Cowboy Music
Cowboy MusicCowboyMusic is a genre is its own right. It explores themes of loneliness, death, separation, the beauty of nature, and the macabre. It uses extremely simple instrumentation, typically just a guitar. Clever use of simple language is highly valued (see also CowboyPoetry?).
The fiddle is also often featured, which ties in to the comment below about Irish/English folk ballads.
I was introduced to CowboyMusic while performing at the Cowboy Songs and Range Ballads conference at the Museum of the American West (I think it's called) in Cody, Wyoming. By all means go to this museum if you are at all interested in the West, but schedule at least a couple of days- it's huge. -- KentBeck
There are other cowboy symposiums exploring the poetry and music of the old west held annually in Elko, Nevada, Red River, New Mexico, and Lubbock, Texas. I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the one in Lubbock a couple of years while in school there. Kent, can you elaborate on what sort of performance you did there? I'm confused since you said that was your introduction to CowboyMusic. -- GregVaughn
I agree with Kent, CowboyMusic has some interesting patterns in its own right. One of the recurring themes is the man unjustly pursued for something he didn't do. Another is the theme of someone risking life and limb for someone (or something) they value deeply. CowboyMusic draws from the same well as CowboyMovies, another art form that (at its best) explores the same themes. If you're interested in an easy introduction (in a more pop-country like form) listen to the ballads of the late Marty Robbins. I grew up with those, and even though my tastes tend not to run that way in general, those lyrics and haunting guitar strains still resonate somewhere. -- KyleBrown
How does this compare to tradition Irish/English folk ballads? I've seen reoccurrence of separation (via sailing or imprisonment), beauty of nature, and macabre (mostly the murdered reappearing). -- WayneCarson
The conference I attended had a presentation by a pair of musicologists who have studied sea chanteys. They sang several songs that either were adopted whole by cowboys or copied with a change of venue (horse instead of ships, etc). -- KentBeck
Wow! It's so cool to see other programmers interested in this type of music. I've been running a website (http://www.roughstock.com/cowpie) for Country and Western guitarists for years, so I'm quite interested. Country and Western music is in fact two distinct forms, originally grouped together by Billboard magazine, IIRC. Personally, I see further breakdowns in Western music, one of the main ones being CowboyMusic. But that's beside the point - I see influences of Old World folk ballads all over C&W music. One of my favorite Cowboy songs is called "Texas Rangers" (http://www.roughstock.com/cowpie/songsnflister.html/c/cowboy/texas_rangers.crd) which is performed acapella in the style of old Irish ballads. I attribute this to the fact that many cowboys were recent immigrants and brought their music from home with them. -- GregVaughn
This kind of music has successfully colonized the rural North East of England, and other parts of the UK. Mostly the more commercial end, not what you'd call proper "cowboy" music, see below.
The indigenous folk music there is mostly mournful ballads relating to mining disasters, lives lost at sea or evil mill-owners exercising their droit de signeur.
Actually the North East of England has one of the richest folk cultures in the world. There are songs about mining disasters, but then also songs about just about everything else. The Northumbrian pipes are one of the most spectacular instruments anywhere. In the hands of an expert they sound like an oboe played with a speed and exactness impossible on an oboe. The local traditional performance dance, the rapper sword dance, is as dynamic and exciting as anything you'll see anywhere! -- DominicCronin
Well, the lead and fluorospar mining is long gone, the coal mines were closed in the '80s; you can't get anything bigger than a dinghy into some of the North-East's rivers these days; I can just remember the last mill chimney in Teesdale being demolished.
Meanwhile, the rural economy has taken a nose-dive. Now, we don't have wide-open prairies, although some do still graze flocks on the high moorland, so no cowboys, as such (Australia does have "prairies" and cowboys, anyone from .au to comment?). There are horses around, though, and a horse will remember the way home from the pub if you can't. There's also plenty of villages fading away, farmers going broke, and much more than enough depression, alcoholism, domestic violence and suicide (most farmhouses have a side-by-side twelve- or sixteen-bore knocking around somewhere).
All this means that country music fits right into the gap left behind by the now dead local traditions. My parents listen to songs about the bank foreclosing on the farm and the guy stepping off his repo'd John Deer for the last time with a tear in his eye, and they know exactly what that's all about. And then they put on their rhinestones and go line-dancing. Strange but true.
