Search - Various Artists :: Stampede Western Music's Late Golden Era

The Quintessential Western Music Collection

Vincent Carrella | 07/30/1998

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Take off your boots, roll up a smoke and put a pot of coffee on the fire because you're in for a real treat. Rounder Record's Stampede invokes the heart-stopping excitement and blood curdling mystery of the Old-West. The artists and songs that define much of our image of the West are contained on this wonderful CD. If you're to buy only one of the Rounder series, or just one cowboy compilation, make it this one. You'll swear you can still hear the coyotes lonesome call long after the disk is finished, and if this doesn't make you want to pack it in, saddle up and head West then nothing will."

LATE... BUT GREAT

Anton Garcia Fernandez | Vigo, Spain | 03/19/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The singing cowboys and the kind of music they sang saw their heyday all through the Thirties and early Forties, but by the late Forties and early Fifties the style was already fading in popularity. Yet, only in popularity. As this Rounder release clearly shows, the quality of the songs and performances was still as high --if not better-- than that of their predecessors. The happy strains of the songs performed in cowboy movies were starting to be considered a thing of the past, but the western music produced during this "late golden era" became much more polished and mature. And the best of it is included in this marvelous Rounder release."Stampede," the song that gives its title to the compilation had been an early-forties hit for Roy Rogers & The Sons of the Pioneers (who are themselves represented in this volume with their rendition of "Blue Shadows on the Trail"). The version presented here, by Foy Willing and The Riders of the Purple Sage, is just as good, even though the instrumentation is more complex. The choice of Tex Ritter's fifties hit "High Noon," from the classic movie starring Gary Cooper, seems obvious. The disc would not be complete without it. Ritter himself does a great job with the standard "The Wayward Wind." Also from a movie (John Ford's classic western "The Searchers") comes The Sons of the Pioneers' "Theme From The Searchers," a very fine song that could have only been written for a Hollywood film. The Pioneers themselves had a hit in the forties with "Teardrops In My Heart" on RCA. Included here is Rex Allen's later rendition. Marty Robbins' smash hit "El Paso" is probably the best modern western story song ever written. Robbins soon capitalized on its success by recording two albums of "Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs." "Yodel Blues" (which features a great deal of yodel but doesn't actually have a blues structure) is a very good duet by Elton Britt and yodeling whiz Rosalie Allen. "Cattle Call" was one of Eddy Arnold's many smash hits on RCA during the Forties, but the track featured here is his fifties revision of the tune. Finally, the inclusion of lesser-known western artists such as Jimmy Wakely (one of my favorites, though), Andy Parker, Johnny Western, or Vaughn Monroe adds interest to this Rounder release.All in all, this CD is a very good compilation of late cowboy songs, from a time when they abandoned the simplicity of their predecessors and became more complex, relying heavily on full orchestra arrangements and more crooner-like vocal approaches. To put it in a nutshell, this is a later era in western music, but as valuable as the one they call the Golden Era."