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The term American folk music encompasses numerous music genres, variously known as traditional music, traditional folk music, contemporary folk 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."
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 has shown that music and speech evolved from a common prosodic precursor.
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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 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.
"I Wanna Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart" is a country and Western song written and first recorded in 1935 by Ruby Blevins, who performed as Patsy Montana. It was the first country song by a female artist to sell more than one million copies.
Michael Martin Murphey is an American singer-songwriter best known for writing and performing Western music, country music and popular music. 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 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.
"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 Hanging Tree is a western ballad from the 1959 movie The Hanging Tree. It was scored by Max Steiner and written by Mack David and Jerry Livingston, who received nominations for the Laurel Awards and the Academy Awards in 1960. The text is a short reference to the film's story.
"Git Along, Little Dogies" is a traditional cowboy ballad, also performed under the title "Whoopie Ti Yi Yo." It is believed to be a variation of a traditional Irish ballad about an old man rocking a cradle. The cowboy adaptation is first mentioned in the 1893 journal of Owen Wister, author of The Virginian. Through Wister's influence, the melody and lyrics were first published in 1910 in John Lomax's Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads. 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 dating from at least 1890. Jack Thorp said he collected it from Randolph Reynolds at Carrizzozo Flats in that year. The song tells of a stranger who happened into 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 and William Elliott Whitmore.
"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 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.
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
- ↑ Lomax, John A. (1910). Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads. New York: Sturgis & Walton. p. 58.
- ↑ "Folk Songs" in Encyclopedia of the Great Plains
- ↑ Allmusic.com https://www.allmusic.com/search/all/the%20old%20chisholm
- ↑ Western Writers of America (2010). "The Top 100 Western Songs". American Cowboy. Archived from the original on 19 October 2010.
- ↑ Schanzer, Rosalyn (2001). The Old Chisholm Trail: A Cowboy Song. National Geographic Children's Books.