Stranger still is that this is considered quite normal, whereas folk singers and folk dancers and morris men (I plead guilty) in the old English tradition are tret with contempt.
My favorite northern English cowboy band is Hatfield & the North.
Wow. Should WillieNelson? move FarmAid? to WembleyStadium??
How does this compare to tradition Irish/English folk ballads?
Many country songs have their roots in English ballads of the 18th and 19th century. Some of these ballads are old English folk songs and some were written as pop songs of their day. The pop songs were written hack song-writers who used to knock out songs to take advantage of the latest fads or news stories and sell the sheet music on the streets of London and other major cities. Hence the large number of murder ballads in country music; many of them are based on real cases.
There is a very good book on country music called "Country" by Nick Tosches. The first chapter traces the history of one particular song that was recorded as a rockabilly number by Warren Smith in the late 50's. The song's history can be traced back through versions sung by country artists during the 20's and 30's, to English folk ballads of the 18th century, French and British medieval folk sagas and all the way to the Greek myth of Orpheus.
--NatPryce
Those interested in this musical style (especially the cowboy part of western in country and western) should listen to any CD/LP/Tape by Ian Tyson. Cowboyography is perhaps the best. Some of you might recall that Ian Tyson was half of the folk duo of Ian and Sylvia some years ago. Great music. In performances Ian has reverted to small folk-like combos with acoustic instruments. If you are in the Redmond OR area, look me up. When I am not coding or trying to manage a software development project I can be found growing hay or running my pickup down backroads. -- BradSmith
So what would you call what Merle Haggard, Hank Williams Sr., and Bob Wills do???
My wife grew up in Visalia, was not allowed to go the a Honky Tonk, but cleaned the milking barn listening to it all. Her school teachers who first sang in musicals in Fresno are now the Sons of the San Joaquin and perform at the Cowboy gatherings in Elko and such...
Scott Jackson
I'd call those guys country singers, rather than cowboy singers. None of them really sing about cowboys. Except for Bob Wills, of course, who was western, not country.
We have both kinds of music here - Country and Western!
I remember the line, and I love it at several layers. Firstly because I could understand how people would find what is played on country radio sounding very similar, and secondly because I do believe they are two distinctive styles. As I mentioned above, Billboard magazine artificially combined the two into a single chart and the name 'Country and Western' has stuck. In reality, maybe 1 song in 50 that is played on current radio stations is actually Western. And 30-40 of those 50 are what bland 80s pop music has evolved into.
It's worth noting that all music fits into some musical tradition or another, and sometimes you have to learn the tradition before you can appreciate or understand the new stuff. Country and western music derive a lot from Irish and English folk ballads, and also from German and other central/eastern European folk traditions, and we just don't grow up learning about that stuff in the U.S. anymore. But Keith's story above about the growing popularity of American country music in the north of England makes a lot of sense. As I've learned about those older musical traditions, I've gradually learned to like country music - and western - more and more. --GlennVanderburg
It's people singing blues in a land of plenty...
A great phrase I read on the back of a country album: "...the self pitying whining that country fans love!". Now that's the way to sell records!
What album was that? I'd love to know ...
As far as I recall, it was a David Allan Coe record. David Allan Coe is a great 70's country singer and has a great sense of humour. His song You Never Even Called Me By My Name (http://www.davidallancoe.com/members/lyrics/younever.htm) is, as he describes it, "the perfect country song". The final verse is an affectionate parody of every country cliche and always makes me laugh, but you've got to hear it for the full effect (http://www.davidallancoe.com/younever.ram - a RealAudio? file)
Anti-Pattern -- The following was added by Steve Goodman, added when told it wasn't the perfect country song because it didn't mention mama, prison, trucks, trains, or being drunk:
WELL, I WAS DRUNK THE DAY MY MOM GOT OUT OF PRISON AND I WENT TO PICK HER UP IN THE RAIN BUT BEFORE I COULD GET TO THE STATION IN MY PICKUP TRUCK SHE GOT RUNNED OVER BY A DAMNED OLD TRAIN
Cowboy Music is a colloquial term for Country Music. Generally the singers have a bit of a twang in their voices. -- KevinDriedger
For samples
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