9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating overview of the cowboy genre, March 21, 2003
This review is from: Western Cowboy Ballads & Songs 1925-1939 (Audio CD)
This set comes with excellent liner notes that provide a discussion of the history of cowboy music. The first CD is "genuine" cowboy music, those songs that arose from the actual cowboy tradition. There weren't many of these, about 100 in all. Some of these are sung by folk singers, others by commercial cowboys, but all are based on the folk originals. The second CD is Hollywood cowboy music, generated for the movies or for the general cowboy craze of the early 20th C. Of these, perhaps the most remarkable is Smiley Burnette's "Minnie the Moocher at the Morgue," an outgrowth of the Minnie the Moocher series of songs initiated by Cab Calloway. Unlike the other cowboy ballad based on Minnie the Moocher (Minnie My Mountain Moocher), this song elaborates on and develops Minnie's story in a way that is true to the original, except that it gives Minnie a new boyfriend (Willie the Weeper instead of Smokey Joe). Not only the bizarre lyrics, but also the remarkable gutteral scat singing make this a song worth hearing. Also on this second set, we are treated to some truly amazing yodeling by Roy Rogers, and even an interesting version of Home on the Range, with a different tune from the usual. I consider this set to be a very valuable addition to my collection of pre-WWII American music.
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