BUFFALO GALS Historic Cowboy Songs of America’s Wild West Mary Siebert Cowboy songs are the national heritage of American children and beloved world-wide. This CD is crafted for kids of all ages, presenting timeless historic songs at a level of artistic quality that invites repeated listening. Powerfully sung with tight harmonies, the songs’ accompanying instruments are those carried easily on the cattle drives of the pre-1900s: banjo, guitar, harmonica, and fiddle. Honky-tonk piano shows up for one dance medley, representing a short visit to a cow town and popular tunes of the mid to late 1800s. The rhythm section is comprised of the sounds of the trail: actual field recordings of wolf howls, horse clip-clops, yee-haws, mooing cattle, wind, storm, rattlesnake, and other wild critters. These songs are the real deal, written by anonymous, working American cowboys of the late 19th century. The cowboys used their songs as tools: to soothe the cattle to sleep or move them at a trot, to combat boredom, share stories, and entertain. The long cattle drives of America’s Wild West lasted only twenty years, from 1866 to 1886. These wild and wooly decades served as the inspiration for a most evocative aspect of American culture. Some American values have changed dramatically since these songs were written, notably; voting rights, civil rights, women’s rights and animal rights. However, the expression of the vast western landscape, the longing for home, the dedication, hard work and the humor in these verses are still immediate, making them all the more compelling and even nostalgic. 1. Cook’s Wake Up 0:29 Cowboys woke up before dawn and the cook rose even earlier to stoke the fire and whip up some coffee, bacon, beans and sourdough biscuits. Many of the cooks on the cattle trail were African-American, which may explain the similarities of this wake-up call to traditional African-American work shouts. 2. I Ride an Old Paint 3:04 The clip-clops of hooves were a cowboy’s rhythm section as man and horse inhaled the dust kicked up by thousands of longhorns. To maintain the cattle’s market weight, progress was limited to ten or fifteen miles daily, so cattle drives lasted from one to three months. With his nearest buddies riding on the opposite side of the herd, a lonesome cowpoke endured the tedium by inventing stories, poems, and songs. 3. The Streets of Laredo (Cowboy’s Lament) 3:10 Adapted directly from the ancient aire The Old Irish Harper, this great classic offers a clue to the Celtic origins of many of America’s cowboys. Cowboys often wrote lyrics to melodies they already knew and loved. Their new world was superimposed on old-world compositions. 4. The Old Chisolm Trail 1.19 The Chisolm Trail was among the first established trails of the cattle drive era, which began shortly after the American Civil War ended. Marked by Jesse Chisolm, the 800-mile trail led from San Antonio, Texas to Abeline, Kansas, where the cattle were loaded onto trains bound for lucrative points east. This song has over 250 known verses, and probably many more that have been censored. 5. Poor, Lonesome Cowboy 2.54 With a structure identical to that of an African-American spiritual, this song was likely adapted by one of the estimated 10%-20% of America’s first cowboys who were freed slaves. Some of the most accomplished of the first rodeo stars were African-Americans, including Nat Love. Love wrote that the cattle trails provided his first opportunity to sit down to eat with Anglo-Americans. Although cowboys were not immune to racism, a fellow was valued on the trail for his work, not his heritage; and men who might have been excluded in the city were often welcomed in the cow camp. Cowboys were known to refuse a drink in an establishment that did not welcome all of their comrades. 6. A la ru, a la me 1:43 Spanish words like rodeo, lariat, and chaps are evidence of the estimated 10% of American cowboys who were Mexican. The vaqueros, who had generations of open-range herding experience, helped post-war Texans develop crucial skills and contributed substantially to the workforce. This song from Los Pastores was composed in Spain and brought to Mexico in the 16th century. It is a lullaby that was likely used during night herding. 7. Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie 3:32 Cowboys died under harsh conditions. Some drowned while crossing a river. Others were dragged by the stirrup through a stampede. The herders were forced to move on after quickly burying the deceased’s body in a shallow grave, from which it might be dug up by hungry predators by the light of the moon. The abundance of wildlife was unimaginable by our scant standards. An ecosystem that once sustained tens of millions of bison, the wide prairies were home to grizzly bear, pronghorn, 8. Jamboree (Dance Medley) 4:52 About once a month, the cowboys dismounted for a day to shave, bathe, launder, and have a little fun. A cowboy was fortunate to find a female with whom he might shake a hoof, the ratio of women to men in the Wild West was 1:10. The songs of Stephen Foster and “Old Dan Tucker” were commercial hits in saloons and dance halls through the cattle drive years. 9. The Colorado Trail 3.04 As the cattle ranges expanded north, the drives became longer. Trips from Texas to Colorado, Wyoming and Montana took three months or more. Night herders used this song to soothe the cattle, and were joined from time-to-time by operatic wolves. 10. Whoopie Ti-Yi-Yo, Get Along Little Dogies 1:44 Whoops and hollers served as tools to keep the cattle moving. Those sounds were incorporated into songs, becoming the familiar “whoopee ti-yi-yo!” 11, Home on the Range American bison (a.k.a. buffalo) are now confined to reserves, parks, and private ranches in herds of a few hundred. There were once an estimated 30-60 million bison roaming the plains of North America. Cowboys in the late 1800s described camping for a week or two, waiting for a single herd of bison to cross the trail. The destruction of these noble animals is a shameful chapter of U.S. history. American pronghorn (a.k.a. antelope) are the fastest animal in the northern hemisphere, topping 60 miles per hour, and may still be spied in relative abundance on the prairies. 12. Old Texas (3:12) The end of the cattle drives came with the winter of 1886, when over-grazing of the northern plains combined with record snowfall to cause “The Big Die-Off.” Cattle quarantines and the invention of barbed wire, which easily barricaded long drives, prevented replenishment of stock, and the cowboy’s way was changed forever. There are still cowboys and cattle drives out west, but with refrigeration, trucks, and interstate highways there is no longer a need for the long trails.