RANGE Magazine-Winter 2017-Pass Me the Gun, Billy
WI17 10.17 PM.q_RANGE template.q 10/17/16 6:27 PM Page 70
Horses in L.A.? There was the western movie business, of course, and all that went Pass Me the Gun, Billy with it—including the bars along the back - The Russell brothers...dealers in livestock and song. By Tom Russell side of Griffith Park, where stuntmen, movie extras, rodeo cowboys, and livestock contrac - tors drank, fought, and enacted daily busi - L
Heard you left the Chimeneas L ness. Then there was the L.A. Horse and E S
And that makes me kind of sad S Mule Auction where we bought our pleasure U R
T
She’s a great old Spanish Land Grant A horses—most of them cowponies that came P
D
And you’re the best she ever had... N from Texas via train. A
—“ Cowboy Pride” by Ian Tyson M I’ll let my brother tell about the Los O T
Y
S Angeles auction scene back in the ’50s. He E T
hen he was 16 years old my R has a better slant on the lingo. U O C brother Pat built a bucking barrel Here’s Pat: S O T
in the backyard of our Ingle - O “In L.A., there was a horse auction twice W H wood, Calif., home, a 40-gallon oil drum sus - P a week. They had a trader sale on Wednesday pended on ropes between four telephone afternoon. Bob Scott, who was half-Indian poles. The rig was powered by heavy-gauge and half-black, rode the horses through the garage-door springs tied to the end of the ring. They’d come in by the hundreds. He’d ropes. Pat was gearing up for riding real bulls never seen ’em before, but could make ’em do in weekend rodeos on film ranches in the anything. San Fernando Valley. He’d recruit neighbor - “He worked with a lot of the movie hors - hood boys, instruct them in the ways of a es. He could make a horse lay down and roll bull rope, and tell them they needed a gate- over. With a halter rope. He had the knack. opening password—like “Let’s dance!” or And a guy named Red Foster was trying to “Ride a bull!” or “Outside!”— start the American Model Quarter Horse famous last words before Pat launched them into outer space. Bull-riding dreams faded fast as the kid flew over chicken coops and doghouses, landing facedown in Mrs. Zeelsdorf’s manure pile. But nobody could buck my broth - er off that damn oil drum. He was set for life. Centered. He went on to the real thing, and he’s still in the rodeo game. Next Pat ran off to the Sierra Nevada, still in his teens, and worked as a mule packer for a CLOCKWISE FROM TOP : Tom stands next summer in Mineral King. One of to brother Pat. ➤Andy Warhol, George Association, and he’d Jones, and Tom, somewhere in the East his mentors was an old Arkansas in 1981. ➤Russell Christmas card in ship horses from New mule man named Rayburn Crane. 1956. Top row: Nan Russell, mother Mexico and Arizona. I wrote one of my first songs about Marge and Mary Clare on Texanne “The trader’s sale was him. “ Rayburn Crane he rode these (Texas cow horse bought at the L.A. just for horse traders. Horse and Mule Auction). Bottom row: mountains, like the streams he rode Pat, father A. Charles Russell and Tom There’d be three or four ’em through...” Pat returned with (Hot walker). ➤Pat, chomping at the hundred horses in there dozens of old cowboy songs, Irish bit to ride. and they wrote out the folk songs, and poems he’d learned horses’ names and held up in the wilderness. Everyone was required backside of Hollywood them up. They’d shave to sing or recite something around the Park Racetrack, where their tails down each mountain campfires. We’ve been swapping my dad played poker side so their butts would songs ever since. with William Boyd (aka look bigger and their Los Angeles, believe it or not, was cow - Hopalong Cassidy) and neck would look stouter. boy country. My brother is still obsessed dabbled in the buying “And a lot of those with the sheer volume of horses that have and selling of racehors - horses had their manes come through Los Angeles in the last two es. It was in my father’s blood. His father rubbed out, and they’d sell the mane and tail or three hundred years. We grew up on the had traded horses in Iowa. hair. They’d keep the horsehair separate. Load
70 • RANGE MAGAZINE • WINTER 2017 WI17 10.17 PM.q_RANGE template.q 10/17/16 6:27 PM Page 71
