Come All Ye Lonesome Cowboys

DESCRIPTION: "Come all you (lonesome/jolly) cowboys... Now I'm going to leave you, To never return again." He recalls the sad parting from his mother, and the girl who promised to marry him. After all his rambling, he is leaving the boys forever (dying? going home?)
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1927 (Randolph; recordings, Frank Jenkins, Buell Kazee)
KEYWORDS: cowboy parting separation farewell
FOUND IN: US(Ap,So)
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Randolph 180, "Come All Ye Lonesome Cowboys" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
Wolfe/Boswell-FolkSongsOfMiddleTennessee 43, pp. 76-66, "Come All Ye Lonesome Cowboys" (1 text, 1 tune)
Ohrlin-HellBoundTrain 58, "Come All Ye Western Cowboys" (1 text, 1 tune)
Fife/Fife-CowboyAndWesternSongs 59, "Roving Cowboy" (1 text, 1 tune, Kazee's text, which is short)
High-OldOldFolkSongs, p. 18, "A.. Ramblin Cow-Boy" (1 text)
Roud #5482 and 11077
RECORDINGS:
Texas Gladden, "Roving Cowboy" (on USTGladden01)
Frank Jenkins, "Roving Cowboy" (c. 1927; on BefBlues2)
Buell Kazee, "The Roving Cowboy"(Brunswick 156, 1927; Brunswick 436, 1930; Supertone S-2043, 1930; on KMM)
Clay Walters, "Come All You Roving Cowboys" (AFS, c. 1937; on KMM)
Jack Webb, "The Roving Cowboy" (Victor V-40285, 1930)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
The Jolly Cowboy
NOTES [108 words]: This is a definite problem piece. Roud splits it in two: #5482, which we might call "Come All You Lonesome Cowboys," (represented e.g. by the Randolph texts) and #11077, "Come All You Roving Cowboys" (represented by the Fife/Kazee text).
The problem is the Clay Walters version, which is a mish-mash of everything including perhaps some "Texas Rangers" material. Paul Stamler couldn't decide what to do with it; neither could I. So I'm lumping two songs until we get some better samples.
The same sort of mess describes the High-OldOldFolkSongs text -- but his transcriptions are often so strange that this might just be the way it was taken down. - RBW
Last updated in version 5.3
File: R189

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