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Clint Eastwood Sings
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Long before Clint Eastwood achieved iconic status as a superstar film actor and Oscar-winning director, he enjoyed (though reportedly not much) his own teen idol tenure portraying lovable dimwit Rowdy Yates on the popular TV Western Rawhide. Like all TV idols worth their salt, Eastwood had his fling in the recording studio. 1963’s “Clint Eastwood Sings Cowboy Favorites” leans decidedly toward the W branch of C&W and offers a fascinating opportunity to eavesdrop as Dirty Harry drifts along with the tumbling tumbleweeds.
The fork in the road takes you to one Clint Eastwood, literally riding high in 1963 as the sex symbol Rowdy Yates on one of TV’s finest westerns, Rawhide. To capitalize on his burgeoning, youthful fan base, Cameo Parkway sent him into Fine Recording in New York in mid-May 1963 and thus did Rawhide’s Clint Eastwood Sings Cowboy Favorites emerge. Now—speaking of Lerner and Loewe—Clint was savaged for his vocal performances in the 1969 Joshua Logan-directed film version of L&L’s Broadway musical Paint Your Wagon. But screen the movie today, and lo and behold, Clint comes off sounding pretty fair, certainly not the disaster trumpeted by critics back then. On this, his debut recording, he acquits himself well, too. Like his labelmate Bobby Rydell, Eastwood was not going to be lionized for his brilliant interpretive artistry, or for the magnificence of his vocal gifts, but rather applauded for being able to sell a song, simply and without undue embroidery. Several of the tunes on Cowboy Favorites were first recorded by Bing Crosby (including Cole Porter’s “Don’t Fence Me In”), and the tunestack also includes the great Bob Nolan’s beautiful and timeless western poetry in “Tumbling Tumbleweeds” and Bob Wills’s eternally heart tugging “San Antonio Rose.” Singing in a clear mid-range tenor reminiscent of Roy Rogers, Clint takes all the songs at about the same loping pace, accompanied by a male background chorus emulating the close, smooth harmonies of the Sons of the Pioneers, with a lonesome, shimmering harmonica following him from track to track. The one moment the ensemble breaks out of this mold is on the rambunctious “Rowdy,” a tune recorded some six months before the other album tracks and baldly designed to take advantage of his TV persona much as (as the liner notes point out), ABC did with Ed “Kookie” Byrnes of 77 Sunset Strip fame, a non-singer who had enjoyed a novelty hit with “Kookie, Kookie, Lend Me Your Comb.” Otherwise, this is all standard issue middle of the road crooning with an old west accent, songs to be sung around the campfire, laid back, welcoming and a touch romantic when our man feels some lovin’ comin’ on. It’s big sky music, with a hint of a concept in the way the narratives trace a journey both geographic and of the heart, and speak of a search for freedom, trust and enduring passion. Cowboy Favorites is hardly a masterpiece of its kind—see Marty Robbins for those—but it will darn sure sneak up on you and have you listening again.
Album Notes: With the rusty door-hinge of a voice he possesses today, it's hard to imagine a time when Clint Eastwood could have been groomed as a singing star, but in the early ‘60s, when he came to fame as the rebellious Rowdy in the hit Western TV series Rawhide, it wasn't such a crazy idea. In 1963, playing off the popularity of the show, Cameo-Parkway released an album featuring Eastwood's versions of classic cowboy-style tunes. While Eastwood is admittedly not an exceptional vocalist, he's not at all bad; this is by no means some Golden Throats-style celebrity train wreck. At the time, there were plenty of equally photogenic young men with no greater vocal ability than Eastwood being promoted as country singers, many with less of an actual musical background than the jazz-schooled actor. Eastwood's soft, somewhat laconic croon might not possess the commanding quality that was de rigueur for the era's country stars, but he never strays off-key, and his style is a kind of cross between legendary cowboy singer Roy Rogers and Dean Martin. Most of the tunes he tackles here were already well-known in hit versions by other artists -- the Sons of the Pioneers' "Tumbling Tumbleweeds," Bob Wills' "San Antonio Rose," Gene Autry's "Mexicali Rose," etc. The loping rhythms, lonesome harmonica, lazy guitar licks, and male backing-vocal choruses are all in keeping with the production conventions of the day for cowboy artists. A couple of non-LP singles sweeten the pot, including the written-to-order "Rowdy," intended as a sort of theme song for Eastwood's Rawhide character. While Cowboy Favorites didn't make Eastwood a C&W star, it wasn't his country music swan song -- years later he would record with Merle Haggard and sing in the films Paint Your Wagon and Honky Tonk Man.
1 Bouquet Of Roses 02:39
2 Along The Santa Fe Trail 02:47
3 The Last Round Up 02:52
4 Sierra Nevada 02:51
5 Mexicali Rose 02:58
6 Searching For Somewhere 02:45
7 I'll Love You More 02:27
8 Tumbling Tumbleweeds 02:47
9 Twilight On The Trail 02:52
10 San Antonio Rose 02:26
11 Don't Fence Me In 02:33
12 Are You Satisfied 02:25
13 Rowdy 02:46
14 Cowboy Wedding Song
