Gardner's poems, many of which have been set to music, have provided amusement for cowboys and for people all over the world with an ear for the authentic lore of the American West. He enjoys a unique status among the best cowboy poets of all time. The first poem in this collection, The Sierry Petes, or Tying the Knots in the Devil's Tail, is undoubtedly the single best-known cowboy song among working cowboys today. These gems, the full works of Gail Gardner, are not available from any other single published source. The book is illustrated with photographs and drawings, contains sheet music for some of the songs, a glossary of cowboy terminology, a brief autobiography, foreward by cowboy singer Warren E. Miller, and notes to the poems.
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Editorial Reviews
About the Author
"My father came to Arizona in 1879, my mother in 1890, and I arrived in Prescott in 1892 now they are calling me a pioneer. Sure I went to the Prescott schools, 1900- 1909, worked in my father's old-fashioned "general merchandise" store, and on his Skull Valley ranch, but I don't believe that qualifies me as a pioneer." So wrote Gardner is his autobiography. Educated at Phillips Exeter Academy and Dartmouth College, he had a brief hitch during World War I in the Signal Corps, later the Air Force, where he learned to fly. Afterward, he returned to Arizona and bought a "small cow outfit," and lived both on the ranch and in town, working as a cowboy, in the fuel and feed business, and as the postmaster of Prescott. Through is poetry and songs, Gail Gardner was a legend of the Old West; a master of an art as old as the cattled hills. Late in his life, he reflected, "Sometimes even now, I think I would like to get out and 'bust a loop at one,' but when I think of the years it forgot to rain, or some of the hard winters with six inches of snow on the oak brush, I am fairly content to settle down in the old arm chair and watch the sky stay up."
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Away up high in the Sierry Petes,/ Where the yeller pines grow tall,/ Ole Sandy Bob and Buster Jig/ Had a rodeer camp last fall.// Oh, they taken their hosses and runnin' irons/ And maybe a dog or two,/ And they 'lowed they'd brand all the long-yered calves/ That come within their view.//. . . As they was a ridin' back to camp,/ A-packin' a pretty good load,/ Who should they meet but the Devil himself,/ A-prancin' down the road.// Sez he, "You ornery cowboy skunks,/ You'd better hunt your holes,/ Fer I've come up from Hell's Rim Rock/ To gather in yer souls."//. . . They pruned him up with a de-hornin' saw,/ An' they knotted up his tail fer a joke,/ Then they rid off and left him there,/ Necked to a Black-Jack oak.// If you're ever up high in the Sierry Peters,/ An you hear one Hell of a wail,/ You'll know it's that Devil a bellerin' around,/ About them knots in his tail. (From "The Sierry Petes" or "Tying the Knots in the Devil's Tail")
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
western poetry,
By Elaine Farr (Cottonwood, AZ United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Orejana Bull (Paperback)
I grew up on a ranch in Prescott, AZ, listening to my dad recite the poems from this book. He had memorized almost all of them, and many more. If you like old time western poetry, this is a great book! Elaine
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