AMG Review of Boots, Buckles & Spurs: 50 Songs Celebrate 50 Years of Cowboy Tradition

John Bush
All Music Guide

The cowboy as an actual occupation may have peaked before the end of the 19th century, but the mythology of the cowboy was just beginning when the recording industry began dipping into folk and regional music in the 1920s (film, radio, and television weren't far behind). It ensured that children would continue to play Cowboys & Indians for decades to come, then follow their favorite Singing (or acting) Cowboys on the silver screen and later, television. The rodeo tradition, closely related, has existed nearly as long as herding cattle, although it became professionalized and regimented beginning with the first National Finals Rodeo in 1959. Come 2008, and it's the 50th anniversary of that event, presented by Wrangler and governed by the oldest and largest rodeo organization, the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA). Despite its unwieldy title, the three-disc box set Boots, Buckles & Spurs: 50 Songs Celebrate 50 Years of Cowboy Tradition is a fine retrospective of the best cowboy-themed music during that time (much of it the same as what's heard over the PA at those events). When compared to other large compilations of cowboy music and Western swing, some have been better from a historical perspective -- 1993's Songs of the West from Rhino is still the best -- but as an all-encompassing look at the allure of the cowboy within country music over the last 50 years, it's perfectly primed. (And given that the combined catalogs of Sony and BMG are involved, it boasts one of the biggest casts of performers that one could hope for.) Presented in rough chronological order, it begins with Gene Autry's "Back in the Saddle Again" and, early on, pegs key Western material of the '40s and '50s (Sons of the Pioneers, Roy Rogers, Bob Wills). That still leaves most of the first disc, and all of discs two and three, to cover the '60s (briefly) and everything produced after. Naturally, these tracks aren't dusty old 45s of Tex Ritter moaning about blood in the saddle or the perils of rye whiskey; this is polished, high-energy country, perfect for booming out over a 50,000-kilowatt system, with cowboys often used as metaphors by singers who may not know much about the rodeo or cowboy tradition at all (the biggest exception being Chris LeDoux, the celebrated country singer and rodeo champion). Over 50 songs and well over three hours of music, a parade of country stars appear with their best Western moments, including Charlie Daniels, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, Michael Martin Murphey, and Marty Robbins, as well as contemporary country stars George Strait, Clint Black, Vince Gill, Tracy Byrd, Montgomery Gentry, and Brooks & Dunn. If you have no problem seeing a continuous line of the cowboy within country music, with attendant dots for "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" by the Sons of the Pioneers, "Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys" by Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings, and a cover of Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead or Alive" by Montgomery Gentry, then this is just the set for you.