Roving Cowboy

A traditional American farewell ballad with no established author, carried in Appalachian singing tradition rather than in working cowboy repertoire. The lyrics tell of the singer leaving home for the western plains and the cattle, leaving father, mother and a sweetheart behind, with the father calling after him for God’s protection and a safe return. Buell Kazee cut it first, on 21 April 1927 in New York for Brunswick (Brunswick 156, backed with “Little Mohee”), with Carson Robison on guitar and whistling; Frank Jenkins recorded his version a few weeks later, in early May 1927 at Richmond, Indiana, issued under the Da Costa Woltz’s Southern Broadcasters umbrella coupled with “Old Joe Clark” (matrix 12787-A). Texas Gladden of Saltville, Virginia sang it unaccompanied for Alan Lomax in 1946, and the Jenkins side was reissued on Document DOCD-8023.

Note: Key given as F minor pentatonic (F, A♭, B♭, C, E♭), determined by ear from the Document and Yazoo transfers of Frank Jenkins’s 1927 Gennett recording, not from notation. The sustained notes sit on C, read here as the fifth degree rather than the tonic, which is a common reciting tone in ballad singing; a more experienced ear may hear it differently. The two transfers disagree in pitch, the Yazoo sitting between B and C, so the mode is more reliable than the absolute pitch level. Frank Jenkins, credited on this side as “Frank Jenkins of Da Costa Woltz’s Southern Broadcasters,” accompanies his own singing on fiddle, so the key follows his voice and the fiddle may have been tuned down to meet it. Alternatively, E minor is also a likely candidate since old recordings may be slightly slower or faster, modifying the pitch. E minor sits more naturally on the fiddle than F minor.