Cowboy Songs & Range Ballads Archives

"In the true tradition of the West, an entire weekend of cowboy music, humor, and tall tales."

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Symposium Archive: 1982-2007*

*Information taken from past year's programs. Not all programs are still available.

Of course not all the cowboys on all days sang. Many a waddie could no more carry a tune than he could carry a buffalo bull. Often all hands were too busy fighting and 'cussing' them 'dad-blamed cattle' to sing. But in general, the cowboy sang.
- J. Frank Dobie, Country Gentleman

2008

COWBOY SONGS & YELLOWSTONE TRADITIONS

2007

COWBOY SONGS & RANGE BALLADS 25th ANNIVERSARY

The 25th annual Cowboy Songs & Range Ballads program saluted the cowboy songwriters and poets who captured the spirit, beauty, humor, and stories of the West in their poems and songs, and who have performed here over the last twenty-five years.

2006

RHYTHMS OF THE RANGE: MUSIC OF THE NORTHERN ROCKIES & PLAINS

The 24th annual Cowboy Songs & Range Ballads festival celebrated the essence of the working cowboy with music, humor, poetry and gear. Explore the customs and entertainments that grew from cattle ranching, homesteading, and dude ranching through the topic "Rhythms of the Range - Music from the Norhern Rockies & Plains." New to the festival was a dinner concert "Tunes at The Terrace" featuring a delicious dinner followed by a concert with Stephaine Davis and Wylie & the Wild West.

2005

PAINTING THE WEST WITH WORDS

Prior to the early 20th century, the image of the cowboy was the one portrayed in paintings and illustrations by Charles M. Russell, Frederic Remington, or in photographs by L.A. Huffman; however it was a cowboy without a voice. In 1908, a small book by N. Howard "Jack" Thorp, Songs of the Cowboys, was published. It was a collection of 24 cowboy songs he compiled over 20 years, beginning with a year-long (1889-90) 1,500 mile trek through cattle country. Within two years this was followed by another small book, this one by John Avery Lomax, Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads. It could be found in saddlebags or chuck wagon boxes, and also received national attention. Thorp and Lomax gave the cowboy his voice. The songs they recorded filled in the details of the stories only hinted at in the images. The Cowboy Songs and Range Ballads festival has focused primarily on the music of cowboys, the 2005 program explored the relationship of cowboy poetry and cowboy songs as they have painted the West with words.

2004

COWBOYS, CATTLE AND CANADA

The topic of the 2004 festival focused on the parallel histories of cattle ranching and cowboy culutre in Canda and the United States that have influenced their shared cowboy music traditions.

2003

RIDING THE RADIO RANGE

Go back to the day when radio was rural America's lifeline to music, news, and sports. For over three decades, radio helped popularize and preserve cowboy and western music through a variety of programming from WLS's National Barn Dance to local rasio programs featuring a cowboy singer selling his songbooks of western tunes. Let's ride the radio range trailing the combined histories of radio and western music.

2002

THE GREAT AMERICAN COWBOY

Why is the cowboy image still the most important American image not only here but world wide? How do his songs reflect that place of culutral dominance? This is a vital question at a time when the land itself is being ignored. For the cowboy very definitely grew from the land.Recognized worldwide because of Buffalo Bill, books, movies, and songs, the cowboy is the American hero - an image not only known but held in awe and respect everywhere. The cowboy is the self-made individual, having ventured into the "wilderness" to learn the secrets, but has returned to civilization to teach them to those who have not taken the perilious journey for themselves. And, as we know from Roy, Gene, and Rex, he rides back into civilization singing a song.

2001

SOUTH OF THE BORDER

The finest cowboys in the Americas came from Spain, spreading their culture through North and South America and developing ranching styles unique to those regions. At first glance - or listen - it might seem to be somewhat of a stretch to include mariachi music a festival featuring cowboy songs and range ballads. A closer evaluation reveals a natural connection. Mariachi is closely linked to charrería - the forerunner of North American rodeo. This unique music is directly linked to a celebration of the skills required in the raising of cattle and horses. By studying the music of the charrería - the national sport of Mexico - one further develops a liking for this complex culutral event, and it is an especially enjoyable way to aprecaite this sport and our neighbors to the South.

