Month: March 2020

Yee Haw-liday: he’s what’s under the tree

Losing sight of the prairie for a mo, cowboys have become such an icon they might stand in for the perfect boyfriend. Or that’s what unwashed men want to hear in song. For the holidays.

A plaintive plea from Jenny Tolman, “Cowboy for Christmas” reads as country sad, like a messy room with a lone scented candle about to burn down to the sloppy quick.

Kennedy Fitzsimmons & Tera Lynne Fister apply the honky tonk sultry to their “Cowboy for Christmas.” A bit more sexy, but so quietly desperate.

Michelle Dyck in the basement does her medicated best with a ‘Hippopotamus’ parody: “I Want a Sexy Cowboy for Christmas,” screeching over the original on the tape deck. Okay, slightly clever.

Traditional country pop from The Heels, “Cowboy for Christmas” paints a Hallmark Holiday Feature for all.

Pure pop from SaraBeth, “Cowboy for Christmas” specifies the Texas variety, but does remind Santa to put holes in the box.

Lindi Ortega leads the gang in “All I Want for Christmas is a Cowboy,” a barn burner of a blues tune that echoes in the rafters. Sounds like she’ll eat ‘im.

Yee Haw-liday: corn pone

Everyone’s jumping on the cowboy Christmas song bandwagon and talent is no prerequisite.

Donna and Carroll Roberson strangle out “A Cowboy Christmas” stringing together cold, God, and cattle with little emotion, just pop plodding.

With ladles more orchestration, Wayne Newton lounges up “Cowboy’s Christmas” for the casino-goers. The attempt to psychoanalyze the loner goes awry with the coconuts clacking as horse hooves missing the beat of the electric bass.

Yee Haw-liday: varmints

Xmas animals have been manipulated variously on this blog, but there’s always one more on the loose.

Most comic songs about killing Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer are country howlers that don’t approach the cowboy mystique. But Fortress of Attitude’s “I Shot Rudolph and I’m Sorry” has got the bang-bang twang of real rawhide (not to mention frontier justice from Santa himself). Just genius.

“Coyote Christmas” features some rudimentary yodeling and sentimental anthropomorphizing from Liz Anderson.

Yee Haw-liday: yodel-ho

No Swiss miss, the cowboy yodeler. The sudden register change from chest-voice to falsetto expresses something the recalcitrant hombre can’t put into words.

Jim Whitman may be ‘The Yodelling Legend’ but his “The Christmas Cowboy” is all upper register, the yodeling on some echo feature.

‘Pulling out the glottal stops’ The Vipers ladi-la-i-tee across ukulele and trombone for “The Yodeler’s Christmas.” Buy those boys a lozenge.

Will Ryan straight shoots “I Wish I could Yodel for Christmas.” Highly entertaining, but are we digressing from the cowboy theme?

Leave it to ‘Deputy’ Douglas Green fronting Riders in the Sky to put passagio to perfection in “The Christmas Yodel” a true cowboy workout.

Yee Haw-liday: slicker fun

Some city folks attempt to don the ten gallon hat and pose as real rangers. Is that funny? In honor of Christmas?!

The Heebee-jeebees are a Calgary a cappella group who have won the Canadian A Cappella Northern Harmony Championships twice. And they’re a hoot. Measure that claim by their “Cowboy Christmas,” a cow punchy listing of all cowboy cliches fast as they can. Hee haw.

Yee Haw-liday: cowboy walks into a bar s ranch….

Let’s break early for the funny. I mean, cowboys and Christmas. Laff riot, eh wot?

Liam and Mason (milph, perhaps) showcase an hilarious “Cowboy Christmas” full of Freudian associations and ad libs. I suspect basement such slackers as these appear to be stole it. But it’s still novel. And they do great post-modern shtick.

Brad Paisley tries the gentle approach to intolerance with “Kung Pao Buckeroo Holiday.” In the guise of cowboys (true Americans), Brad and friends curmudgeon about how sensitive some folks are about what you can sing. I agree, joke with ’em if that can’t fuckin’ take it. But no war, please.

The Funny Music Project (FuMP for insiders) play amateurishly fast and loose with the Lone Star state in “Christmas Time in Texas.” That’s tongue in cheek, not chaw.

Yee Haw-liday: Mr. Rocky Mountain

John Denver popularized the soft rock of hard country living way back when. His “Christmas for Cowboys” (words and music by Steve Weisberg (1975)) is a standard of Christmas songs for cowboys. Most covers imitate best as they can. (JD’s one of those you can’t quite improve on.) (Sorry, Jars of Clay, just leave the original alone.) (Unless you’re willing to interpret.)

Smearing on some honky tonk, Jimmy Rankin ups the party factor.

Crowding the quiet with strings and yodeling, Wylie Gustafson refits the CW genre into something less pop.

A mournful version with washed out vocals from Wasted Rock Rangers barely keeps it together.

Most odd, Drunken Ramblings fingers some of notes but misses the vocal synch in some alt-folk guitar warm-up. It’s just the right amount of off-putting.

Yee Haw-liday: home on the eve

Wranglers gotta work on Xmas–cows need lookin’ after… but the stars in the night sky might give ’em pause.

Gene Davenport gets drawly old school with the buckaroo chorus in “Night Herd Duty on Christmas Eve.” I are not kidding.

The warble becomes a yodel for Mark Baker with the yarn “Christmas Eve on Wolf Creek Pass.” Not sure these frontiersmen have doggies with them, but it’s the brutal, unforgiving West, donchaknow.

Michael Martin Murphey is one the greatest cowboy songsters of these days. His six (shootin’) gold albums outdo Gene and Tex and Marty. I intend to dial up plenty o’ Murphey this month. Try “Ridin’ Home on Christmas Eve” for some of that modern cowpoke harmony.

Yee Haw-liday: cowboy eve

Are cowboys looking forward to the holidays?

“Cowboy Christmas Eve” by Bri Bagwell & Kip Calahan Young has all the pickin’ and fiddlin’ them boys need to work up the nerve to sashay up to the barn dance. Them ladies are a-waitin’. R.W. Hampton plays this as a duet.

Bobby Boyles downplays this idea as a meditation of the silence of the season. “Cowboy Christmas Eve” here is somber and religious. The wide open spaces’ll do that to you. Bary Ward takes this out of the front room into the studio.