Back in the 1880s, settlers of the Old West played songs like that to entertain themselves, but those homesteaders and cowboys, railroaders and miners played on more portable instruments like the fiddle, the banjo, guitar and mandolin.

Tonight on Glenarm Place, we have two talented and versatile musicians who play those instruments and more.

Their names are Justin Bishop and John Neilson and together they call themselves Horse Sense.

Justin and John bring to life songs that go back generations, and they also have a new fangled style of music they call prairie punk.

I'm Hank Troy, inviting you to sit back in your saddles and enjoy the authentic sounds of the Old West, as played by Horse Sense.

Gracias.

Howdy Buckaroos and Buckarettes.

I'm John Nielsen, and I'm here to play the fiddle and the mandolin for you and this lonesome vaquero here.

Justin Bishop, he's going to be playing the guitar and the banjo, and we're going to lay a little bit of Horse Sense on you tonight.

That's right.

Horse Sense.

Truly the product of a stable mind.

We.

We'd like to sing you a song now that has to do with an old cowboy.

One of these old fellers who kind of disappeared.

And it kind of traces his life.

He's called the Appaloosa Rider.

Well, somewhere back around ‘36 I was standing knee deep in the Oklahoma sticks Picking them Jimmie Rodgers' licks like I owned them.

And the girls in town loved what Id do IhadChoctaw hair and eyes of blue.

They'dcall me baby I was six foot two & looked lonesome Then yonder come a man in a big old car With a black beret and a big cigar.

He said son you're a natural cowboy star for sure.

Well, I looked at him and I said, fine.

He looked at me and he said sign I wrote my name on the dotted line and I became.

The Appaloosa rider Appaloosa rider Appaloosa rider Hero of the plains Soon I was smiling from magazines My head slicked down with Vaseline And all those bobby-sox babies' screams would ring They'd pack them in like Maine sardines They'd stand out in the mezzanine To see me ride across the screen and sing Apaloosa rider Apaloosa rider Apaloosa rider Hero of the plains.

A hundred fights I must have won A thousand bullets in my gun And my hat stayed on through all fun and glory But my real life pony had its hood adorned With a big old set of western horns While all America ate popcorn & marveled at the one & only Appaloosa rider Appaloosa rider Appaloosa rider Hero of the plains.

Well, a real life villain, had crossed the line.

So I crossed Hollywood and Vine and I signed another dotted line with my handle.

Yes, I came back, but all the noise was being made for Hoppy's, Gene's, and Roys Hollywood had more cowboys than scandals So here I am in the Oklahoma sticks And out of all my old sidekicks Jack Daniels is one that sticks around.

But old friends and fans have begun to write I learned why the other night when I woke up to a TV fight.

Well, the hero won and his hat stayed white.

And guess who rode across my sight I tell you, I was dynamite Appaloosa rider Appaloosa rider Appaloosa rider Hero of the plains.

Thank you.

The name Horse Sense for the band.

Well, my grandmother used to always make judgments as to whether anyone had horse sense or not.

We figured we did.

And then also, my grandfather was a writer of Western fiction, and he wrote a story entitled Horse Sense, and that cinched it for us.

Well, I guess ever since I was a little kid, I was like all the other kids.

I wanted to be a cowboy.

Some of us grew out of it.

Some people I know became cowboys.

Some people became a cowboy artist.

And I guess I became a cowboy singer.

Well, I got involved in playing Western music because I'd been around it all my life.

I grew up here in Colorado, and the people who had who raised me saying these songs from from the start.

My grandfather especially, I can remember singing these tunes.

Oh, Bury me not and his voice failed there.

But we took no heed of his dying prayer in a lonely grave.

Just six by three.

Oh, we buried our boy on the lone prairie.

Where the dewdrops fall.

And the butterfly rests.

Where the wild blossoms bloom and the buried rest Where the buffalo roam.

And the wind blows free.

Oh, we buried are boy on the lone prairie.

Oh, we buried our boy on the lone prairie.

Yeah.

I don't know whether we call this exactly new wave music.

I'm sure we couldn't that we're going to be doing here.

We might call it old wave music, John.

I think I'd call it prairie punk myself.

That's, you know, I kind of have to get my banjo in the mood for this.

I can I can handle this kind of music, but this this is an awful old instruments, kind of conservative.

So I got a special little necktie to keep it going.

