Hoyle Osborne
Ragtime Cowboy Joe • Notes
Ragtime Cowboy Joe • Notes
I have a time machine. It’s made of wood, brass, cast iron, and ivory. It doesn’t require electricity or gasoline. When I move my fingers over its keyboard, it takes me back in time. Since it sits in the Victorian splendor of The Strater Hotel in Durango, Colorado, it is particularly adept at taking me back a century or so.
I’m a piano player in an Old West saloon. At The Diamond Belle, I play mostly ragtime and old songs. What you have here is a collection of the music I imagine saloon pianists were playing back in the 1890s when Durango was in its first heyday, plus a few tunes from the beginning of the Twentieth Century.
So, come along with me as we take a trip back to the Old West.
The story of American popular music starts with Stephen Foster. He never got paid much for his first song, Oh! Susanna, but it launched his career in a big way, and became the theme song of the Forty-Niners. During the 19 th Century, many popular tunes were published with what were called Brilliant Variations, and I’ve used some of those arrangements here for Oh! Susanna, Beautiful Dreamer, and Dixie’s Land.
Two popular 19th Century dances came to the New World from Poland, via Paris. The Varsoviana and the polka were popular both in the United States and in Mexico, and they live on in New Mexican Hispanic culture. It is said that Carlotta, wife of Maximilian, introduced the Varsoviana to Mexico. The Mexicans hated the emperor, who had been installed by Napoleon III, but they loved the dance.
Sweet Betsy from Pike borrows the tune of an English music hall song, Villikens and His Dinah. Oh My Darling Clementine is a miners’ variant of a minstrel song, Down by the River Lived a Maiden.
Some of the primary sources for the music on this disc:
Jim Bob Tinsley: He Was Singin’ This Song (University Press of Florida)
Jim Bob Tinsley: For a Cowboy Has to Sing (University Press of Florida)
Richard Jackson: Popular Songs of Nineteenth-Century America (Dover Press)
Robert A. Fremont: Favorite Songs of the Nineties (Dover Press)
Lester S. Levy: Take Me Out to the Ball Game and Other Favorite Song Hits 1906-1908 (Dover Press)
David A. Jasen: A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody and Other Favorite Song Hits 1918-1919 (Dover Press)
University of Colorado Digital Sheet Music Collection
The Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music
Jim Bob Tinsley: He Was Singin’ This Song (University Press of Florida)
Jim Bob Tinsley: For a Cowboy Has to Sing (University Press of Florida)
Richard Jackson: Popular Songs of Nineteenth-
Robert A. Fremont: Favorite Songs of the Nineties (Dover Press)
Lester S. Levy: Take Me Out to the Ball Game and Other Favorite Song Hits 1906-
David A. Jasen: A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody and Other Favorite Song Hits 1918-
University of Colorado Digital Sheet Music Collection
The Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music
