Yankee Cowboy

The Birth of The Billy Buffalo Band ( REVISED VERSION )

Here is an expanded, updated version of my original Yankee Cowboy post, which includes some new information and other renditions of the song you might enjoy!

Late in 1977 I learned that a small midwestern record label, Cognito Records was interested in signing me, and wanted to release an album of my original material. The owners of the label were two Minneapolis music promoters….Doug Lee and Cliff Siegel. They offered a record deal, a publishing contract, management, and help with booking.

L to R Cliff ( Lauren ) Siegel, SS, & Doug Lee

I said “yes” in a hurry and moved to Minneapolis from Colorado Springs where I had been doing some club gigs with guitarist Chuck Henderson and bassist Gary Durr. Chuck was a phenomenal player who had encouraged me to record some demos at West Minist’r Sound Studio in Otho, Iowa. Gary Durr was a long tall Texan from El Paso originally, who also worked in a great country band around the Springs called The Nitehawks. We played a few Colorado gigs under the name “Stolen Oranges”.

Once I got to Minneapolis I soon became aware of an awesome piano player named Bruce McCabe who was working with the Lamont Cranston Band. He was my number one pick for the upcoming session, and I was so glad when he decided to join in. I got a tape one day from Kirk Kaufman, one of the studio owners at West Minist’r….he had discovered a young drummer from Clare, Iowa named Larry ( Dolor ) Adams and had convinced him to add a drum part to a demo of Ride The Texas Wind, which Chuck and I had started earlier. It was clear he had the right feel for the music I wanted to produce.

L to R SS, Gary Durr, Larry ( Dolor ) Adams, Chuck Henderson & Bruce McCabe

Doug Lee was an avid record collector and had a garage full of old blues, western swing, jazz, and folk records. He told me about Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys, and let me borrow some albums. So I sat around my little apartment in Minneapolis and binged out on Bob Wills for a couple months…..then one day I got the idea for the song Yankee Cowboy….as a sort of tribute to Bob and the western swing sound he pioneered. Chuck figured out this great riff for the intro and ending of the tune.

In March of 1978 we finally headed for Otho, where we spent a week and a half and recorded sixteen of my original songs. The sessions were engineered by studio owners Frank Wiewel and Kirk Kaufman, and sounded amazing.

L to R Frank Wiewel, Kirk Kaufman, & SS.

After listening to tracks, I thought it would be great to find a fiddle player who could add some tasty parts to the songs. There was an excellent country swing band called the Radio Rangers playing around the Twin Cities with a fine fiddler named Mike “Razzy” Russell. We took the two inch tapes up to Sound 80 Studio where he added parts to three of the songs, including Yankee Cowboy.

Due to financial difficulties, Cognito Records was unable to release the album, and my time in Minneapolis came to an end. It took me seven years to get my publishing rights back, and another thirteen years to regain the masters and release the music in 1999 on my own label, Out Of The Blue Music. Yankee Cowboy became the title song of the project, and spawned a series of Billy Buffalo Bands with various musicians from the Fort Dodge area like Larry ( Dolor ) Brian Nelson, Dave Steen, Herb Dreasler, Dave Hearn, Kris Karr, Lloyd “Abe” Abraham, Jeff Foreman, & Erick Hovey. Here’s a video from the Country Showdown held at the Starlight Village in 1981. That’s Dave Steen on lead guitar, Dolor Adams on drums, and Brian Nelson on bass.

My memory is a little fuzzy, but sometime in the eighties Kirk Kaufman came up with the idea to produce a pilot TV program called The Yankee Cowboy Show. We wanted to create a series of programs which would feature my original music and be a little mysterious too…..a like a cowboy Twilight Zone. We got Kevin Weinzetl from Fonda to play the part of the Yankee Cowboy, and Merle Smith to be the mysterious gold miner. Kirk and Kevin drove all the way out to the Badlands in South Dakota to film some of the scenes….the rest were shot around Lehigh, Iowa and out at the studio in Otho. Unfortunately no one wanted to step up and fund the project, but it was sure fun making it.

In 2002 a talented young singer named Julie McCloud from Iowa found her way to the recording studio in Otho, and Kirk Kaufman and I convinced her to try her hand at a few of my original songs. We altered the lyrics slightly and had her sing a rough demo of “Yankee Cowgirl”. She did a great job on it!

Julie McCloud

In 2010 I played a gig at the Wild Burro Bookstore in Hot Springs, South Dakota with fiddle legend Kenny Putnam and James Bingham on bass and acoustic guitar. Please enjoy this video shot by Debbie on our Flip camera.

In 2020 I learned that a musical couple The Mitguards from Colorado wanted to release a version of Yankee Cowboy on their new CD called Cast Your Shadow. It was fun to hear it….and I finally learned that a “cow” is not a “him”….

So that’s about it for the Yankee Cowboy Story so far. ( 9/4/2024 ) Stay tuned for further developments. Thanks for checking out my Substack posts, and hope you consider getting on my free mailing list. Special thanks for those able to help support my music habit by signing on as paid subscribers! Muchos Gratias!