The Cattle Call

"The Cattle Call" is a song written and recorded in 1934 by American songwriter and musician Tex Owens.^[1] It became a signature song for Eddy Arnold. Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time.^[2]

Owens wrote the song in Kansas City while watching the snow fall. "Watching the snow, my sympathy went out to cattle everywhere, and I just wished I could call them all around me and break some corn over a wagon wheel and feed them. That's when the words 'cattle call' came to my mind. I picked up my guitar, and in thirty minutes I had wrote the music and four verses to the song," he said.^[3] He recorded it again in 1936.

Cover versions

The song was recorded by Eddy Arnold in 1944, Tex Ritter (1947), Carolina Cotton (1951) and Slim Whitman (1954). Whitman's version peaked at #11 on the C&W Best Seller chart.^[4]

In 1955, Eddy Arnold re-recorded the song, this version spending 26 weeks on the country chart, 2 of the 26 at #1.^[5]

Other versions were recorded by Billy Walker (1965), Donn Reynolds (1965), Elvis Presley (1970), Gilbert Harry Trythall (1971), Lenny Breau and Chet Atkins (Standard Brands, 1981), Boxcar Willie (1986), Don Edwards (1992), Emmylou Harris (1992), Skip Gorman (1994), Wylie Gustafson (1994), LeAnn Rimes (1996 with Arnold and on November 16, 1999 Arnold released the recording as a single^[6]) and Dwight Yoakam (1998) for the motion picture soundtrack of The Horse Whisperer.^[7]

Notes

References

• Montana, Daisy "Cattle Call: from Tex Owens to People Like Us" (April 13, 2009) Mademoiselle Montana's Yodel Heaven

External links

• Tex Owens grave site