The Wandering Cowboy

The Wandering Cowboy pairs veteran country crooner Elton Britt with Zeke Manners, the founder of the legendary Beverly Hill Billies and a popular novelty artist of the '40s. Recorded in stereo in 1959, the album features Britt's remakes of some of his best-known songs, including "There's a Star-Spangled Banner Waving Somewhere" and the yodeling showcase "Chime Bells," as well as cowboy standards such as "Whoopie Ti Yi Yo" and "Streets of Laredo." Britt also duets with himself on a multi-tracked rendition of "When It's Springtime in the Rockies" and shares some of his real-life experience as a uranium prospector on the original song "Sod Shanty." The arrangements are updated with a drum kit, an organ and an electric guitar — instruments the average singing cowboy would find too bulky and impractical for horseback serenades and campfire singalongs, but that add a new dimension to the re-recordings. Britt is in fine voice, having had some commercial life left in him; even though none of his ABC-Paramount recordings registered on the country charts, he returned to RCA in the '60s and scored a couple more hits. The original RCA versions of Britt's hits are preferable, but the very different arrangements heard on The Wandering Cowboy are more interesting than the typical copycat re-recordings.