A Cowboy’s Guide To Growing Up Right

—– By Slim Randles

 ALBUQUERQUE, NM-Slim Randles wins National Federation of Press Women Award for “A Cowboy’s Guide To Growing Up Right ”.

The National Federation of Press Women has announced that Slim Randles of Albuquerque has received the 1st Place Award in the Inspirational Book Category for the 2012 NFPW Book Awards. “A Cowboy’s Guide To Growing Up Right”, published by LPD Press/Rio Grande Books of Los Ranchos New Mexico,  is Slim Randles’ sixth book. The award will be presented to Slim at the NFPW awards banquet in late September in Scottsdale, AZ. Slim also won 1st Place for the book in the 2011 New Mexico Book Awards and 2012 New Mexico Press Women Communications Contest.

The book is also illustrated by Jerry Montoya of Grants, New Mexico, who is an award-winning artist, founder of La Fiesta de Colores in Grants, and exhibits in Contemporary Hispanic Market in Santa Fe every July.

This is the first win by Randles in the National Federation of Press Women competition. Randles recently released “Home Country” – a collection of his esays.

Loretta Hall, also an author with LPD Press/Rio Grande Books, won the 3rd Place General Nonfiction Book Award in the same NFPW competition for her new book “Out of This World”, the space history in New Mexico.

Go to their website, www.lavenderinthevillage.com for times. Both books are on Amazon.com and carried by local stores. For information: 505/344-9382. Or go to www.lpdpress.com.

 *********************************

“The Oldest Greenhorn”  

          by Larry W. Jones

Larry W. Jones, the Kingwood Kowboy, had just turned sixty eight when he participated as a wrangler in the 40th annual Sombrero Ranches “Great American Horse Drive”, the oldest and biggest of its kind in the whole country. Each year, on the first weekend in May, Sombrero Ranches, the biggest saddle horse operator in the US, rounds up 800 – 1000 horses from their winter pastures in far northwest Colorado and drives them sixty two miles in two days, to the Big Gulch Ranch, west of Craig. There they receive new shoes, medical care, and are sorted and trucked to the many tourist stables which Sombrero Ranches operates in Colorado and Arizona.

The “Great American Horse Drive” is an adventure never to be forgotten and cries out to be written about. “The Oldest Greenhorn”, 8 X 11 coffee-table size book, contains eighty pages with full color photos and nine of Larry’s cowboy song lyrics. It relates the history of Sombrero Ranches and the horse drive. It dramatizes the five day adventure from arrival to the exciting “Gate-to-Gate” horse drive on Saturday and Sunday. Read the thrilling account of the “Mad Dash to the Yampa River”, driving the horses through Maybell Colorado, and “The Last Mile” in the hazardous ditches at full gallop. Larry W. Jones, the Kingwood Kowboy, earned his “Gate-to-Gate” trophy belt buckle the hard way – in the saddle of a fiery red quarterhorse that proved what the term “prancing horse” really means!

“The Oldest Greenhorn” is available in Hardcover and Paperback editions. Hardcover – $36.00; http://www.lulu.com/shop/larry-w-jones/the-oldest-reenhorn/hardcover/product-20180371.html; Paperback – $26.50; http://www.lulu.com/shop/larry-w-jones/the-oldest-greenhorn/paperback/product-20180548.html

*****************************************

WEST   by Lars Strandberg, Lars Åberg & Ronnie Nilsson

WEST is a remarkable coffee table book offering a compendium of what is created and born…intentionally and not…just from being there.  It could be revealing of the intent here that the book is simply called “WEST.”  More than a place, it’s the reason, result and reward for turning an exploring eye in that direction.

Three Swedish devotees of The West offer a uniquely perceptive and querying look at something we may not know as well as we think we do.  They accomplish the astonishing task through text (Åberg), photos (Strandberg) and artful design (Nilsson).  At first the eccentric randomness of the approach may seem like skipping stones across a pond’s surface, but it’s soon obvious this trio realizes there’s a far deeper pool beneath as they swim and dive in their subject and the people of it.  Along the way you’ll experience strong splashes of ethos against mythos since from “WEST” we get the surface shimmer and the bottom grit.  Yet we love it.

