Beech Tree News Network

Somehow we knew the wolf didn't really bother "The Three Little Pigs."  We also pretty well understood that an old woman with a passel of kids couldn't really live in a shoe.  Yet as children we loved those stories anyway.  They took us away from the ordinary and set us down in the middle of fantasy-land.  Gunfighter ballads and stories from the old West are a lot like that.

Truth to tell, most real, old-west cowboys couldn’t even afford to own a gun.  If they had, they probably couldn’t have shot themselves in their own foot with it, much less face-down some bad guy in a dusty street in front of the local saloon.  Most old time cow-punchers drew $25 a month and found (bunk and vittles).  That was seasonal; many were laid-off during winter.  Some rode the “grub line”; they could stay-on at a ranch, ride fence, break ice in water holes … or feed cows hay, while staying at a line-shack.  All with no pay.

But who wants truth when imagination suits better?  A lot of us grew up on TV’s GUNSMOKE and RAWHIDE and HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL.  You seldom could get anybody by phone at home when they were on.  We came to know Matt, Festus, Doc and Miss Kitty like the neighbors who lived across the street.  Now re-runs of these old TV westerns are still going strong.

What became known as “gunfighter ballads” spun off of these TV westerns, and grew in popularity when the westerns began to fade.  Singers like Marty Robbins revived the genre of horse-hair and gunsmoke with songs like “El Paso,” “Big Iron,” “Runnin’ Gun,” and many more.  Texan Billy Walker did his part with “Cross The Brazos At Waco” and “Matamoros.”  Tex Ritter contributed “Theme From High Noon”; Frankie Lane with “Keep them doggies movin’ … RAWHIDE.”  Side bar … see-voo-play: the word “doggie” (long o) has nothing to do with a dog.  It is short for a steer with a dough-gut (pot belly).  Thought you needed to know that.

A guy named Johnny Western wrote and sang the them from HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL … “Paladin.”  Johnny is still touring and singing cowboy music.

Of all Marty Robbins’ gunfighter hits, “El Paso” was the biggest.  It first came out in an album called Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs.  That was in 1959.  In the fall of that year “El Paso” was brought out as a single.  His biggest ever … immediately a smash hit.

A fellow named Grady Martin did the wonderful lead guitar work on “El Paso.”  Grady at that time had been a guitar virtuoso on the Nashville scene for years --- considered one of the best.  However, before the “El Paso” recording he went down to Mexico and studied the superb Mexican guitar technique.  Us gringos can’t play like they can (“Gringo” is OK. It came from the song “Green Grow The Lilacs.” When the Mexicans first heard our soldiers singing it, it sounded like “gringo” to them).  Now you know.  Jim Glaser and Bobby Sykes provided the splendid vocal harmony with Marty.

Marty Robbins was so proud of his first big hit, once in an airport terminal his record was playing over the terminal speaker.  Marty stopped in the middle of the crowd and hollered loudly, “That’s me singing.”

Gene Autry quit recording new cowboy songs in about 1946.  Said they wouldn’t sell any more.  Gene later had to eat crow.  Along came a guy with a degree in zoology … working as a park ranger and trail guide, in Death Valley National Park.  His name was Stan Jones, from Douglas, Arizona.  In his spare time, which he had plenty of, he wrote cowboy songs.  One time he came-up with a song called GHOST RIDERS IN THE SKY.  From then on he only rode horseback for fun.  After saying it couldn’t be done, Gene Autry turned around and made a movie by the same name.  The song crossed-over into the pop field.  Big-band leader Vaughn Monroe grabbed it and made it a popular smash-hit.  It’s still popular among all ages.

Stan Jones went on to write songs for TV and films, including “The Searchers,” a big John Wayne picture.  Jones also wrote the theme from the TV series “Cheyenne.”  But for my mney, the best work Stan Jones ever produced was probably the least well-known.  It’s called “The Lillies Grow High.”

I’ve known this song for a lot of years; yet I’ve run into only one other person who knew of it.

Once some time back I was at the Kentucky State Fair.  I stopped by a booth where an ole guy was selling livestock supplies.  In the rounds of our conversation we got to talking cowboy music.  He asked me if I’d ever heard of a song called “The Lillies Grow High.”  I began singing a line or two.  He looked at me like a calf looking at a new gate.  He said something to the effect, “I would have bet money you had never heard that song; I’m glad I didn’t.”  He went on to tell me he’d never talked to anybody else who had heard it.

The Sons of the Pioneers had a No. 1 single on it in about 1953.  Bett and I were cruising along in our 1948 Chevy (a former Louisville taxi we’d bought for $200) between Lewisburg and Hollowbill on 431, when “Lillies” came on the radio.  It blew us away:

THE LILLIES GROW HIGH (Stan Jones)
BOOTS AND STETSON, AND SIX-GUNS, AND THE LILLIES GROW HIGH
THEY GROW FOR A MAN WITH A GUN-SLINGING HAND WHO BEFORE HIS TIME MUST DIE
THEY GROW IN THE TRAIL HE HAS TRAVELED --- A TRAIL WELL-SPATTERED WITH LEAD
THEY WEEP O’ER THE GRAVES OF THE MANY MEN, THEY WEEP O’ER THE MEN NOW DEAD
HE RIDES ALONG LONELY, NO FRIENDS BUT ONLY THE LILLIES GROWING HIGH
ALL MEN SEEM TO FEAR HIM; NOT ONE WILL GO NEAR HIM, AND HE KNOWS THE REASON WHY
HIS NAME AND FAME SPREAD BEFORE HIM, LIKE A CARPET OF DEATH HE KNOWS ---
THAT ONE DAY HE’LL BE SLOW ON THE DRAW AND THEN FOR HIM, A LILLY WILL GROW
A WOMAN MAY LOVE HIM, THOUGH SHE KNOWS SOON ABOVE HIM, THE LILLIES GROWING HIGH
THEN LIKE THE LILLY SHE’LL BOW DOWN HER HEAD, BOW DOWN HER POOR HEAD AND CRY
ON SOME BOOT HILL THEY WILL LAY HIM, AND THE HEADBOARD WILL SWAY IN THE WIND
A LILLY WILL GENTLY NOD AND WEEP, FOR ANOTHER GUNMAN DEAD
BOOTS AND STETSON AND SIX-GUNS, AND THE LILLIES GROW HIGH

Kindest regards …