I am not a songwriter. I am a song finder.
Research often introduces me to new people who become my friends and often connects me to other songs.
OOver the last fifteen years, I have collected an extensive library of cowboy and western songbooks. Books by Howard Thorp, Bob Tinsley’s “For a Cowboy Has to Sing,” John and Allen Lomax, Dick Lingenfelter and Dick Dwyer, Austin and Alta Fife, Eric van Hamersveld’s “It Was Always the Music,” Ernie Sites, Hal Leonard, Irwin Silber and Earl Robinson, Hal Cannon’s “Old Time Cowboy Songs,” Don Edwards, Alex Gordon, Ranger Doug Green, and several anthologies of American Folk Songs. Then there are such interesting titles as Glenn Ohrlin’s “The Hellbound Train,” Guy Logsdon’s “The Whorehouse Bells Were Ringing,” and Katie Lee’s “Ten Thousand Goddamn Cattle” that are a combination of history, stories, and traditional cowboy songs. I am also collecting Australian Bush Ballad music as there is quite a cowboy song tradition that has emerged from Australia.
More recently, I have begun to scour Special Collection libraries for sheet music and collections of obscure songs from the last four decades of the nineteenth century. You would be surprised how many wonderful cowboy and western songs are out there that have been completely forgotten and no one today has heard them.
I also love to listen to contemporary song writers performing their own songs. There are a number of songs in my repertoire that have been written by people who are my friends and who are still writing wonderful songs and performing. When I hear a song that appeals to me and touches my heart, I ask for the music. Sometimes it is available on a CD. Sometimes I ask for and receive the songwriter’s own sheet music.
Finally, every cowboy and western songs has a story. It is as much fun for me to investigate the story of the song as it is to learn and perform a song. The key question is: How did this song come about? So I try to find out as much about the songwriter and the context of the song as I can. I use that information to introduce the song to an audience and connect it with other historically accurate information about the era and the subject of the song as I can. Researching that information often introduces me to new people who become my friends and often connects me to other songs.
Written by : tomhawkyodeler
