You never know who you're going to meet on the internet and I came to know Peter Tibbles (bio here) via email over the past couple of years. His extensive knowledge of most genres of music and his excellent taste became apparent only gradually (Peter's not one to toot his horn) but once I understood, I knew he needed his own column at Time Goes By - or, better, that TGB needed his column - which appears here each Sunday. You can find previous Elder Music columns here.

Michael Martin Murphey is a performer of western music and likes to wear a cowboy hat. He is from Texas, thus the hat, and as a kid he listened to the music of Hank Williams, Bob Wills, and Woody Guthrie. He wasn’t alone there.

He was also an avid reader - a man after my own heart - particularly Mark Twain and William Faulkner.

He moved to California when school was out and his friend, Mike Nesmith, asked him to write a song for the next Monkees’ album. No problem. This sold millions and he thought, this isn’t a bad lark and started writing songs for himself.

The first time I encountered Michael was when he had a bit of a hit with the song Wildfire. I imagine those who know his work probably got there the same way. This had the great advantage of having a couple of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band adding harmony and a touch of Scriabin on the piano intro.

♫ Wildfire

This wasn’t his first significant song though. That was Geronimo's Cadillac, a song about Indian rights that later became an unofficial anthem for the American Indian Movement in the early seventies.

The photo shows Geronimo at the wheel of a Locomobile, not a Cadillac. It was taken in 1904 on a ranch in Oklahoma when Geronimo was imprisoned at Fort Sill. The day at the ranch was a specially arranged one for the press.

♫ Geronimo's Cadillac

There was a period where he was associated with the west coast country rock scene that I’ll skip over. He then released a series of albums called “Cowboy Songs, Volume I, II, III, IV”. Actually the first one was just called “Cowboy Songs” and is the most interesting of the lot.I guess he didn’t think this was going to be an ongoing project when he named it. I also think that Volume III should have been the first one, but what do I know?

Going with my logic I’ll start with Volume III.

Some years ago there were a number of song duets where singers sang with dead people. The most famous of these was Natalie Cole singing with her father. I found these rather creepy.

Michael did the same thing and I still find the concept creepy, but I’m going to include it anyway. See what you think. Here he sings with Marty Robbins on one of Marty’s all time great hits, Big Iron.

♫ Big Iron

Returning to the first volume, it brings me to a song I first heard on the radio sung by Mitch Miller and the gang.

Michael eschewed Mitch’s version and has gone back to the original song.

The Yellow Rose of Texas was almost certainly written by a black American soldier about his mulatto gal back in Tennessee. This man, whose name is unknown, was with Sam Houston when he, along with an army of “Texians,” Tennesseeans and others, attempted a large land grab of Texas from the Mexicans.

Of course the Mexicans had already accomplished a land grab of their own (as had the French and Spanish). They were pitted against General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836.

Surprisingly, we know the name of the Yellow Rose. It was Emily West, later adding Morgan after her slave owner.

Although from Tennessee or possibly Bermuda, she was brought to Texas by that owner, James Morgan. Unfortunately, the town where he set her up was overrun by the Mexicans (James had skedaddled) and the comely Emily caught Santa Anna’s eye.

Now, Santa Anna thought he was God’s gift to women. Only two weeks earlier, he had married another captive in spite of having a wife back in Mexico.

A couple of days later, Houston was up a tree spying on the Mexican camp. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt that this was military rather than voyeurism for Santa Anna didst sport with Em and a champagne breakfast was the order of the day that morning.

Houston ordered an attack and the Mexican army was caught with their pants down, literally in the case of Santa Anna, as reports from the time attest.

The Texians won and Emily was granted her freedom for her crucial service and given a ticket to New York.

This is the non-Mitch Miller version of the song.

♫ The Yellow Rose of Texas

Although there are mostly traditional songs on this record, Michael performed a couple of recent tunes that fit well with the others. This is one written by the finest writer of cowboy songs alive today, Ian Tyson.

The song explores the mind-set of a modern cowboy from the point of view of someone giving advice. Never a comfortable position. It’s called Cowboy Pride.

♫ Cowboy Pride

The Streets of Laredo, or Cowboy's Lament, is the folk process in action. It has antecedents in an earlier British song, The Unfortunate Rake and a related song, The Unfortunate Lad.

There’s another sea-song called Spanish Ladies that’s in the mix as well and an Irish song called My Jewel, My Joy. It has also evolved, most notably into the song, Bang the Drum Slowly.

♫ The Streets of Laredo

To end, I really couldn’t go past Happy Trails, written by Dale Evans of course. On this one Michael has the help of Suzy Boggus.

♫ Happy Trails