Rex Allen and Don Edwards

A Pair To Draw To

GME 1010-2

The singing cowboy has always been dear in the hearts of country music fans. Though Roy Rogers, Tex Ritter and Gene Autry were perhaps the most popular of the Silver Screen Cowboys, Rex Allen (who passed away at the age of 78 after being accidentally run over in his driveway in Tucson, Arizona in 1999), also made a major input in this role as a sagebrush troubadour. Named by Republic Studios, Allen was known as the "Arizona Cowboy" and was considered as the last of the great singing cowboys.

Following the heritage of the singing cowboy, Don Edwards has for many years; left his brand on the music that for over a century has depicted the American western way of life and cowboy folklore.

As a good friend of both these artistes, "Snuff" Garrett brings these two imitable cowboys of differing generations, together for this album in tribute to a declining lifestyle.

A Pair To Draw To, and draw you they do with a warm relaxing style combined with the scintillating old fashioned harmonies of The Reinsmen on backing vocals. Don Edwards ideally compliments the impressive bass vocals of Rex Allen instantly drawing the attention of the listener, as they take time out for a bit of fishing with Smiley Burnette's 'It's My Lazy Day'. Painting a picturesque portrait of blue skies and towering mountaintops, we travel the western landscape with Stan Jones' 'Cowpoke', as the soft hum of the accordion takes us along Cliff Crofford's 'Sunset Trail', onwards through Cindy Walker's 'Blue Canadian Rockies'. 

Sadly the end of an era is depicted, as we see 'There's Nobody Home On The Range Anymore' and find 'Empty Saddles' in the old corral. This wonderful kaleidoscope of old fashioned harmonies, combined with the gentle relaxing acoustic accompaniment, ideally romanticising a time of natural simplicity. For lovers of the cowboy heritage like myself, this is an album well worth seeking out.