sidewalks, visited the Crystal Palace saloon where Wyatt Earp ran a Faro game, checked out the official gallows at the 1882 county seat/courthouse, walked among the graves on Boot Hill, and – of course – went to the OK Corral where there's a daily re-creation of the famous shoot-out.
So now we're back East, and to ease the transition I've been playing cowboy music for the past two days. A few years ago, I was gifted with the Rhino Songs of the West box set, a 4 CD collection that's a gem for fans of the genre. The first volume - and yesterday's listening choice – is classic songs like the Sons of the Pioneers' "Tumblin' Tumbleweed" (another peak moment – tumbleweed rolling across the road in Chinle, AZ), Patsy Montana's "I Want To Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart", Rex Allen's "The Last Roundup" (there's a Rex Allen museum in Wilcox, AZ), and Tex Ritter's "Wayward Wind". Gene Autry opens the set with "Back in the Saddle Again" and it's closed by Roy Rogers & Dale Evans singing "Happy Trails". The only song I'd add is Vaughn Monroe's hit version of "Riders in the Sky", which I remember being totally spooked by in my childhood.
Today's set is volume 4, which consists of themes from western movies and TV shows, including a snippet of Elmer Bernstein's superb score for "The Magnificent Seven", Frankie Laine's "Rawhide", Tex Ritter's "Do Not Forsake Me" from "High Noon", Johnny Cash singing "The Rebel - Johnny Yuma" and Hugh O'Brien's rendering of "Wyatt Earp". It's missing "Bat Masterson", "Yancy Derringer", and Randy Newman's theme from "The Three Amigos" (let alone the Singing Bush), but it satisfies nonetheless.
By tomorrow, I'll be ready for Lou Reed's New York and a stroll down the dirty boulevard, but for today, I'm still riding out there in the sagebrush with the dogies, keepin' an eye out for rustlers. Yeeeha!
Our 2005 Roadtrip took us from John Ford Point in Monument Valley, Utah, (where he shot the stagecoach rolling past the awesome buttes and mesas) all the way south to Tombstone, Arizona, one of the highlights of the vacation for both me and Mrs. Djstan, another big fan of westerns. There we sashayed down the studiously maintained wooden sidewalks, visited the Crystal Palace saloon where Wyatt Earp ran a Faro game, checked out the official gallows at the 1882 county seat/courthouse, walked among the graves on Boot Hill, and – of course – went to the OK Corral where there's a daily re-creation of the famous shoot-out.
So now we're back East, and to ease the transition I've been playing cowboy music for the past two days. A few years ago, I was gifted with the Rhino Songs of the West box set, a 4 CD collection that's a gem for fans of the genre. The first volume - and yesterday's listening choice – is classic songs like the Sons of the Pioneers' "Tumblin' Tumbleweed" (another peak moment – tumbleweed rolling across the road in Chinle, AZ), Patsy Montana's "I Want To Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart", Rex Allen's "The Last Roundup" (there's a Rex Allen museum in Wilcox, AZ), and Tex Ritter's "Wayward Wind". Gene Autry opens the set with "Back in the Saddle Again" and it's closed by Roy Rogers & Dale Evans singing "Happy Trails". The only song I'd add is Vaughn Monroe's hit version of "Riders in the Sky", which I remember being totally spooked by in my childhood.
Today's set is volume 4, which consists of themes from western movies and TV shows, including a snippet of Elmer Bernstein's superb score for "The Magnificent Seven", Frankie Laine's "Rawhide", Tex Ritter's "Do Not Forsake Me" from "High Noon", Johnny Cash singing "The Rebel - Johnny Yuma" and Hugh O'Brien's rendering of "Wyatt Earp". It's missing "Bat Masterson", "Yancy Derringer", and Randy Newman's theme from "The Three Amigos" (let alone the Singing Bush), but it satisfies nonetheless.
By tomorrow, I'll be ready for Lou Reed's New York and a stroll down the dirty boulevard, but for today, I'm still riding out there in the sagebrush with the dogies, keepin' an eye out for rustlers. Yeeeha!
posted by DJStan at 1:02 PM
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