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In 2001 at Red Steagall's Cowboy Gathering in Fort
Worth I had the pleasure to interviewing one of today's
best-known and loved singers of cowboy songs…Don Edwards,
he explained; "Cowboy songs are some of the first songs
that I ever learned. Primarily I'm a troubadour…I'm a
minstrel…it's something near and dear to my heart! I'm a
solo artiste for the most part playing guitar and
banjo!!!" Don Edwards offers 32 songs on 2 CDs with Last
Of The Troubadours. With the freedom of just a sparse
acoustic guitar and banjo plus a distinctive and convincing
voice that many singers would sell their soul for, Don
Edwards grants new life to the traditional songs of the
likes of "Barbara Allen",
"Red River Valley",
"Windy Bill" and many
more. Don may be remembered for the character 'Smokey' he
played in Robert Redford's highly successful movie The Horse
Whisperer in which he sang a couple of songs. Don has
another song in a movie…he can be heard singing "The
Colorado Trail" in Silver City staring Richard
Dreyfuss and Kris Kristofferson.
Starting disc1 we find Don's own composition "Gone
To Texas" with its up-tempo glimpse at a young
man looking to add a little excitement to his life. The
second song on the CD sums up Don Edwards as a wondering
troubadour with Barton Bradley's "The
Habit",  including
additional lyrics by Edwards. Three new songs are found
throughout the two discs with Don Hedgpeth's "For
Them That Lean To Lonesome" and its tale of
a cowboy's subsistence. Look back at an old cowboy's life
with Paul Zarzyski's "West Of
The Round Corral" and ride the trails of Charlie
Goodnight and Oliver Loving with Joel Nelson's "Here's
Looking At You".
Don Edwards recorded most of Last
Of The Troubadours at his house: "I got a little
place set up in my library where I record into a DAT
machine. I used an old RCA ribbon microphone and it gives it
that nice sound from the 30's." Special guests Norman
and Nancy Blake help out on four numbers; "By
The Silvery Rio Grande", "Fort
Worth Jail", "Cowhand's
Last Ride" and "I
Wanted To Die In The Desert", which were
recorded at the Western Jubilee Warehouse in Colorado
Springs.
A fine interpreter of cowboy songs, Don Edwards
conjures visions of life in the west emanating a hundred
years long gone with this collected of works. Last
Of The Troubadours….Saddle Songs II is as fresh as
a mountain stream babbling along far above ground where it
crosses a frosty Colorado trail.
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