Artists who “paint” in visual, aural or printed media should keep this book close at hand.  From such stimuli the creative eye will repeatedly create on its own.  Book (hardbound):  $45 thru www.gibbs-smith.com

- by Rick Huff

 

Wagon Train: The Television Series

——James Rosin        

The Autumn Road Company Publishers

The Wagon Train TV series ran for 8 seasons (1957-65), with some twenty to thirty million people watching each episode. If you were one of them, you’ll love this book’s story, remembering the series and what went on behind the scenes. The show wasn’t a musical western, although one of the interesting facts about it was that, over its duration, it used four different themes!

The book first came out in 2008, but it was revised (to accommodate a number of additional photos) and issued in soft cover in 2012. The author organized the book around interviews with a large number of actors who appeared in the series, bios of those who acted or were involved in production, and the titles and summaries of each episode. Stars such as Harry Carey, Jr., Robert Horton, L.Q. Jones, Debra Paget, Denny “Scott” Miller, Ernest Borgnine and others were interviewed. The author  has even included a list of the audience’s favorite episodes by season. To top it off, the 326 page book also has over 100 pages of photographs, many of which are rare.

This will make a fine companion to the DVD set released by Timeless Media. If you don’t have the DVD set, there’s a section that tells you where to find it, and other sets that may be of interest. The book is available from ClassicTvSeriesBooks.com and Amazon.com…….O.J. Sikes

 

Bar E Ranch Chuckwagon Cookbook by Tom Elliott

Born out of 19th-century cattle drives, the chuckwagon is both utilitarian and nostalgic. The meals that were prepared and served at the wagon weren’t fancy, yet they were as diverse as the Western landscape and the cowboys on the crew. Tom and Cheryle Elliott preserve and perpetuate the history of the chuckwagon and authentic cowboy grub in their Bar E Ranch Chuckwagon Cookbook. The old-time recipes are simple and combine ingredients that are staples in most pantries, but they yield filling, flavorful, homestyle meals that will bring your crew back for seconds. A bonus: The Elliotts offer tips for cooking in Dutch ovens, recipes and rations from Old West army cooking manuals, a handy chart for cooking for large groups and other trivia.  $20.00 plus $7.00 shipping. Can be ordered from our web site at www.cowboycooking.com or 1-800-959-5782…….Jennifer Denison, Senior Editor and Cowboy Style Editor, Western Horseman Magazine

**************************************

The Touch of Roy & Dale  By  Tricia Spencer

                                             West Quest

    The full title of this new book, The Touch of Roy and Dale: The Impact and Influence of Roy Rogers, the King of the Cowboys, and Dale Evans, the Queen of the West, as Only Their Fans Could Tell It, summarizes its contents.  The staggering amount of fan mail Roy Rogers and Dale Evans received is part of Hollywood history. Those cards and letter weren’t simply requests for autographed photos. They contained the experience and feelings of the writers, who were  often  influenced by Roy & Dale. The fans knew Roy’s and Dale’s personal stories and felt close enough to them that they  wanted to tell them theirs.

Writer Tricia Spencer spent years reading stacks of correspondence (40,000 pieces of mail) and extracting fans’ stories for publication of this new book. In the process, she discovered previously unpublished photographs, art, stories and even songs!  Cheryl Rogers-Barnett wrote the Foreword, and Roy “Dusty” Rogers, Jr. wrote a note for the book’s cover in tribute to the fans who supported Roy & Dale throughout their career. In addition to the fan letters, the book contains notes and essays from other family members and friends, some famous (co-stars and stuntmen), some not, but all interesting to read.

A portion of the proceeds will benefit The Happy Trails Children’s Foundation. The book is available from WestQuest.org and Amazon.com…….O.J. Sikes

