Range and Romance

Range & Romance is the fourth solo Western album released by Curly J. Musgrave. The album centres round the warm and loving connections of a man for his family and surroundings. Curly confides, "I'm sorta hoping that Range & Romance, lyrically and musically reflects an aspect of maturity a man my age oughta have." One of the western music scene's top singer/songwriter with a host of awards behind him including Western Music Association 'Male Performer of The Year' and 'Songwriter of The Year', along with the prestigious Academy of Western Artists awards for 'Performer of The Year' and 'Entertainer of The Year'. Curly is a true cowboy and at present living in California.

Setting off at trot "Wild In The West" gives us a taste of western swing, as we examine the changing face of the cowboy culture and life on the range, with cattle roundups taking place with choppers instead of the conventional horse rider. Curly Musgrave writes 9 of the 13 songs, with a look back to the days when homesteaders wrote off for a "Mail Order Bride" being co-written with his duet partner Belinda Gail. A collaboration with Joel Nelson culminated in a powerful thought provoking song about old cowboys who are now past their working life and reside in rest homes, forever to be "The Men Who Ride No More". Richard Elloyan contributes the light-hearted love song "Carolina", with the young buck head over heals in love and doing anything and everything to please the girl responsible for his infatuation.

The album's title track "Range & Romance (By This Fire)" paints a romantic canvas of a cowboy's life. Sitting under the stars by a blazing campfire with a beautiful woman at your side while the smell of wood smoke and the memories of a cowboy's life gone by tumble through the mind. Curly includes a fine poem in "Cowboy In A Hard Hat", paying tribute the fire-fighters who have battled the wildfires that raged through the land in Southern California. "Curly's Song" is an auto-biographical song that many of us can relate to as we look into the mirror and think, "surly that can't be me!!!"

Jack Hannah (Sons Of The San Joaquin) writes the forward for the album cover enthusing; "Awesome, rich, exciting, clever, are words that express my experience as I listened for the first time to this masterpiece. Range & Romance is a musical ride on which you will experience a myriad of thrills." So all it leaves me to say is climb aboard yourself and experience all the thrills and spills of both the Range and the Romance confined here!!!