2000

FIDDLE IN THE COW CAMP

Although most cowboys snad their songs unaccompanied, musical instruments could be found in ranch parlors and bunkhouses. Some even travelled up the trails from Texas to Montana. Fiddles, autoharps, banjos, harmonicas, mandolins, guitars, and a variety of homemade and mail-order instruments became an integral part of western music whether as a muscial setting for a cowboy's song or as entertainment for a country hoedown. Some of western music's finest musicians who know both the history of these instruments as well as the variations in styles of playing over time and place presented musical illustrations of music history.

1999

RIDERS OF THE OPEN RANGE

In the early 20th century, the cowboy song books of Jack Thorp and John Avery Lomax helped preserve the oral traditions of western cowboy culture. Over the century, interest in cowboy songs waned, but the recent revival of cowboy songs and poems old and new has been brought about by festival such as the Historical Center's. Performers shared versions of these old songs and also newer interpretations of their own.

1998

THE SINGING COWBOYS OF THE SILVER SCREEN

Ken Maynard, Gene Autry, Sons of the Pioneers, Marty Robbins. The music of western movies from traditional cowboy songs to the influence of Hollywood on both commercial western music and traditional cowboy culture. The 1998 festival also featured the special exhibiton, Singing Cowboys: Real to Reel that traced the history of cowboy music from trail drives to the silver screen.

1997

FROM LYRES TO LARIATS

The roots of cowboy music was the focus of the 1997 festival - from sea chanteys, minstrel songs, hymns, and all other music the cowboys brought music to the West. Some of the topics covered at the symposium included "The History of the Cowboy's Banjo," "Cowboy Songs: Nautical Sources and Precursors," to "sources and Genealogies of Cowboy Songs in the Anglo-Scots-Irish and American Traditions."

1996

BEFORE THE FIRST COWBOY SONG, THEY WERE SINGIN' THIS SONG

Adding to the history of western music, the focus of the 1996 symposium was on the early roots of cowboy music - what the cowboys sang before the first cowboy song. Including the ideas of occupational songs and ballads of American sailors, and the earliest of cowboy songs and the songs which influenced them.

1995

COWGIRL! EARNING HER SPURS

From ranch house to rodeo arena, the American cowgirl has been part of the history of cattle country. As ranchwoman, trail hand, horse breaker, rodeo competitor, Wild West show celebrity, stuntwomen, singer and songwriter, the cowgirl has made her mark but has received little attention. The 1995 sympoium featured speakers addressing the feats, real and imagined, of these amazing women of the West.

1992

HIGH LOPIN' COWBOYS AND WILD BUCKAROOS

The culturally diverse West was the focus of the 1992 program. Topics included, "African-American Culture in Western Cowtowns," "Hispanic Roots of the American Cowboy," "The Cowboys are Indians," "Cowboys of Buffalo Bill's Wild West," and "Paniola: Hawaii's Cowboys."

1990

COWBOY MUSIC IN THE COWBOY STATE

The 8th annual Cowboy Songs & Range Ballads was all about cowboy music in the Cowboy State - Wyoming! Discussions covered the early days of cattle in Wyoming, "On the Trail," songs of the trail, stampedes, prairie burials, chuck wagons, night herding. The second session was titled "At the Home Ranch." As the cattle industry grew, families ranches developed and added a new aspect to cowboy music. There were songs from the ranch house and bunkhouse, mail order music, influences of ranch women and cowgirls. "Play Parties, Hoedowns and Cowboy Courtin'" was the third session, and how the lonesome cowboy goes to town - church socials, barn dances, and other get-togethers.

1988

COMING FULL CIRCLE: WHY WE KEEP SINGIN' EM

"Songs of the Laborer," "Cowboys in the Collections," "Hollywood, Radio and Sheet Music," "Why We Keep Singin' Em." The topics were various, but the idea was the same: finding the common roots of and similarities of cowboy and western songs, albeit from different persepctives.

1987

What consitutes a cowboy song or ballad? That was the topic in 1988, as well as: heroes, gunfighters, and badmen, with a good dose of songs of the roundup, and looking at the traditions of cowboy songs and the forms they have taken.