“So, it’s been my lot for many years / To have worked for some of the best / Of these men who may be a ‘dying breed’ / yet have not shirked the test,” self-proclaimed “Packsaddle Poet” Chris Isaacs writesabout “The Dying Breed” of cowboys and cattle wranglers in one of his best-known works. Rooted in a life-long career as a working cowboy, a packer, a horseshoer, a day-work cowboy and a rodeo cowboy, Isaacs, three-time winner of the Academy of Western Artists “Will Rogers” Award, approaches storytelling with great discernment, depicting the heart and humor of the cowboy way of life. He then parades his admiration for those “who have not knuckled under / Or sold out to the corporate dragon / Who’ve held the ranch together and still ride out with the wagon.” It’s a teary, sun-parched passage which carries with it tremendous sorrow but hope for tomorrow.
Ross Cooper‘s third record, the ragged and dusty I Rode the Wild Horses, fits quite snugly next to such a refined and perceptive wordsmith. Coincidentally, Cooper was born and bred in a rodeo family himself and spent many years as a bronco rider, and he assembles those experiences into one hearty, western-styled, spitfire record, frequenting open ranges, rodeo corrals and tucked-away honky-tonk bar tops. He’s a son of the road, wearing that distinction in sheepish braggadocio on his jacket. His cowboy hat sits cocked on his head, but he’s not arrogant; he’s simply stating truths as they are. “The old stomping grounds are all stomped out for all the slow-rolling tumbleweeds,” he paints nonchalantly on opener and titular cut, the jangle of drums and guitar clinking in the dust at his feet. Cooper’s illustrations are as easy as they are lush and cinematic, merging traditional, campfire cowboy music, tales of wily temptations, swift heartbreaks and feeble recoveries, with ingenious modernisms. “Heart Attacks” boils savagely, leading into the twinkling neo-traditionalism of “Old Crow Whiskey and a Cornbread Moon,” an earthed gemstone which could have been first chiseled in the late ’80s but lost to time and the fleeting harvests.