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Rio Bravo is a 1959 American Western film directed and produced by Howard Hawks and starring John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson, Angie Dickinson, Walter Brennan, and Ward Bond. Written by Jules Furthman and Leigh Brackett, based on the short story "Rio Bravo" by B. H. McCampbell, the film stars Wayne as a Texan sheriff who arrests the brother of a powerful local rancher for murder and then has to hold the man in jail until a U.S. Marshal can arrive. With the help of a cripple, a drunk and a young gunfighter, they hold off the rancher's gang. Rio Bravo was filmed on location at Old Tucson Studios outside Tucson, Arizona, in Technicolor.
"Home on the Range" is a classic cowboy song, sometimes called the "unofficial anthem" of the American West. Dr. Brewster M. Higley of Smith County, Kansas, wrote the lyrics as the poem "My Western Home" in 1872 or 1873, with at least one source indicating it was written as early as 1871.
Western music is a form of country music composed by and about the people who settled and worked throughout the Western United States and Western Canada. Western music celebrates the lifestyle of the cowboy on the open ranges, Rocky Mountains, and prairies of Western North America. Directly related musically to old English, Irish, Scottish, and folk ballads, also the Mexican folk music of Northern Mexico and Southwestern United States influenced the development of this genre, particularly corrido, ranchera, New Mexico and Tejano. Western music shares similar roots with Appalachian music, which developed around the same time throughout Appalachia and the Appalachian Mountains. The music industry of the mid-20th century grouped the two genres together under the banner of country and western music, later amalgamated into the modern name, country music.
"Red River Valley" is a folk song and cowboy music standard of uncertain origins that has gone by different names, depending on where it has been sung. It is listed as Roud Folk Song Index 756 and by Edith Fowke as FO 13. It is recognizable by its chorus :
"Streets of Laredo", also known as "The Dying Cowboy", is a famous American cowboy ballad in which a dying ranger tells his story to another cowboy. Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time.
"The Battle of New Orleans" is a song written by Jimmy Driftwood. The song describes the Battle of New Orleans from the perspective of an American soldier; the song tells the tale of the battle with a light tone and provides a rather comical version of what actually happened at the battle. It has been recorded by many artists, but the singer most often associated with this song is Johnny Horton. His version scored number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1959. Billboard ranked it as the No. 1 song for 1959, it was very popular with teenagers in the late 1950s/early 1960s in an era mostly dominated by rock and roll music.
"Don't Fence Me In" is a popular American song written in 1934, with music by Cole Porter and lyrics by Robert Fletcher and Cole Porter. Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time.
"Ragtime Cowboy Joe" is a popular western swing song. The lyrics were written by Grant Clarke and the music was composed by Lewis F. Muir and Maurice Abrahams. It was copyrighted and published in 1912 by F.A. Mills.
"The Wayfaring Stranger", Roud 3339, is a well-known American folk and gospel song likely originating in the early 19th century about a plaintive soul on the journey through life. As with most folk songs, many variations of the lyrics exist and many versions of this song have been published over time by popular singers, often being linked to times of hardship and notable experiences in the singers' lives, such as the case with Burl Ives' autobiography.
R. W. Hampton is an American western music singer-songwriter, actor and playwright. Hampton has achieved both critical and commercial success, winning multiple awards from the Western Music Association and the Academy of Western Artists and four separate Wrangler Awards from the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.
"The Little Old Sod Shanty On The Claim" is an American folk song written by Oliver Edwin Murray of South Dakota. It appeared somewhere around 1880 published in several American newspapers. The printings suggested that it be sung to the tune of "The Little Old Log Cabin In The Lane" written by Will Hays in 1871. The song tells of the trials of homesteading on the Great Plains and became immensely popular among the settlers. The title comes from variations of a refrain found in the verses and the chorus:
"The Little Old Log Cabin In The Lane" is a popular song written by Will S. Hays in 1871 for the minstrel trade. Written in dialect, the song tells of an elderly man, presumably a slave or former slave, passing his later years in a broken-down old log cabin. The title is from a refrain: "de little old log cabin in de lane".
"Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie" is a cowboy folk song. Also known as "The Cowboy's Lament", "The Dying Cowboy", "Bury Me Out on the Lone Prairie", and "Oh, Bury Me Not", the song is described as the most famous cowboy ballad. Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time. Based on a sailor's song, the song has been recorded by many artists, including Moe Bandy, Johnny Cash, Cisco Houston, Burl Ives, Bruce Molsky, The Residents, Tex Ritter, Roy Rogers, Colter Wall and William Elliott Whitmore.
"North to Alaska" is a 1960 hit song recorded by Johnny Horton that was featured in the movie of the same name. The song was written by Mike Phillips, along with Tillman Franks. Though Horton had sung several popular movie tie-in songs, this was the first one that was sung over the opening titles. Horton died in an automobile accident November 5, 1960 two days before the movie was released. Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time.
"I'm an Old Cowhand (From the Rio Grande)" is a comic song written by Johnny Mercer for the Paramount Pictures release Rhythm on the Range and sung by its star, Bing Crosby. The Crosby commercial recording was made on July 17, 1936, with Jimmy Dorsey & his Orchestra for Decca Records. It was a huge hit in 1936, reaching the No. 2 spot in the charts of the day, and it greatly furthered Mercer's career. Crosby recorded the song again in 1954 for his album Bing: A Musical Autobiography.
Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time.
"Don't Take Your Guns to Town" is a song written and recorded by American singer Johnny Cash. It was released in December 1958 as the first single from the album The Fabulous Johnny Cash.
When the Work's All Done this Fall is a classic American cowboy song, written as a poem by D. J. O'Malley (1867–1943). The work was first published in the Miles City Stock-Growers Journal in 1893, titled After the Roundup, over the pen name D.J. White. The lyrics and a melody were first collected from tradition and published by John Lomax in 1910 in Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads.
Nathan Howard "Jack" Thorp was an American collector and writer of cowboy songs and cowboy poetry. Starting in 1889, he collected cowboy material while living in New Mexico. His small book Songs of the Cowboys was published there in 1908. It was the first such book ever published, containing the words to only 23 songs, including the now-classic "The Streets of Laredo" and "Little Joe the Wrangler". A greatly expanded second edition was published in 1921. Today, Thorp is credited with being the first person to take a serious interest in collecting and preserving the homespun ballads of the American West.
"Goodbye Old Paint" is a traditional Western song that was created by black cowboy Charley Willis. The song was first collected by songwriter N. Howard "Jack" Thorp in his 1921 book Songs of the Cowboys. Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time.
References
- ↑ Thorp, N. (1921) Songs of the Cowboys, p. 96.: "'Little Joe, The Wrangler', by N. Howard Thorp. Written by me on the trail of herd of O Cattle from Chimney Lake, New Mexico, to Higgins, Texas, 1898. ... It was copyrighted and appeared in my first edition of Songs of the Cowboys, published in 1908.
- ↑ Western Writers of America (2010). "The Top 100 Western Songs". American Cowboy. Archived from the original on 19 October 2010.
- ↑ "Little Joe the Wrangler". Western Folklife Center. 2009-09-12. Archived from the original on 2014-07-14. Retrieved 2014-07-04.
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