Take Me Back to the Range: Selections from Western Jubilee Recording Company

The Western Jubilee Recording Company is a small label with an exceptional catalog of authentic cowboy music and poetry. Founded in 1996 by Scott O’Malley, Western Jubilee has been based out of a former warehouse of the Santa Fe Railroad in Colorado Springs that doubles as an intimate concert space and recording studio. Its walls adorned with Western paraphernalia, the warehouse, much like the label itself, served as a sanctuary to the deep-rooted and ever-evolving traditions of Western music and folklife. Take Me Back to the Range: Selections from Western Jubilee Recording Company shows the label in its full breadth. From the old-time tunes and historic songs by Norman Blake and Don Edwards to Buckaroo poems from Waddie Mitchell, from Hollywood-styled “Singing Cowboy” songs from Sons of the San Joaquin to the pioneering fusion from the punk-inspired Cowboy Nation, this 18-track compilation, produced to celebrate the label’s acquisition by Smithsonian Folkways, showcases the diversity of sound and voices in cowboy music and poetry, honoring the label that has championed it.