Sunday Side Winders!

Cowboy Broadway

simply has to have:

"The Farmer And The Cowman Should Be Friends"

from Oklahoma!

...and "All 'Er Nuthin'" from the same.

Above, Celeste Holm and Lee Dixon,

our very first Ado Annie and Will Parker.

And "Pore Jud Is Daid"

from the movie verion,

with Gordon MacRae and Rod Steiger.

And just think,

Jud could have been played by Eli Wallach or Ernest Bourgnine

....and vying for the part of Curly...James Dean.

Girl Crazy (or in its reincarnated state, Crazy For You)

had cowboys, too.

Above, "Bidin' My Time",

and posed below, Ginger Rodgers, who starred in the

original Broadway production,

along with new-to-the-stage Ethel Merman.

 Then "I'm An Old Cowhand (From The Rio Grande)"...

from the movie Rhythm On The Range,

with Bing (above center),

The Sons Of The Pioneers

(a young Roy Rogers on the right above)

and below,

Martha Raye (center).

Seated with the trumpet...Louis Prima, 

and with the chaps on the left, Leonid Kinskey.

The song was written by Johnny Mercer back in 1936,

and reached #2 on the charts that year,

when singing cowboys were all the rage, I guess! 

Nope, John Cullum wasn't a cowboy in

Shenandoah (1975),

the musical version of the movie.

But he WAS stuck in the middle of the Civil War,

with half of his land (and family) on one side,

half on the other.

We'll hear "Next To Lovin' (I Like Fightin' Best)." 

Music Gary Geld and Peter Udell.

More Johnny Mercer, this time writing lyrics for the tunes

of Gene de Paul,

for Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, 1954.

Above, Howard Keel and Jane Powell, "our stars",

and below those Lonesome Polecat Brothers.

Can you tell it's a set. Yes, you can tell.

My favorite polecat,

Tommy Rall,

who also starred as Bill Calhoun in Kiss Me, Kate (1953)

opposite Ann Miller,

and danced opposite Bob Fosse

in My Sister, Eileen (1955).

And that marvelous barn dance,

with Tommy in red, and Matt Mattox in yellow.

Choreography (and barn raising)

brought to you by Michael Kidd,

who originally turned down the opportunity:

"Here are these slobs living off in the woods. 

They have no schooling, they are uncouth, there's manure on the floor, 

the cows come in and out – and they're gonna get up and dance? 

We'd be laughed out of the house."

Thankfully (for us) he reconsidered. 

From 2013,

Hands On A Hardbody...

Texans competing for a truck.

Cuz if you live in Texas and you ain't got no truck,

you're stuck.

It starred Keith Carradine 

(3rd from the left),

and had the music of Trey Anastasio and Amanda Green. 

A New York Times reviewer said the show

  "sings sincerely and with a rough-edged humor of the dusty margins of American life."