**************************************** 

Threads West by Reid Lance Rosenthal 

Douglas, Wyoming – March 27, 2012 – Though there is a plethora of non-fiction writings on various aspects of America’s surging rediscovery of patriotism and appreciation for core American ideals, there are few if any, current fiction works which embody the foundational essence of the resurgence. The #1 best-seller, national award-winning Threads West, An American Saga series, a sixteen book series, does just that! It is our story. It is Reid Lance Rosenthal’s tale of America and her spirit. It is the ongoing story of us. Book One – Threads West melted down Amazon at 9:07am the day of its release and likewise sold out Barnes and Noble the very morning of that release! Book Two of the series, Maps of Fate, releases nationally April 17, 2012. 20,000 copies are already reserved. The series has been called “the Gone With the Wind of the American West” and compared to Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove and James Michener’s Centennial.
This makes the month of March the perfect time to introduce you to Reid.  A cowboy at heart, a rancher by trade, and a writer by nature, his Historical Western Romance series glows with American spirit and sizzles with the quick and humorous intrigue and passion we all want to curl up with on blustery spring evenings. A veteran of more than one hundred radio and TV appearances of up to three hours (many repeats) and subject of scores of articles in newspapers, magazines, Match.com, IVillage ezines and others, Reid is handsome, charming, and outspoken. His very unique personal style will spark your audience and provide them with a guest to remember.
Maps of Fate is a novel unique to Reid’s cowboy heart and poet’s pen. Fueled by the powerful magnetic pull of the energy of the vast lands of the American West, the characters of these adventures have neither country nor culture in common—each comes from a different background, but the lives of their textured and conflicted experiences become part of the fabric of America and the West. Their interwoven destinies, ambitions, courage, treachery and love flow through four generations; creating an American epic that binds the historical characters to the predestined struggles, torrid passions and duplicities of their descendants. The intrigue and unrelenting conflict of their lives are destined to converge with startling twists and turns as they build a great nation. Reid’s gifted writing interweaves the destinies, ambitions, courage and treachery of these men and women with an emerging America in an exhilarating read, evoking every imaginable emotion.
“Many have asked what inspires me to write the Threads West series,” Reid says. “I am fascinated with the interrelated energies of all things. The more primal the current, the greater my interest. In the wide range of tugs to the human soul, nothing compares to the power of the land which underlies all we are and do, and the pull on our heart strings of passion-filled romance.
“These magnets to our spirits, coupled with the rich texture of the mid eighteen fifties–a time when America and the world drew their collective breaths, and then exhaled with a rush towards the American West–is our story. It is a memory we need to recall, courage we need to again touch and a reminder of the foundations of our uniquely American spirit: A touchstone to the past and a guide post to the future in these uncertain times.”
A fourth generation land-and-cattleman, Reid bought his first property at eighteen, and has succumbed to the pull of the land ever since. In addition to his success in historical fiction, he is working on a nonfiction book created especially for the descendants of the passionate Americans he writes about in his novels. Land: For Love and Money and the associated workbook Green for Green is a humorous, informative and helpful guide packed with anecdotes from Reid’s forty-year, $1 billion career in land management. His experiences in ranches, farms and rural property acquisition, to planning, improving, conservation easement grants, and disposition in numerous states, three countries and two continents, will provide his readers with a wealth of tips and advice on buying and managing that most precious American right and resource.
Maps of Fate, the second book in the Threads West, An American Saga series, is scheduled for release on April 17, 2012. Volume one of Land for Love and Money will be released on June 5, 2012. Both will be available from Barnes & Noble (in store and online) Amazon and Hastings, in addition to other retail outlets.
Please see www.ThreadsWestSeries.com . 

***************************************   

“Perfectly Amanda (Gunsmoke’s ‘Miss Kitty’) To Dodge  and Beyond”  By Beckey Burgoyne

 Here is THE book on the Queen of Gunsmoke.  Covered in an easy to digest, segmented fashion are her early years, early film and TV work, many new facts and facetsof life on the Gunsmoke set and on to her intense animal activism and other  causes.  A lot of it was tough going, personally and professionally, particularly the last years.  But she had, as so many of her friends and fellow actors state here, the same grit and heart as her famous character “MissKitty.”

