Rodeo Songs Trivia Quiz

Answer: Amarillo by Morning

This one started out as a Terry Stafford song, on his 1973 "Say, Has Anybody Seen My Sweet Gypsy Rose" album. It's a pretty good rendition, but most of us remember the 1982 George Strait version, with the memorable fiddle playing of the legendary Buddy Spicher.

Answer: Rita Ballou

"Hill Country, honky-tonkin' Rita Ballou/
Every beer joint in town has played a fool for you/
Backslidin', barrel ridin' Rita Ballou/
There ain't a cowboy in Texas would not ride a bull for you"

A bit of Texas swing from Guy Clark's first album, 1975's "Ol' No. !". It's a fantastic album, with several of his signature songs such as "LA Freeway" and "Desperados Waiting for a Train". It looks like "Rita Ballou" was released as a single in that year with "Let Him Roll" on the B side, but it didn't really go anywhere.

Answer: Calgary Stampede

"We're headin' for the round-up, goin' to the big stampede/
Old Dick Cosgrove ridin' in the lead/
The old chuck wagon rattlin', the snortin' buckin' broncs/
We're a-headin' for the Calgary stampede"

Also known as "Calgary Roundup", this song appeared on Carter's 1961 "Songs of the Calgary Stampede". Wilf Carter was a pioneer of Canadian Country music, an old-style yodelling singing cowboy - he actually did work as a cowboy, along with a lot of other jobs, as a young man.

Answer: The Rodeo Song

The lyrics I've quoted here are pretty much the only ones from this song allowed on this website - this is a song with a *lot* of bad language. Written by the not-as-famous-as-he-should-be Gaye Delorme, it came out on The Showdown's 1980 "Welcome to the Rodeo" and, although it was banned in a lot of places and didn't often get any airplay, is for many people the only rodeo song they know.

Answer: Summerlea

"And he won't win any money/
And worst than that, he won't care/
When she asks him, he'll just smile/
He had a really good time out there"

Probably the least-known song in this quiz, "Summerlea" is from Fred Eaglesmith's 1993 album, "Things is Changin". It's a song of an unlikely love affair between a cowboy and a city woman - I strongly recommend going over to Youtube and taking a listen if you've never heard it.

At the time of this album, Eaglesmith was releasing albums under the name of Fred Eaglesmith and the Flying Squirrels; the Flying Squirrels included Willie P Bennett, the much loved Canadian folkie, on mandolin and harmonica.

Answer: Ro-deo-deo Cowboy

"Pay thirty-two fifty just to take a fall/
I live through it just to talk 'bout it all/
I'm a rodeo deo deo de cowboy/
Bordering on the insane"

This one is an album track from 1977's "A Man Must Carry On" album, a double album mix of live, studio, and who-knows-what recordings.

Jerry Jeff Walker was well known in the Folk and Outlaw Country scenes, but perhaps not quite a household name otherwise. His best known song is most likely "Mr Bojangles", (probably known, at that, in cover versions) though his 1972 cover of Guy Clark's "LA Freeway" got some radio play.

Answer: Someday Soon

"Someday soon, going with him/
Someday soon"

It was hard to decide which artist is most associated with this song. Ian Tyson wrote it, and released it with his then wife Sylvia Fricker, on the Ian & Sylvia 1964 "Northern Journey" album. Then Judy Collins released a version in 1969, that became something of a signature song for her, even though it didn't really heat up the charts. Suzy Bogguss' version came out in 1991, and whole lot of other people have also taken a stab at it.

In 2010, the Western Writers of America named "Someday Soon" as one of the Top 100 Western Songs of All Time.

Answer: The Strawberry Roan

OK, it's not, strictly speaking, a song about the rodeo, but it's about busting - or trying to bust - a bronco, so I think it fits here.

"The Strawberry Roan" has been sung by almost everyone recording Western music, since the words were first written by cowboy poet Curley Fletcher in 1915. It's the classic "horse that can't be broken" song.

Looking around online, everybody tells me that Marty Robbins' recording from his 1959 "Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs" is the definitive version, and who am I to argue? This is also the album that gave us his "El Paso" along with five other songs on that Western Writers of America Best 100 Western Songs list we've been talking about - including, yes, "The Strawberry Roan".

Answer: Bucking Horse Moon

"Down a one lane road there's a dusty fairground
Where I learned the bronc trade and I fell in love"

This song, co-written with cowboy poet Paul Zarzyski, came out on Russell's 2004 "Indians Cowboys Horses Dogs".

Anyone interested in Western music (or Folk, or Americana) has stumbled across a Tom Russell song at some point. He has written songs with, or been covered by, such artists as Ian Tyson (with whom he wrote "Navajo Rug"), Nanci Griffith (with whom he wrote "Outbound Plane"), Iris DeMent, Dave Alvin, Joe Ely.... the list goes on and on. Two of his songs, "Tonight We Ride" and "Navajo Rug" are on the Western Writers of America Top 100 Western Songs list.

Answer: Running Through the Rain

"Last night we rode our broncs in Seattle/
Me and Bill packed the car in the pourin' rain/
Winch and John were at the beer stand, gettin' spraddled/
But we got 'em gathered and hit the road again"

From 1986's "Wild and Wooly".

LeDoux was an actual award-winning rodeo cowboy who self-released albums of his music for two decades before finally signing on with a label. He is noted for, among many other things, being the only person to both participate in, and perform at, the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. While very well known among Western music lovers, he only really had one hit single, "Whatcha Gonna do with a Cowboy", with Garth Brooks, in 1992.