We have Johnny Rotten himself right over here.

I'm in the mood.

We play a lot of high schools.

I have to do this.

You know?

It's part of the game.

This is a song called The Bravest Cowboy.

I am the bravest cowboy that's ever roamed the West.

I've been all over the Rockies.

I got bullets in my breast.

I am the Braves cowboy.

That's ever on the West.

I've been all over the Rockies.

Got bullets in my breast.

In 1863, I joined Immigrant Band.

We marched from San Antonio down by the Rio Grande.

When I was on Prairie I learned to rob and steal when I robbed that cowboy how happy I did feel.

When I was on the prairie I learned to toe the line.

I learned to pocket money and I did not dress too fine I wore a wide brimmed white hat my saddle too was fine And when I coourted that pretty girl, you bet I called her mine.

I courted her for beauty for love it was in vain They carried me down to Dallas to wear a ball & chain Me down to Dallas to wear the ball and chain.

I am the bravest cowboy that ever roamed the west I've been all over the Rockies I got bullets in my breast.

Well, you find with a lot of these songs that they did have their origins in, in England or Ireland, Scotland.

And a lot of people came west to work as cowboys, and they brought their traditions with them.

A lot of American tradition comes generally from England, Ireland, Scotland, the Anglo-Celtic area, as they call it, but it was brought west and sung by the cowboys.

You can certainly call it cowboy songs.

Plus it changed.

The themes change, too.

It's hard to find a job out there, you know, they aren't just jumping around looking for you.

You have to go out and look for them.

Sometimes you have to create them.

In fact, one of the most creative jobs is, well, heck, you've all seen them out on the streets and everywhere else looking in dumpsters.

One hand, they've got a stick with a nail.

In the end of it, the other hand they've got a big plastic trash bag and they're going around mining for aluminum.

They're aluminum miners.

That's a that's definitely a good new occupation for these times.

Well, it has to be, I'll tell you, out here in the West as we travel around, we sure do see them all over the highways, everywhere.

We.

I kind of figured that they needed a some sort of an anthem.

That is to say, there are lots of songs about cowboys and truck drivers and railroad men and coal miners, but we figured they needed the aluminum miners song.

So I wrote one,like this.

I work all day, pass set of sun, Wont come home to the job is done.

Wont come home & spend my pay ‘til i clear that .

stretch on the old highway.

Folks drive by and toss their cans making me a happy man Roll those pennies all my way.

Mining things on the old highway So honk your horns & race on by.

clutter up the land.

I'll clear the trash and make my cash by picking up your cans.

Well, it's damn hard work all night.

And now I get blown off whe trucks roll by Off the road, down in a pit, but I find more cans everyplace I hit.

There's such HARD times across the land.

Hardly a place to make a stand without a job I earn my pay Mining cans on the old highway So, honk your horns & race on by clutter up the land I'll clear the trash and make my cash by picking up your cans.

It may look like I work a load.

The wifes along, holds her own packs a good 12 miles a day.

She helps out on the old highway, up and down all 99 Mexico to the north state line where I'll be next.

I just can't seem to stake my claim on the old highway.

So honk your horns and race on by, clutter up the land.

I'll clean the trash and make my cash by picking up your cans.

So honk your horns and race on by clutter up the land.

I'll take the trash and make my cash by picking up your cans.

Right now, we'd like to take you back a little further in time and a little further west.

Back to California, before the gold rush out to a land of olive orchards and orange groves and the fog shrouded rocky coastline below Monterey, down in Big Sur, where the people's lives were gambled and lost on the gaming tables of the hacendados of the South Coast.

My name is Juanano de Castro.

My father was a Spanish Grandee But I won my wife in a card game To hell with those lords o'er the sea Well the South Coast is wild coast & lonely You might win a game at Cholon But a lion still rules the Barranca And a man there is always alone.

I played in a card game at Jolon I played there with an outlaw named Juan.

and after I'd taken his money.

I staked all against his daughter Dawn.

And I picked up the ace I had won her.

And my heart, it was down at my feet, jumped up to my throat in a hurry.

Like a young summer's day.

She was sweet.

And he opened the door to the kitchen and he called the girl out with a curse.

He said, take her now.

Damn her you won her.

She's yours now, for better or worse.

Well, her arms had to tighten around me, and I rode down the hill to the south.

Not a word did I hear from her that day.

