Songs of the West (Burl Ives album)

Songs of the West (Decca DL 4179, 1961) is one of the several albums from the early 1960s that signalled Burl Ives's move away from folk music into country western and pop. In Ives's discography this album is immediately preceded by The Versatile Burl Ives! and followed by It's Just My Funny Way of Laughin', two Decca albums containing songs ("A Little Bitty Tear", "Call Mr. In-Between" and "Funny Way of Laughin'") that earned Ives his highest rankings on Billboard's pop, country, and easy-listening charts. Songs of the West is an album of twelve "Cowboy" songs. As the back of the album cover states, "[The songs] span the gamut of western music from the time-honored Cowboy's National Anthem, 'Home on the Range,' which dates back to the 1870s, through the western classics ..., to the years of western music's peak popularity -- represented here by songs by Billy Hill ... -- and finally on to 'My Adobe Hacienda' and 'Jingle Jangle Jingle,' two popular hits that have been adopted into the repertoires of almost all western music enthusiasts."