Jazz, blues and nostalgia. Theme: “I’m a poor, lonesome cowboy.”
Repertoire from the Wild West. Both by authentic cowboys like John G. Prude and Ken Maynard, and by movie heroes like Gene Autry, Roy Rogers and Tex Ritter. Therefore, two kinds of songs: the raw repertoire of cowboys who on the prairie put their loneliness into words and grumble about the ‘mean mamas’ who cross their paths. Or whose songs are a ‘sung newspaper’, in which they mention a train robbery or fights with Indians. The second kind: the stars from the westerns, who filled the Saturday afternoons of millions of boys with their exciting adventures, in which the good always triumph over the bad. A lot of bullets, but no blood: that was the idea. When the television came up, series like ‘Rawhide’ (with Eric Fleming and Clint Eastwood), ‘Bonanza’ and ‘Gunsmoke’ swept through the living rooms. The cowboy musicals disappeared from the cinemas, but instead they had westerns like ‘High Noon’. A lot of the singing cowboys were inspired by ‘yodelling train stopper’ Jimmie Rodgers. A broadcast with also Western Swing from the Swift Jewel Cowboys, and furthermore, the Sons of the Pioneers, Milton Brown, Montana Slim, Patsy Montana, Doris Day and even Laurel & Hardy.
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