The Screaming Cowboy Revisited

[Marc Ponto]

I thought that I might be able to contribute to the discussion of the
inspiration for Barks’ The Screaming Cowboy. He may simply have been
making his own wry contribution to what appears to have been a genre of
Western music in the 30s and 40s. A brief search of the American Premium
Record Guide: 1900-1965 (Krause Publications, 5th edition, 1997) reveals
the following song titles: The Happy Cowboy, The Roving Cowboy, The
Sporting Cowboy, The Gamblin’ Cowboy, The Lonely Cowboy, and The Dying
Cowboy- not to mention The Yodeling Cowgirl. I didn’t notice a recording
of The Laughing Cowboy or The Crying Cowboy, although the BMI website
(http://bmi.com/) credits these tunes to Gregory Catherine (who
apparently made a career of adapting traditional American folk songs- so
they could be even older).

However, the inspiration for The Screaming Cowboy may have been more
immediate. At the time the story was written (early 1951), it would have
been nearly impossible to avoid exposure to the popular yodeling style
of Hank Williams. His recent #1 hits- Lovesick Blues (March 1949), Lone
Gone Lonesome Blues (March 1950), and Moanin’ the Blues (November 1950)
no doubt elicited a mixed reaction from the general radio audience, and
could have been the stimuli for this creative response of Carl Barks.

Marc Ponto
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
USA