My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys
I've had a soft spot for country-western music since I was a little kid -- not so much the new stuff, but the classic, pre-1980s twang-laden, hard drinkin', hard lovin', tear-in-my-beer kind of country-western. Tammy Wynette, Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, Loretta Lynn, George Jones -- all favorites. I'm not sure where I picked it up. Mom has always been a sucker for 50's and 60's rock, while dad was all over the map with Neil Diamond, The Traveling Wilburys, Meatloaf (yes, Meatloaf), and most recently the John Butler Trio. But there's something solitary and strong in the laments of the Old West, like "I can go through hell and back, and still be ok enough to belt out this tune for y'all."
My really annoying, and horribly fun, cowboy-phase came after a trip to a ranch in Wyoming - the Two Bars Seven - when I was 22 years old. We spent the week herding cattle and riding horses through the most beautiful country I had ever seen. For months after, it was nothing but Chris LeDoux, Tanya Tucker, and of course, Willie Nelson in the CD player.
I have since moved my main music staple to other genres, but I occasionally like to close my eyes and remember what it was like to ride up to a canyon to see mountains under a never-ending sky, listen to the spooky night-sounds of coyotes under a billion stars, and whistle at cows like an idiot while listening to this.
