Turbula
Online since August 2002
Music

Campfire-worthy

Reviewed November 2005

Giddyup!
Giddyup!
By Buck Howdy

Prairie Dog Entertainment: 2005

To hear sound clips or learn more about this release, Turbula recommends viewing its Amazon.com entry.

Saddle up, all you little buckaroos and buckarettes, Buck Howdy's loaded up the Conestoga with another heapin' helpin' of good-timey Western tunes.

Ol' Buck, aka local singer-songwriter-producer Steve Vaus, has rounded up his Prairie Dogs, Dennis "Cannonball" Caplinger on all sorts of string instruments and Bill "Gopher" Bryson on bass, for this 14-song collection.

Buck wrote seven of the songs, two of which deal with fine dining – "S'mores" and "Baked Beans" – the latter of which deals with a rootin' tootin' cowboy, if you catch the drift. There also are several standards, from "Pecos Bill" to Jimmy Dean's "Big Bad John," though he wisely avoids mimicking the famed West Coast Sausage King's deep-as-the-Grand-Canyon baritone. "The Hokey Pokey" is worth a dance around the campfire, and as the embers die, Buck gets an assist from Laurie Berkner on "Happy Trails."

But don't tuck in the horses yet – Buck tips his Stetson to the Rolling Stones with the Wild West version of "Hey, You, Get Off My Cow."

Buck, who hosts a weekly show on XM Radio and the annual Carols By Candlelight holiday music festival in Escondido, treats Western music with the respect it deserves while giving cowpokes old and young a good reason to pull up a log, toast a marshmeller and sing along to a right fine collection of tunes.

Review by Rick Bell. Rick is a writer and editor living in Poway, Calif.




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