after load of it. The horses would come off the thing to the effect that a cowboy could do was a lowered Mercury filled with guys who trains and trucks, and also carloads of hair. anything he damn well wanted—including appeared as if they’d stepped out of the film The hair was sold to guys who would use junk going into town to drink, run wild, and chase “Deliverance.” Inbred-looking weasels. hair in furniture. Ottomans and cushions. And the ladies. You get the drift. When they got to an isolated spot they the rest would go to making hair ropes.” The corporate owner of the ranch read pulled their car over. We pulled over behind. Brother Pat went from bull riding to the article and took offense. Political correct - Two of ’em stepped out and faced us with bareback horses. He learned his trade at the ness reared its wimpy skull. Based on this, shotguns raised. auction. Here’s Pat again: Tyson wrote the song “Cowboy Pride,” My brother yells at Billy Mello, “Pass me “Behind the L.A Horse and Mule Auction which was a semihit for Ian, as well as the gun, Billy!” on Bandini Road was Snowdon Brothers. A Michael Martin Murphey. We also later Billy frowns. “Pat...we ain’t got no gun!” horse killin’ plant. They’d kill like 80 to 500 wrote one called “Heartaches Are Stealin’,” That last phrase still rings in my ears. I recorded by Ian, and recently by Mike dove for the floor, bashing my head into the Beck. My brother’s identity was thinly radio. I’ll leave the rest of the story for now. veiled in both songs. Some relatives Ask Pat or Billy next time they ride through weren’t thrilled. your territory. With Pat it was always the horses. It’s always been colorful. And western. He’s gone on to become one of the Horses, cows, guns, women, songs. My most respected California horsemen brother Pat is of a different era. Think Slim and a major livestock provider for Pickens, Ben Johnson, or the song “Tyin’ a rodeos and cutting-horse events. He’s Knot in the Devil’s Tail.” I’m sure Pat would on the backside. Always horseback. I have roped the devil’s hind feet and cut off became the songwriter. I stole his Tijua - the bastard’s horns. But these are now tepid na gut-string guitar when I was 14, and times, eh? We get away with what we can. He I listened to his great record collection: rides ’em. I write about ’em. We both love a Johnny Cash, Marty Robbins, Tex Rit - good song. ter, the music of the bullring...all of it. A The Russell brothers, dealers in livestock music education. To this day he’s deep and tall tales. We came out of L.A. and the into old Irish folk songs and Mexican backside of the track, the horse auctions, Ranchera music by folks like Vicente slaughterhouses, and those San Fernando
FROM TOP : Ian Tyson and Tom in 1987. Times Valley film ranches. And Pat’s still murmur - were good. ➤Toddler Tom, always looking up to ing about the sheer number of horses that hot-rodder Pat. came across the irrigated desert. A while back I flew into Los Angeles, horses a day. For dog food. And Alvin Deal and directly over the old Hollywood Park Race - I would go over to the horse killin’ plant when track, near where we grew up. The bulldozers the sale was going on back at the auction. We’d were demolishing the last portion of the get these killer horses in the alley, and we’d rope grandstand. The old stables were gone. They one, put a bareback riggin’ on ’em, and that’s can tear it all down, sir, but they can’t bull - where we’d practice. And we’d have to catch doze our memories. him to get our riggin’ off. Pass me the guitar. Tonight we ride! ■ “Over in the hay barns, behind the auc - tion, there was always a crap game going on. Singer/songwriter/painter/essayist Tom Rus - One Friday night they shot a guy.” sell has recorded 35 highly acclaimed records and published five books. His songs have been There’s your cowboy movie. All I have to recorded by Johnny Cash, Doug Sahm, Ram - do for new cowboy song material is hang blin’ Jack Elliott, Ian Tyson, Iris Dement, Joe around brother for a day or two, and then Ely, and a hundred others. In 2015, he reach for the rhymes. released a 52-track “folk opera” on the West, In that regard, Ian Tyson and I were “The Rose of Roscrae,” which was deemed working on songs one afternoon in a remote Fernandez. These are the musical roots of maybe the most important Americana record cabin in the Canadian Rockies. We went for a what I later put into melodies and lyrics. of all time by UK Folk and hailed in Top Ten hike to clear our heads and Ian stopped, Songs like “Gallo del Cielo” and “The Sky lists in three dozen publications, including turned to me, and said: “What’s up with your Above, The Mud Below.” the Los Angeles Times. He appeared on brother? He’s always good for some colorful If I had time here I could tell a few dozen “The Late Show With David Letterman” material.” brotherly “western action” stories—maybe five times. In 2015, he won the top ASCAP award for music journalism. Contact: So I told the story of one of my brother’s about the time my brother, Billy Mello, and I www.tomrussell.com, www.tomrussellart.com, latest romantic escapades and his getting were in Pat’s truck chasing cattle poachers and www.fronterarecords.com. kicked off the Chimeneas Ranch in Cuyama, down an isolated back road near San Luis Calif., for stating, in an LA Times story, some - Obispo at 80 miles an hour. In front of us
WINTER 2017 • RANGE MAGAZINE • 71