If the writing style feels at times more like fan blogging than reportage, what of it??
We’re all reading it for the same reason, aren’t we?  We loved the lady.  My mentor in Western Hi Busse sure did.  His group The Frontiersmen & Joanie backed the Gunsmoke folk in every appearance.  Burgoyne quotes Joanie Hall in the touring segment.  Ironically the Introduction to this book was written by the granddaughter of “Cactus Mack” McPeters, cousin to Glenn Strange (Gunsmoke’s Sam The Bartender) and Rex Allen.  Hi Busse was also a member of The Saddle Tramps, with whom “Cactus”recorded many radio transcriptions in the 1930s. It’s a good reference and a fond trip back on many levels.  What more can you ask? Book (Trade Paperback):  $29.95 through Five Star Publications (but  also available on disc) at  www.PerfectlyAmanda.com ……..Rick Huff

Baxter Black “Lessons From A Desperado Poet”    (TwoDot) 

This volume may eventually rank as one of the best self-help books ever turned out.   And that turned out doesn’t mean “in the pasture.”  It should prove to be particularly relevant for pull yourself up by the bootstrappers like us! Here our esteemed Cowboy Poet humorist charts his life’s course from po’ to vet, then from pro vet to poet.  Or, as the book jacket tells you, “how to find your way when you don’t have a map, how to win the game when you don’t know the rules and when someone says it can’t be done what they really mean is they can’t do it.”  Dotted through the good-humored and humorous text are 118 delineated life lessons that should be memorized by every student or student of life.  By personal example Baxter shows you how to keep from steppin’ in it or, at least, how to grow something in it if you do. “Lessons…” is loaded with them and it features historic personal photos and great true stories from one of the master story tellers of our time.  If you don’t buythis book from being told that, then I guess you didn’t learn your lesson!  Book (hardcover):  $22.95 and generally available……Rick Huff

*******************************************

How the West was sung: Music in the Westerns of John Ford

by   Kathryn Kalinak  (University of California Press 2007)        

       I found this book absolutely fascinating. The author’s thesis is that “the preponderance of song is one of the most distinctive features of Ford’s imprint on the genre.” And she defends her thesis admirably. At the outset, she addresses Ford’s participation in the selection of music for his films, tracing his interest back to his roots and linking it to his fondness for the folk songs and hymns found frequently in his productions. But it wasn’t simply his fondness for this type of music that led to its inclusion in his films. She points out that “Songs authenticate historical era and geographic place, and contribute to narrative trajectory (and) character development.” She also explains how Ford used music to support the ideology he wanted to convey in his work. The author explains the difference between diegetic music, “heard by the characters and often with a source visible on screen” – and non-diegetic music, i.e. music“heard by the audience but inaudible to the film’s characters.” And she goes through each of Ford’s films, devoting separate chapters to some of them, illustrating out how he carefully selected songs for each scene so as to convey the messages (and feeling) he was looking for. For Ford, music was important for the impact he wanted his films to have on the audience.  You will find all of it interesting, but fans of Stagecoach, Wagonmaster, Ford’s cavalry films and The Searchers will find the chapters on these films to be especially revealing. I found at least one mistake, but in a book filled with so many details, that’s to be expected. Available in paperback and hard cover editions online, but prices vary widely, so shop around, e.g. try Amazon.com………O.J. Sikes

   * * * * * * * * * * * * * *         

Review – Paul S. Powers   “Riding The Pulp Trail”     (Laurie Powers, editor)

Writer/editor Laurie Powers has offered a multi-level entertainment  in issuing here the works, published and unpublished, of her successful pulp  Western writer grandpa Paul.  Not  only can we relive some of “those thrilling days of yesteryear” when heroes and  villains were easy to spot, but the writers among us get a developmental look at  an author’s efforts to get more than just the same formulaic stories  accepted.

Paul Powers cranked out new stories weekly for Wild West Weekly and  other cowboy action mills aimed at the bug-eyed youth market, and he worked the  genre masterfully.  In this handsome  collection are six published and six non-published stories, all with plenty of  blazing action and “good overcomes evil” endings.  Powers’ popular misunderstood force for  good Sonny Tabor rides again in a story not issued before, and there are more  favorite tales and new discoveries to be made.  The pulps were definitely part of the  popularization of the cowboy to audiences the world over, and this volume lets  us experience again the unabashed romance of it.  Well worth your time.  Book (paperback):  $24.95 through www.amazon.com….- by Rick  Huff

*****************************************

Still Lovin’ The Ride: The Janet McBride Story 

 by Mary Neal Schutz

 ‘Still Lovin’ the Ride’ is the biography of The Yodelin’ Queen Janet McBride who performed with some of country music’s legendary performers in the 1960’s. Born in Maine in 1934, by the time she was 6 years old it was obvious that Janet was born to sing. At 8 years of age Janet discovered the unique sound of yodelling and knew this was the musical trail that she would walk.

