The pictures are fine. They were always...

The pictures are fine. They were always fine. In the Old West, the trouble was always with the sound track.

We’d be sittin’ around the campfire under the stars--me and my madrigal group, the Sons of the Barbed Wire Stringers--drinkin’ coffee and eatin’ beans and workin’ up some nice seven-part harmony when some dang coyote would chime in with an F sharp when it should have been a B flat.

Never knew a coyote yet who could read music.

Then look at this John Clymer exhibit over at my place, the Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum. Yep, that’s the same John Clymer who used to paint all those Saturday Evening Post covers back when I was in knee saddles. Became a noted painter of the West before he cashed in his chips in ’89. More than 50 of his works hangin’ there. With all those historical details just right.

Anyway, look at the picture that shows fur trappers dancin’ at their winter rendezvous. Some galoot’s sawin’ on a fiddle with what looks like an Indian huntin’ bow. Can you imagine the sound of that thing? Almost as bad as these electric git- ars that came along and took the place of the good old, honest, Western Heritage kind I used to play. Must have stampeded every buffalo in miles.

And the one that has Sacajawea, the Indian gal who guided Lewis and Clark, catchin’ her first sight of the Big Water, the Pacific Ocean. Not a condo in sight, either. You can imagine the waves crashin’ and the sea gulls screamin,’ but what that scene really needs is some ghost riders in the sky, singin’ Yippie-i-ay, Yippie-i-oh . Or maybe an angel chorus.

I could have let Clymer have some Angels. Cheap.

“The West of John Clymer” will be on display through Nov. 11 at the Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum, in Griffith Park next to the Los Angeles Zoo. General admission is $5.50 for adults, $4 for seniors and students with valid I.D., and $2.50 for children ages 2 through 12. Parking is free. Information: (213) 667-2000.