MetaFilter posts tagged with cowboy

See You (now) Space Cowboy

educatedslacker — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:50:17 -0800

Every episode of Cowboy Bebop.

The Cowboy Bebop movie: Knockin' on Heaven's Door

The Brotherhood of the Very Expensive Pants

1f2frfbf — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 06:02:44 -0800

"It's like I used to enjoy firecrackers, but now it takes dynamite to get me high." Brit Eaton takes Outside magazine on a safari for vintage clothing in the wild west. (via)

I 've Told you,sit relax

homunculus — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 09:46:01 -0800

And now, a singing crocodile dressed as a cowboy teaches you to meditate. [SLYT, via]

Learn from us, very much...

Artw — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 18:51:53 -0800

Some Velvet Morning When I'm Straight - the "Cowboy Psychedelia" of Lee Hazlewood in duet with Nancy Sinatra, and its many, many, covers.

Bull Poker

Daddy-O — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 13:56:46 -0800

Desperate for money? Short on good sense? Bull Poker might be for you! Last one to get up from the table and run for his life wins the pot! All YouTube links. Warning: Some gore and blood. Bookmark this post for the inevitable "How can I raise some quick cash?" MeFi question.

Revealing Character

Blazecock Pileon — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 03:56:00 -0800

Revealing Character — In 2004 and 2005, photographer Robb Kendrick traveled through Texas to take tintypes of working cowboys and cowgirls, capturing a part of American life that evolves with the times.

Ramblin' Jack Elliott on the YouTube and Online

y2karl — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 19:37:54 -0800

In more or less chonological appearance, here are examples of one of our very own still extant national musical treasures:
Ramblin' Jack Elliott - Talking Merchant Marine
Ramblin' Jack Elliott - San Francisco Bay Blues
Ramblin' Jack Elliott - Salt Pork West Virginia
And here, from SXSW 2006, is Ramblin' Jack Elliott & Billy Bragg - The Ballad of Pretty Boy Floyd
Also from SXSW 2006, Jack Elliott & Marty Stuart - Engine 143
From last year, here is Ramblin' Jack Elliott - Old Shep
and Ramblin' Jack Elliott - South Coast
And from last week's Bill Graham's Birthday Bash, here is
Phil Lesh, Jackie Greene & Ramblin' Jack Elliott - Friend of The Devil From his official, albeit maintained in a rather desultory manner, web site, here is a Ramblin' Jack biography, with a note about his legendary semi-talking blues 912 Greens, which is the very best of the two or three songs written by Ramblin' Jack. And here is another take on the same song. I first heard him sing it at the Sky River Rock Festival in 1968--And there was this three legged gray cat named Gray that useta to lope along and *snap* fall down because Gray, he had stroke and he couldn't run on those three legs so good no how... and loved him and the song ever since. (As does at least one other member here, or so I suspect.) I only wish there were a free mp3 of it available at this moment. Oh, well, it's on his Young Brigham album. so get thee to a record store forthwith. Young Brigham was his horse at the time the album was recorded. I only just this moment reversed the name Young Brigham, by the way. D'oh! In addition, his daughter Aiyana had made a film entitled The Ballad of Ramblin' Jack There's a version of Ramblin' Jack's version of Don't Think Twice, It's Alright in this episode of A Prairie Home Companion. Supposedly the story goes--and I have heard this from Elliott himself in person--that a young and drunken Bob Dylan, upon hearing Elliott's take on the song, bequeathed the song to him for eternity. Somehow, I rather doubt that included royalties... It's a funny story in person with Elliott's Dylan impersonation. Not to mention the delicious irony involved in hearing Vanguard's Ramblin' Jack impersonating Columbia's Ramblin' Jack. It adds a whole other dimension of absurd. But, for a fact, he does own the song, singing alone.... And then there is....

To ask Ramblin’ Jack Elliott a question is to tug at a snag in a sweater, only to see the yarn unfurl of its own volition, dropping in aimless loops, curling and snaking itself into a variegated fable. Every answer is a folk tale. Conversation is an exercise in free association, switchbacks, good-humored evasion, meanders, and box canyons. Jack Elliott does his talking without aid of a compass.

