Posted on 05/01/2023 4:36:33 PM PDT by Twotone
One hundred and fifty years ago this month - April 1873 - a song was given its first performance at a house in Harlan, Kansas, which is about six miles from Gaylord, Kansas, via the miniature Statue of Liberty. The song was not written by a professional songwriter, but by a doctor named Brewster Higley VI - a fact that would be of no interest to anyone save Brewster Higley IX, Brewster Higley X or whichever other Brewster Higley is still extant, because almost instantly the song floated free of its creator, first across the American west and then to the wider English-speaking world. Nevertheless, it was Brewster Higley VI who, living in a sod dugout on the banks of Beaver Creek in Smith County, Kansas, sat down and scribbled a few verses about deer and antelope and a dearth of discouraging words:
Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam
Where the deer and the antelope play
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word
And the sky is not cloudy all day...
That's the first known commercial version of the song, though it was not in fact the first recording. And, if you hear a few unfamiliar variations in Vernon Dalhart's 1927 rendering, we'll attend to those momentarily.
(Excerpt) Read more at steynonline.com ...
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Cool!
Cowboy bump.
Wow...who knew?
Oh give me a home where the Buffalo roam and I’ll show you a place that’s a mess!
My grad dad used to sing,
Give me a home where the buffalo roam
and I’ll show you a dirty home!
A Home on the Range indeed.
Another version I like is Jules Allen's version from 1928. Both of these versions use a different melody from the one most of us know today, which emerged in the early '30s.
I sing that song every time I head out to the firing range.
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