“Colorado Morton’s Ride”
Folklife Today Podcast
English - April 30, 2021 14:00 - 11 minutes - 10.8 MB - ★★★★★ - 18 ratingsBooks Arts library of congress loc folklife today american folklife center folklife cultural traditions oral history music songs storytelling Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Previous Episode: The Green Book and African American Travel with Candacy Taylor
This episode Presents the poem “Colorado Morton’s Ride,” also known as “Colorado Morton’s Last Ride.” It’s a ten-minute narrative poem recited by Fred Soule at the Farm Security Administration (FSA) camp in Visalia, California on September 2, 1941. The poem was recorded on an instantaneous disc by Charles Todd and Robert Sonkin, two fieldworkers collecting folksongs for the Library of Congress. It was written by Pulitzer-Prize-winning poet Leonard Bacon and Montana Cowboy Rivers Browne. It’s a great, colorful example of cowboy poetry, and we hope you enjoy it.