On the Road Oh, man, tell it brother... I once interviewed Ramblin' Jack for Seattle's own Rocket magazine. I had done my research, knew about him singing harmony on Bob Dylan's first studio recording of Mr. Tambourine Man in 1964 and had been to 912 Toulouse Street, to boot. And I had pictures to prove it--Wow, man, I've had people tell me they'd been to 912 Toulouse before but you're the first person to show me picturesand I got Ramblin' Jack ramblin' for near onto ninety minutes. And here's tip for future interviewers: don't eventhink of cutting him off. Go with the flow--for he brooks no interruption. And never a word of it has as yet been printed, don't you know ? Not in the Rocket, that's for sure. Mr. Elliott didn't have any 'product' out at the time. GrrCharlesCrossGrr...

Ziggy Stardust & the Legendary Stardust Cowboy

janetplanet — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 14:23:52 -0800

Ziggy Stardust is one of David Bowie's most famous and enduring creations. Bowie's inspiration for the name came from "Ziggy's," a London tailor shop, and from one of the most unusual performers of the period, the Legendary Stardust Cowboy. Bowie explains his fascination with "The Ledge" In this interview, (topic starts at 2:00). So what ever happened to The Ledge? Well, he's somehow morphed into a bad frat party act!! (anyone else reminded of Otis Day and the Knights?)

Deep in west Texas town of El Paso....

ozomatli — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 09:58:24 -0800

Classic poetry of the Old West. Alone on the prarie, with only their thoughts to comfort them these poets wrote. Not always the greatest of poems, they still capture the essence of the romantic cowboy.

And a smile can hide all the pain

Sticherbeast — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 05:38:20 -0800

The Original Rhinestone Cowboy. "I was laying on my bedside just as lonesome as I could be. I was by myself and so lonesome the tears just come in my eyes. I was so lonesome I prayed and said: 'Lord, give me something to make me happy' Now, you won't believe this, but the Lord told me to make an outfit. I went downtown and bought me a suit and became Rhinestone, and I ain't had one moment of lonesomeness since."

The Ledge

timsteil — Wed, 07 Dec 2005 13:52:46 -0800

The Ledge He appeared on Laugh In, produced one of the truly weirdest 45s of the 60's, and was one of many inspirations for David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust. Meet Norman Carl Odam, the Legendary Stardust Cowboy.

Winnetou und Shatterhand

tellurian — Tue, 09 Aug 2005 19:37:17 -0800

Unless you are German you may not have heard of Winnetou and Old Shatterhand, characters created by Karl May. A possible D.I.D. sufferer, he had never set foot in America and began to write his Wild West stories whilst in jail. Popular with readers across Europe, his books have been translated into over thirty different languages. Spaghetti Westerns partly came about because early 60s films [test your knowledge] based on his books, inspired Italian producers to invest in Westerns. His life story was made part of Syberberg's trilogy in 1974.

the saddest song I've ever heard

luriete — Wed, 03 Aug 2005 15:24:12 -0800

The Streets of Laredo: The Cowboy's Lament was originally written as the Irish drover balled Bard of Armaugh (or Armagh), which later mutated into A Handful of Laurel, about a young man dying of syphilis in a London hospital, musing back on his days in the alehouses and whorehouses. Immigrants settling in the Appalachians brought their own version, The Unfortunate Rake, sung as early as 1790, about a young soldier dying of mercury poisoning, a result of treatment for venereal disease, who requests a military funeral - a slight but important evolution from the previous version. The current lyrics are most popularly attributed to cowboy Frances Henry "Frank" Maynard, who copyrighted them in 1879. While various versions of the song were popular in the US before Maynard took pen to paper and needle to wax cylinder (under such titles as Locke Hospital, St. James Infirmary Blues, Tom Sherman's Bar and Way Down in Lodorra), his version is the one with which we are most familiar today.

beat the drum slowly, play the fife lowly / sound the death march as you carry me along / cover my body in sweet-smelling posies / for I'm the young (rake, soldier, man, girl, lass, etc) cut down in (his/her) prime (or and I know I've done wrong)

The song has been recorded by pretty much every country, western and folk-identified musical artist since recording music became practical, although the most popular versions must be those by Arlo Guthrie (who once said it was "the saddest song I know," and who sings it on his album Son of the Wind) and Johnny Cash (who added a few verses to his 1965 version, improving the song a bit and making it more emotionally complex). Roger McGuinn's creative commons-licensed version is one of my personal favorites, as is Bobby Sutliff's version.

Overtone Cowboy

kenko — Sun, 29 May 2005 11:27:16 -0800

Arthur Miles [mp3], the throat-singing cowboy, singing about the lonesome cowboy. Types of throat-singing, with tips, brought to you by the International Association for Harmonic Singing.