Soundtrack to ‘Home on the Range’ to be released
And now, there is the soundtrack.
The “Home on the Range” soundtrack album will be released on Friday. It features 15 songs from the movie or inspired by it, with artists such as cowboy singer Michael Martin Murphey and the rock group Kansas.
“I had an idea of an album around the song ‘Home on the Range’ even before the film,” said Orin Friesen, the movie’s music director and retired operations manager at the Prairie Rose Chuckwagon Supper near Benton.
The song “Home on the Range” is featured several times on the album, in different versions and as it evolved through the years. It is sung by Murphey, the Sons of the Pioneers, Barry Ward and Rex Allen Jr., Hot Rize, Riders in the Sky, Uche, the Green Flamingos and Kansas.
A few of the other songs include “Keep on the Sunny Side,” by the McKinney Sisters; “My Western Home,” by Noah Trimmell and Elania Henry; “Prairie Home Lullaby,” by the Cherokee Maidens; and “I am Going to the West,” by Connie Dover.
“When you do a film about a song, obviously music has to play an important role in the story,” said Ken Spurgeon, the movie’s director.
“One thing that helped us was hearing so many stories of the song sung from different parts of the world and the different way it evolved through time. It doesn’t sound the same in 1880 as it did in 1937.”
The movie, which premiered in January at the Orpheum Theatre, tells how “Home on the Range” became one of the world’s best-known folk songs. It chronicles the song that sprang up on the Kansas prairie and quickly made its way along cattle trails to cowtowns, gaining national popularity with the advent of radio.
The story also includes how it was nearly stolen from Kansas, was prohibited from being played and how it took an NBC attorney from New York City to track down its true history.
“The hook is the lawsuit of 1934 and how a couple from Arizona sued 30 entities, including NBC and Bing Crosby,” Spurgeon said. “In the movie, each of the characters tell the story.”
Scenes were shot at Old Cowtown Museum, the old Sedgwick County Courthouse and at some private locations in Sedgwick County, as well as at the historic cabin where the song was written in 1872 by Brewster Higley in Smith County.
The “Home on the Range” album will be available for sale at any of the public playings of the Prairie Rose Rangers, online at www.lonechimneyfilms.org and on iTunes.
Proceeds from the soundtrack will go to two nonprofit groups: the People’s Heartland Foundation, which maintains the “Home on the Range” cabin and grounds in Smith County, and to Lone Chimney Films. Cost is $15.
“So many people have responded to the rich history of the song and how the music was transported through time,” Spurgeon said. “Some people are surprised the song was that popular and it didn’t just go from pioneer moment to our state song.”
Beccy Tanner: 316-268-6336, @beccytanner
This story was originally published March 5, 2017, 8:01 PM.
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