My Rifle, My Pony and Me (Western Movies Songs)
There is astonishingly little overlap between this 26-song collection, consisting of songs from various western movie and television soundtracks, and other, rival domestic releases. As usual, Bear Family has done its best to gather together the best and most unusual of this material -- a promotional-only single of Ricky Nelson and Dean Martin singing "My Rifle, My Pony and Me" from Rio Bravo (adapted by Dimitri Tiomkin from the title theme from a score he wrote for an earlier John Wayne/Howard Hawks movie, Red River); Merle Kilgore (sounding a lot like Tex Ritter) doing the title song from Nevada Smith; "The Legend of Shenandoah" by James Stewart, telling the plot of the film while a chorus sings the title tune, as a sort of audio trailer for the movie Shenandoah (more of an eastern than a western); the Sons of the Pioneers doing the title theme from The Searchers; Marty Robbins' version of "The Ballad of the Alamo"; Tex Ritter's second (and best) recording of "High Noon"; and the Sons of the Pioneers performing "Song of the Wagonmaster" and "Wagons West" from Wagonmaster; Roy Rogers singing "The Yellow Rose of Texas" (to an utterly unfamiliar melody); Johnny Cash's "The Sons of Katie Elder" (a soundtrack never reissued on CD); and the only CD release of Dean Martin's "Rio Bravo." There are no notes, but everything else is first-rate about this disc. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide