Evening star., 1927-10-02

also has a good position with bust.
cowboy musical programs that is Of
most interest here.
Born into musical family, both
parents being musical and his sisters.
too, one of them playing the piano
and organ and the other a singer, 1t
was quite natural that John should
grow up able to play several different
musical instruments and to cultivate
in an easygoing way a really rich
baritone voice. His brother. Lewis c.
White. went into the ranching bust
ness seriously and it was on his Monte
Vista Ranch, in Wickenburg, AriZ.
that the younger brother met Yavapai
Ike, cowboy with a wide reputation
of skill in such lines as made Will
Rogers famous.
While attending the University of
Maryland, John White was an active
member of the university's Glee Club,
under DR.. House, and he also sang
with the club over the local radio
station. WRC. It is interesting to let
Mr.. White tell in his own words how
he came to sing his cowboy songs
over radio, his first attempt as a SOLO
ist. in New York. He says:
''Soon after arriving in this big
city 1 decided that I'd use a novel
way of letting the folks back home
know had arrived, and consequently
l got out the old guitar, polished up
a few of the songs that 1 had picked
up while hanging around Wickenburg,
Ariz.. in the Summer of 1924, and an
nounced myself at WEAF. I sat on
the edge of the program managers
desk and sang pride of the Prairie,
Mary He decided to take a chance
on me, and I've been singing West
ern ballads ever since.
Altogether, I gave about Is per-
formances at WEAF during the Win
ter. appearing twice with the Caval-
cade. Once 1 helped WIZ out with
their musical L. S. program. and l
have seven notches filed in the handle
of the guitar at the expense of WABC.
''My songs are mostly the work of
forgotten halladists of the stagecoach
days. A good many of them have
been written down. words and music.
by John A. Lomax of the University
of Texas, the foremost student in the
field of Western folk songs, If they
can be called that. Others are the
work of Western poets-Badger Clark.
E. A. Brininstool and James Barton
Adams-set to music by various un-
known backwoods composers.
II find that the songs with just
touch of melancholy or. tragedy in
them go best. Judging from the let
ters that receive, the mournful ditty,
When the Work Is Done Next Fall,
is the most popular of the lot. 1t tells
the story of the cowpuncher who
planned to go back home to Dixie and
his mother at the end of the roundup.
but in stampede one stormy night his
horse fell on him and crushed him to
death. The last verse runs as follows:
Poor Charlie was buried at sunrise. no
tombstone at his head;
Nothing but little board. and this IS what
it said =. .
And he II not see his mother when the work
is done next Fall
"Others in the same vein are The
Dying Cowboy one that practically
everybody seems to have heard once
in his life: The Cowboys Lament and
a cowboy hymn, Rounded Up in
Glory"
1t is easy to see why these songs,
sung easily and with cowboy lingo
by John White for half an hour every
Friday night over station WABC, New
York, win him hundreds of fan let
ters'' every week. Also he is getting
marked recognition IN the radlO crit
les columns. One of his most recent
given September Is. re-
ceived the following comment from
the reviewer for the Brooklyn Eagle:
Cowboy Joe,' otherwise known as
John White, was on again at WABC
with his songs of the wide-open coun.
try, where men are men and hats are
tents and pants are chaps and songs
have a quaint charm all their own.
Joe sang a song about Greer County.
which the lyric classed as the home
of the bedbug. grasshopper and flea,
and where folks make a business of
starving to death on Government
claims. The singer hoped when he fin
ished this ditty that the Greer County
Chamber Of Commerce wouldn't jump
on him for poking fun at the commu
nifty. He also offered Great. Grand
dad with few extra verses on Great
Grandma written by a woman ad-
mirer of White Plains. Home on the
Range tcattle, not kitchen). where
seldom Is heard discouraging word
and a cowboy hymn called Rounded
Up in Glory We're among the other
numbers by Cowboy joe who accom-.
panied himself on either. or some.
thing that xeunded like that" .ans-