Mustang Gray (The Maid of Monterey)

DESCRIPTION: "There was a brave old Texan, his name was Mustang Gray." When the Mexicans invaded Texas, he was taken prisoner. "He wore the yoke of bondage through the streets of Monteray. A senorita loved him...." and turned him loose
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1908
KEYWORDS: love battle prisoner rescue
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1835 - Mayberry B. Gray migrates to Texas from South Carolina (source: Tinsley-HeWasSinginThisSong)
FOUND IN: US(MA,So)
REFERENCES (8 citations):
Thorp/Fife-SongsOfTheCowboys IX, pp. 104-111 (23-24), "Mustang Gray" (4 texts, 1 tune); Thorp/Logsdon-SongsOfTheCowboys, pp. 102-104, "Mustang Gray" (1 text)
Fife/Fife-CowboyAndWesternSongs 49, "Mustang Gray" (1 text, 1 tune)
Moore/Moore-BalladsAndFolkSongsOfTheSouthwest 149, "Mustang Gray" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lomax/Lomax-AmericanBalladsAndFolkSongs, pp. 395-396, "Mustang Gray" (1 text, 1 tune)
Tinsley-HeWasSinginThisSong, pp. 196-199, "Mustang Gray" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lingenfelter/Dwyer/Cohen-SongsOfAmericanWest, pp. 282-283, "Mustang Gray" (1 text, 1 tune)
Saffel-CowboyPoetry, pp. 190-191, "Mustang Gray" (1 text)
DT, MUSTGRAY*
Roud #4035
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Turkish Lady" [Laws O26] (plot)
cf. "Young Beichan" [Child 53] (plot)
SAME TUNE:
The Dying Soldier Boy ("Upon Manassa's bloody plain a soldier boy lay dying" -- words by A. B. Cunningham) (War Songs and Poems of the Southern Confederacy, pp. 347-348)
NOTES [131 words]: Thorp/Fife-SongsOfTheCowboys notes that this song takes two forms: "In Hewitt's original aria interest is focused on the senorita and her heroic deed. The texts most current in Western American oral tradition... bring the American soldier-cowboy into central focus...."
The piece seems to have drawn its title from the 1847 novel The Volunteer, or The Maid of Monterrey, by Ned Bluntine.
The song has been variously credited to John Hill Hewitt, Tom Grey, and James Lytle. Thorp/Fife-SongsOfTheCowboys considers Hewitt (a well-known composer) to be the most likely candidate -- although Thorp himself credited it to Grey.
I would consider it not unlikely that someone (unknown) wrote the words and Hewitt added a tune.
As "Mustang Gray," this song is item dB28 in Laws's Appendix II. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.6
File: FT09

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