22. Home On The Range

Ken Maynard (recorded April 14, 1930 for Columbia Records - unreleased);
composed by Brewster M. Higley and Daniel E. Kelley

Ken Maynard was a popular actor in screen westerns – many silents in the ‘20s, and when sound came in, the quality of his voice allowed him to extend his career another decade. During that transition, he also made his only commercial recordings of cowboy songs – eight total, only two of which were released on a single 78. His recording of this standard from the 1870s only appeared on latter day anthologies. Apart from Maynard’s rather adenoidal delivery being very much in the manner of many very popular singers of western ballads in that time, this version of the tune has a verse that is rarely heard now: “The red man was pressed from this part of the West, / He's likely no more to return / To the banks of Red River where seldom if ever / Their flickering camp-fires burn.” Contrary to the assumption that this verse might have an unpleasant history, a little digging in Wikipedia indicates instead that this verse only appeared in the version collected around 1910 by John Lomax, and likely derived from African American sources. So, a celebration of manifest destiny, or a more darkly bemused report on the actual state of things on the range?

Note: 25 secular essays about 25 songs, each one exactly 200 words long, appearing one per day during Advent (approximately).