Nor a kiss from her pretty young mouth.

But that was a gay, happy winter We carved on a cradle of pine by the fire in that neat little chanty.

Well, I sang with that wife of mine.

But the south coast is a wild coast and lonely.

You might win in a game in Cholon But a lion still rules the Barranca And a man.

There is always alone.

That night I got hurt in a landslide.

Crushed hip and twice broken bone.

And she saddled her pony like lightning.

And rode off for a doctor in Cholon The lion screamed in the Barranc Buck, he bolted and he fell on his side.

My young wife lay dead in the moonlight.

All my heart died that night with my bride.

For the south coast is a wild coast and lonely.

You might win in a game.

in Cholon But the Lions still rules Barranca And a man.

There is always alone.

John.

By the way, used to be a computer programmer in Tehran, Iran.

That is the truth.

And he got out just before the revolution.

That's right.

The ayatollah didn't like square dancing, so I left.

Well, we're awful glad he did, because we got him back here to America and took him down to Pueblo and entered him in the state fair.

By golly.

And he won a ribbon.

I got me a ribbon.

That's right folks.

Well, what he lacked in confirmation, he sure made up in field trials, you know.

Not the truth.

That's right.

Know.

The truth of the matter is, we entered him in the fiddle contest down there.

And two years in a row, he won first place at the state fair.

But that's only my age category.

Well, that's true.

Which is clearly 14 to 16, right?

Ha, ha.

Thanks, Gramps.

Well, okay, champ, show us what you know.

What tune would you like to play?

Well, heck, since we're here back home in Denver and we're playing in front of a hometown audience, why don't we play that old square dance tune called Coming Down from Denver?

All right.

Thank you.

Well, that was some fiddling.

I like to play and sing because it makes me feel good.

And I see how it makes other people feel good.

And there's a lot of other various reasons, but that's the main one.

Well, I like playing and singing and traveling around the country.

I worked for five years as a high school counselor, and it sort of felt as though I'd put in my time in the Peace Corps, and I really feel like I can touch a lot more people with what with this method of performing and singing.

I'd like to say that we've sure had a heck of a good time here at Glenarm Place.

Had a lot of fun playing for you.

Well, I've had a good time to, but I think before we end the show, before we go out, I just had my chance to shine.

We got to get this guy to shine.

We got to have him yodel.

That's what we have to have.

Well that's fine.

I'd love to yodel, but I don't think I want to do it by myself.

Well, I'm making room, my man.

Well, I think what I'd like to do is ask for the help of the newest addition to the to to the only filly in the horse sense.

Corral.

You mean that pretty prairie princess?

Yes.

That songstress of the sage herself, Liz Masterson.

Come on up here.

Liz.

Well.

Howdy, boys.

Maddie.

News.

I'm awful glad you brought me out of the chuckwagon, because I'm getting real tired of mending your chaps and cooking my world famous biscuits and red eyed gravy.

I'm getting kind of tired of that, too.

Amen.

Well, you know, actually, the songs that you've been singing tonight about the cowboys and the romantic life they live, I'll tell you, that's the kind of life I want for myself.

And I want to be a cowboy.

You want to be a cowboy?

I do.

Okay.

I don't know about that.

Well, I could maybe be cowboy girl.

A real cowboy girl.

Well, I'll bet you could.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

I love all the roar and rattle the lure and the fellow of cattle And I love to see the cowboys and the rodeo.

The quirt.

I can hear it stinging.

And I can see lariats swinging.

And my heart is always happy.

At the rodeo.

I wanna be a real cowboy girl.

And wear all the buckles and straps and know how it feels to wear spurs on my heels.

Then strut about in my chaps I want to tote a six-shooter too.

wear a belt that is four inches wide and ride like the deuce on a buck in cayuse with the cowboy I love by my side (yodeling) I dream of a song.

And it lingers in my heart.

I can hear all the singers as they sing.

Of love and friendship at the rodeo.

I know how I'd love to ride in the open I'd be happy with my cowboy from the rodeo.

I wanna be a real cowboy girl.

And wear all the buckles and straps and know how it feels to wear spurs on my heels Then strut about in my chaps I want to wear a ten gallon hat and a belt that is 4 inches wide Then gold August beer at a fair every year and jump on my pony and ride.

(yodeling) Thank you and goodnight.

Thank you much.