The Old Chisholm Trail

Last updated
"The Old Chisholm Trail"
Song
LanguageEnglish
Published1910
Genre Western, American folk
Songwriter(s) Traditional

"The Old Chisholm Trail" (Roud 3438) is a cowboy song first published in 1910 by John Lomax in his book Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads. [1]

The song dates back to the 1870s, when it was among the most popular songs sung by cowboys during that era. Based on an English lyrical song that dates back to 1640, "The Old Chisholm Trail" was modified by the cowboy idiom. It has been recorded by the world's most popular Western singers, including Harry McClintock, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Bing Crosby, Woody Guthrie, Randy Travis, Michael Martin Murphey, Tex Ritter, Jack Elliot, Charlie Daniels, and Riders in the Sky. [2] [3] Yodeling Slim Clark recorded a yodeling version in 1957 for his album Cowboy Songs. The song was partially covered in the now-defunct Disneyland attraction "America Sings".

Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time. [4]

In 2001, author Rosalyn Shanzer wrote a children's book based on the song. It follows the adventures of some cowboys and their cattle as they travel the Old Chisholm Trail from Texas to Kansas. [5]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roy Rogers</span> American singer and actor (1911–1998)

Roy Rogers, nicknamed the King of the Cowboys, was an American singer, actor, television host, freemason and rodeo performer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American folk music</span> Roots and traditional music from the United States

The term American folk music encompasses numerous music genres, variously known as traditional music, traditional folk music, contemporary folk music, vernacular music, or roots music. Many traditional songs have been sung within the same family or folk group for generations, and sometimes trace back to such origins as the British Isles, Mainland Europe, or Africa. Musician Mike Seeger once famously commented that the definition of American folk music is "...all the music that fits between the cracks."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yodeling</span> Form of singing

Yodeling is a form of singing which involves repeated and rapid changes of pitch between the low-pitch chest register and the high-pitch head register or falsetto. The English word yodel is derived from the German word jodeln, meaning "to utter the syllable jo". This vocal technique is used in many cultures worldwide. Recent scientific research concerning yodeling and non-Western cultures suggests that music and speech may have evolved from a common prosodic precursor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tex Ritter</span> American country singer (1905–1974)

Woodward Maurice "Tex" Ritter was a pioneer of American Country music, a popular singer and actor from the mid-1930s into the 1960s, and the patriarch of the Ritter acting family. He is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Lomax</span> American musicologist and folklorist (1867–1948)

John Avery Lomax was an American teacher, a pioneering musicologist, and a folklorist who did much for the preservation of American folk music. He was the father of Alan Lomax, John Lomax Jr. and Bess Lomax Hawes, also distinguished collectors of folk music.

"Home on the Range" is an American folk 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">I Want to Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart</span> 1935 country song by Patsy Montana

"I Wanna Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart" is a country and western song written in 1934 and first recorded in 1935 by Rubye Blevins, who performed as Patsy Montana. It was the first country song by a female artist to sell more than one million copies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Martin Murphey</span> American singer-songwriter

Michael Martin Murphey is an American singer-songwriter. He was one of the founding artists of progressive country. A multiple Grammy nominee, Murphey has six gold albums, including Cowboy Songs, the first album of cowboy music to achieve gold status since Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs by Marty Robbins in 1959. He has recorded the hit singles "Wildfire", "Carolina in the Pines", "What's Forever For", "A Long Line of Love", "What She Wants", "Don't Count the Rainy Days", and "Maybe This Time". Murphey is also the author of New Mexico's state ballad, "The Land of Enchantment". Murphey has become a prominent musical voice for the Western horseman, rancher, and cowboy.

Western music is a form of 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 range, along the Rocky Mountains, and among the prairies of Western North America. The genre grew from the mix of cultural influences in the American frontier and what became the Southwestern United States at the time, it came from the folk music traditions of those living the region, those being the hillbilly music from those that arrived from the Eastern U.S., the corrido and ranchera from Northern Mexico, and the New Mexico and Tejano endemic to the Southwest. The music industry of the mid-20th century grouped the western genre with that of similar folk origins, instrumentation and rural themes, to create the banner of country and western music, which was simplified in time to country music.

"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.

"Git Along, Little Dogies" is a traditional cowboy ballad, also performed under the title "Whoopie Ti Yi Yo." It is cataloged as Roud Folk Song Index No. 827. Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time.

"On the Trail of the Buffalo", also known as "The Buffalo Skinners" or "The Hills of Mexico", is a traditional American folk song in the western music genre. It tells the story of an 1873 buffalo hunt on the southern plains. According to Fannie Eckstorm, 1873 is correct, as the year that professional buffalo hunters from Dodge City first entered the northern part of the Texas panhandle. It is thought to be based on the song Canaday-I-O.

"Zebra Dun" is a traditional American cowboy song from at least as early as 1890. Jack Thorp said he collected it from Randolph Reynolds at Carrizzozo Flats in that year. The song tells of a stranger who came upon a cowboy camp at the head of the Cimarron River. When he asks to borrow a "fat saddle horse", the cowboys fix him up:

"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, William Elliott Whitmore and Sam Shackleton.

"The Cattle Call" is a song written and recorded in 1934 by American songwriter and musician Tex Owens. The melody was adapted from Bruno Rudzinksi's 1928 recording "Pawel Walc". It later became a signature song for Eddy Arnold. Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Big Iron</span> 1960 single by Marty Robbins

"Big Iron" is a country ballad song written and performed by Marty Robbins. Originally released as an album track on Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs in September 1959, it was released as a single in February 1960 with the song "Saddle Tramp" as the B-side single. In 2010, members of the Western Writers of America chose it as the 11th best Western song of all time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James "Iron Head" Baker and Moses "Clear Rock" Platt</span> African American traditional folk singers

James "Iron Head" Baker and Moses "Clear Rock" Platt were African American traditional folk singers imprisoned in the Central State Prison Farm in Sugar Land, Texas. The men made a number of field recordings of convict work songs, field hollers and other material with John Lomax for the Library of Congress Archive of American Folk Music in the 1930s.

"The Rambling Gambler" is a traditional folk song of the American West. It was first recorded in print by John A. & Alan Lomax in their jointly authored 1938 edition of Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads. Like many folk songs, it is known by a variety of titles, such as "Rambler, Gambler," and "I'm a Rambler, I'm a Gambler"

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.

"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

  1. Lomax, John A. (1910). Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads. New York: Sturgis & Walton. p.  58.
  2. "Folk Songs" in Encyclopedia of the Great Plains
  3. Allmusic.com https://www.allmusic.com/search/all/the%20old%20chisholm
  4. Western Writers of America (2010). "The Top 100 Western Songs". American Cowboy. Archived from the original on 19 October 2010.
  5. Schanzer, Rosalyn (2001). The Old Chisholm Trail: A Cowboy Song. National Geographic Children's Books.