Track Listing

1. High Noon (Do Not Forsake Me)
2. Cool Water
3. 3:10 to Yuma
4. Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
5. Wanted Man
6. Bowie Knife
7. Mule Train
8. Hanging Tree
9. Along the Navajo Trail
10. City Boy
11. Cry of the Wild Goose
12. Rawhide
13. Gunslinger
14. Green Leaves of Summer
15. On the Trail
16. North to Alaska
17. Call of the Wild
18. Tumbling Tumbleweeds
19. (Ghost) Riders in the Sky
20. Prairie Belle
21. Lonely Man

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #113756 in Music
• Released on: 1994-06-27

Customer Reviews

The Voice of the Great Outdoors
I believe that's what Irving Stone wrote of Frankie Laine in the liner notes to one of his great Columbia theme albums from the early 1960s (some of the songs from which are included in this collection).

There is a mythic quality to a lot of these songs that perfectly captures the spirit of the great outdoors and the American west -- and Frankie Laine's voice is the embodiment of that spirit. One of my early childhood memories of my mother quoting a line from "Cry of the Wild Goose" as we watched a flock of geese flying south above our field ("My heart knows what the wild goose knows/And I must go where the wild goose goes..."). I still can't look up at a flock of geese without hearing Frankie's stirring rendition of this great song.

"Riders in the Sky" was one of my father's favorite songs -- I'd learned all the lyrics from him long before I ever started school. It's always been one of my all-time favorites as well. Through the years, I've heard well over two dozen versions of it by different artists (there must have been recorded over 100 times), and have to say that Frankie's version is the best. Frankie's version was recorded over ten years after the Vaughn Monroe mega-hit (a great version in its own right), but Frankie's is the one most people I know seem to remember -- and prefer.

As to the title songs from the movies ... for anyone like myself who grew up watching 50s westerns, Frankie Laine *is* the voice of the wild west. How could he not be? Any time a western had an opening song, you could bet that Frankie was singing it (the one big exception being "High Noon" -- but then Frankie was the one who had the hit record of it).

"Tumbling Tumbleweeds," "Cool Water," "North to Alaska" are songs I've known for decades as well -- though, unfortunately, only by other singers. Now don't get me wrong, Bing Crosby sings "Tumbleweeds" beautifully, but once you hear Frankie Laine's version -- slower paced in keeping with the tumbleweeds' "drifting, moving" motions, quietly impassioned delivery culminating in a spiritually uplifting crescendo with the line "A new world's born at dawn" -- well, nothing else compares.

"Bowie Knife," "Wanted Man," "Gunslinger," etc., are songs I've only been able to hear for the first time a few years ago (once they became available again on cd) -- and it's now hard to imagine that for 30-odd years I hadn't known them. (For some inexplicable reason, my folks didn't have the "Hellbent for Leather" album.) How "Bowie Knife" never managed to be a number one hit, will forever remain one of life's great mysteries.

What more can I say? When it comes to the American west/the great outdoors this is *the* album.

"Hell-bent for leather"
I've loved Frankie Laine's voice ever since I was a kid listening to my mother's LP of "Hell-Bent for Leather". It's masculine, smooth, expressive, and powerful, and Laine had the ability to hold a note for more than half a second. He's the only one of the mid-century pop singers I enjoy unreservedly. The western songs show him at his best, and I don't care if many of them were written for TV and movies. My brother has the old LP, and it's pretty worn, so I was glad when I found a CD with all of the songs and then some on it. It did a lot to make a long car trip less tedious. Post 'Million Mom March', it's going to be hard to find songs with lines like "If my gun don't take your evil life, you can bet my Bowie knife will", or "Until I became a wanted man, I never even owned a gun". Those songs still send shivers down my spine.

First of two compilations of western songs
This album and its companion, On the trail again, contain all Frankie's classic recordings of western songs, including several television themes. Frankie often re-recorded songs and some songs appear on both compilations but in such cases they are always different recordings.

High noon the movie featured Tex Ritter's version of the title song, but it was Frankie Laine who had the biggest hit with the song. Other famous songs here are Cool water, Mule train, Along the Navajo trail, Rawhide, North to Alaska, Tumbling tumbleweeds and Ghost riders in the sky. There is much more to this collection than just the famous tracks, great though Frankie sings them. Just listen to some of the others, including Cry of the wild goose, Gunslinger and Prairie bell.

As with the companion volume that I reviewed a long time ago, my only complaint is the liner notes. Bear Family are usually impeccable, but the notes here, while interesting, look as if they were written for a different album, as most of the songs mentioned are not included on the CD, while little is said about the songs that are actually here, except the recording information. Still, it's the music that counts and the quality of the re-mastering is clearly up to Bear Family's customary standard.

Together with the companion volume On the trail, this demonstrates that Frankie was a great singer of western songs.