Janet’s life is a heartfelt story filled with hard times, tragic circumstances, happiness and laughter, written by Mary Neal Schutz and Janet McBride. Janet tells of humble beginnings living in Maine, New England where her father worked (amongst other jobs) in a local shoe factory. The family move to California to find a better life and then back to Maine and California once again as expectations didn’t come to realization.

In the mid 1950’s Janet meets and marries sailor Claude McBride to whom she has three children. The good looking Claudeturns out to be a womaniser and always looking for the good time, dinking and womanising and ‘not’ spending enough time raising his family.. Janet leaves the music industry to bring up her children and with Claude’s sudden death from a heart attack Janet finds relief from a poor marriage. True love and a long happy marriage finally comes Janet’s way in the form of Mr John Ingram. Together they go into partnership in the Mesquite Opry theatre and Janet thrives in coaching youngsters in stage craft and of course yodelling. One of those kids that Janet coached was a seven year old LeAnn Rimes, who went on to be a world-wide renowned singing super-star.

Although Janet & John sold the Mesquite Opry theatre, Janet still carries the passion and is involved along with Devon Dawson in the mentoring of boys and girls 17years and under at the Buckaroo Club in the Cowtown Opry, Fort Worth, Texas that meets on the 2nd Sunday of each month. Reading ‘Still Lovin’ the Ride’ you get the feeling that Janet believes this is the reason she was given her great talent…devoting her time and dedication in aiding young performers on the road to stardom.‘Still Lovin’ the Ride’ is a real life story full of struggle, tragedy, sadness, great effort, fun, happiness and Love!!!  I took great pleasure in reading this book during a flight back from the USA. It is a book that you will not want to put down!!!.  Cost is $20 plus $3 postage in USA.  They can order  by contacting me at jmcbride.yodeler@sbcglobal.net.or use Pay Pal at their site using that email address  or send check or money order for $23 to me at P. O. Box  850351, Mesquite, TX 75185-0351…….Graham Lees

***************************************

Review – Slim Randles  “A Cowboy’s Guide To Growing Up Right” 

You could think of it as being Winning Friends & Influencing Peopleby Dale “Cow”negie…but I wish you wouldn’t! This engaging little book of personal experiences and insights doesn’t harp or lecture.  It just offers humorous thoughts and practical practices that have come in handy for Randles as he’s ridden down his own trail of maturing.  And as those of us who champion The Cowboy Way have been saying for many years, the cowboy way ain’t a bad way!  You might discover someof his common sense chapter titles are still pretty surprising.  Try “Lie To Yourself Now & Then!” (he explains it), “To Think Right First Straighten Your Shoes” (there’s a reason) or “Out Of A Job?  Give Your Work Away!” (there’s a darn good reason)!   Also here you’ll find “Ride For The Brand,” “Find A Mentor,” “Find A Passion,” “Pick Your Friends Before They Pick You” and more that can, when properly applied, chiselgood character.  Randles waited quite a few years before showing the text to anyone, but once it was seen he was encouraged to release it.  You’ll be glad he did.  Book: $8.95 + $ s/h through www.amazon.com ……by Rick Huff

Review – Baxter Black (w/illustrations by Bill Patterson)  “Rudolph’s Night Off”   (book/dvd)  

‘Twas the mail before Christmas and what should be in it

But a big book from Baxter at the very last minute!

Rudolph’s gone lame and Santy is vexed

So a goat full of radium winds up being next

To get harnassed up.
With artwork so vibrant

This Baxter Black verse on St. Nick and his migrant

Team does shine brightly, in more ways than one.

The DVD with it is also great fun!

As you might expect it’s a wacky delight

With one small surprise.  It’s a gas-powered flight!

So pick up a copy.
Display it with pride!

Let Baxter and Bill take you all for a ride!

Book (hardback):
(amount not furnished) but available through amazon.com, Barnes &
Noble & others and online through www.baxterblack.com–- by Rick Huff