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There Ain't Nothin' Like a Real Cowboy |
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Track List cowhand.com |
"I ain't no
cowhand.com," sings Dan Roberts. Right off the bat, from the first
swingin' steel strains of the title track of this disc, "cowhand.com," Dan
sings pure, straightforward, honest-to-Bob Wills Texas swing cowboy
music.
There's a quote which greets you when you go looking for this "not a cowhand.com" - Dan Roberts does have a lot of tremendous web sites dedicated to him, anti-technology notwithstanding - a quote from the great Ray Benson (Asleep at the Wheel): "Dan 'Rodeo' Roberts is one of the great genuine western artists in country music today. Dan has taken cowboy and western music and brought it into the present. I am proud to know Dan and America is lucky to have him playing the great music that he does." I agree with Ray. In an age when much of the west is eager to strip of the trappings of its western heritage as being "hokey," it's nice to hear some cowboys are still singing cowboy music. "Cowhand.com" is Dan's newest album, a sharp and strong collection of his delightful pure modern western songs. This year, it won Dan the Academy of Western Artists' Entertainer of the Year; he's also received the Academy's Will Rogers Award for Western Excellence. Dan's name isn't unknown even by the mainstream, as he's given us his songwriting skills for years, as writer or co-writer, on such songs as Moe Bandy's "No Regrets," Chris LeDoux's "The Fever," and Garth Brooks' "The Old Stuff" and "Beaches of Cheyenne." Dan doesn't write all the songs on "cowhand.com" but he chooses amongst his own and those written by friends and fellow cowboys to bring together a truly wonderful collection of melodies. Dan's smooth, cheerful voice doesn't lie as he sings such songs as "You Can't Make a Cowboy Sing the Blues." This is music that delights the soul, as modern and real today as it ever was. Even mournful songs like "One Gate From Home" and "The Cowboy Song" (which has a bridge included here that's never been recorded before) are uplifting because that's what music is supposed to do. With "A Trucker's Just a Cowboy," Dan proves something I've always believed, that "cowboy" can be in your heart even if you can't get out there on horseback. Texas swing and two-step is never far gone from this disc, and if you want to dance, this is the music for you. "Wranglers, Ropers, Resistols" is a salute to the ladies who dress western style; "Roped Into Love" is a boot-tappin' love song truly cowboy-style; and there's a slow, sweet two-steppin' song for everyone who has ever loved an animal, "Horses in Heaven." Western music doesn't seem have a place
anymore; it's not progressive enough for alt-country and it's certainly
far too country for "country." But if ever there was a sound that
deserved to be called "Americana," it must be this pure American style of
music, the sound of the American West, a bygone time which may have been
polished out of the Western cities but will never be forgotten by its
mountains and deserts, the little towns that came to life with boom town
mines and, of course, ranchers and their cowhands. These days we may all
be a "cowhand.com," but with the music we can at least imagine the trail
before us and the songs around the campfire at night. |
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Kathy Coleman
Take Country Back October 2002