[Django]

Loser,
Perhaps some would say that it is just as easily contemporary, but in my youth guns, Abilene, aces, getting up in the morning and ride (ing) all connate the old west. Ergo, cowboy.

[caspersvapors]

lol the other one is not a cowboy tune

[TerraGin]

Me & My Uncle and Cumberland

[deadguise]

lol the other one is not a cowboy tune

Well there is a cowboy named Neal in the song...

[willmusic]

I don't think Cumberland is really a "cowboy" song. I guess it's a miner song, eh?

[TerraGin]

I guess cumberland could be considered a miner song

[Pete B.]

Cumberland Blues is a take-off on Merle Haggards "Workin' Man Blues" which is a hard core country song if ever there were.

Jerry confirms this on pp.67-68 of the book "The Stories Behind Every Grateful Dead Song 1965-1995".

http://www.amazon.com/Grateful-Dead-Str ... 818&sr=8-6

[kenneybonz]

they never went one into the other, though, right? wouldn't that be sweet?

[kenneybonz]

by that rationale, is loser a cowboy song or a miner song?

[tigerstrat]

by that rationale, is loser a cowboy song or a miner song?

It's a gambler song.He's taking money away from the cowboys AND the prospectors.

[Django]

I guess I tend to think of the old west when I hear 'cowboy song' rather than the occupation. If it was just the occupation of cowboy, I can't think off hand of any dead cowboy songs

Did they cover 'get along little doggies'?

Now the old west... cowboys and indians and railroaders and miners and gamblers and gun fighters and saloon girls and bank robbers getting away on horseback etc. It all applies imho.

Not Cowboy Neil, a speed demon, bus driving, hammer juggling and rapping beat icon. He is more personal to the times and the dead, pranksters, and Kerouac; correct?

[bodiddley]

How 'bout "Big River"?

I know "Been all Around this World" is more of a mountain/hillblly song but I think of it as a cowboy tune.

FWIW, Mama>Mexicali is my least favorite combo of cowboy tunes. Also sick to death of El Paso. Remarkably, I never tire of "Me and my Uncle". Go figure

[tigerstrat]

I never get tired of Mexicali, especially Phil's bass lines.

[Pete B.]

Interestingly, (to me, anyway) "Big River" is a Johnny Cash tune, that the GD kick off with what is basically the intro to Mearle Haggards "Workin' Man's Blues".

In that book I'm reading, Jerry goes as far as to say he believes the GD were on the "far fringe" of the Bakersfield Sound during the Workingmans Dead timeframe, and that they went to see guys like Buck Owens, and thought they were great.
He points out that he learned "alot of stuff" from Don Rich (Buck Owens guitarist, a Tele player).

Concerning Mexi... I've found it's a very short leap from the Emaj7 Eyes intro solo scales to the Mexically intro solo scales.

Funn Stuff!
~pb

[kenneybonz]

so we got, miners, gamblers AND cowboys.. i like it .. i like it..