COWBOYS: Roping the Real Goods : THE TRUTH ABOUT COWBOYS : OK, So the Roy Rogers Legend Was a Myth; Horse Sense Still Finds Plenty That’s Entertaining About the West

Based strictly on the cowboy’s job description (brand, herd and deliver cattle; repeat the process), there really wasn’t much to recommend him as an American folk hero. Even anthropologist John Greenway, in his book “Folklore of the Great West” (American West Publishing) mused that as “mere caretakers of ambulatory steaks, cowboys should not logically have inspired legend any more than the butchers for whom they indirectly worked.”

Yet for more than 100 years, cowboys have roped in our collective heart and imagination as few others have. In popular novels, Hollywood Westerns and big-budget theme parks, the cowboy has largely been portrayed as an unfettered spirit; his Stetson pulled low over his brow, a .44 in his belt and a song on his lips.

It’s a pretty picture, but a mite inaccurate, says Justin Bishop, founder of Horse Sense, a group of musicians, poets, and yes, cowboys, who keep the tradition of cowboy folk music and verse alive through public performances and workshops. The group will present two family-oriented shows on Sunday in the Orange Coast College Recital Hall in Costa Mesa.

“A lot of the Hollywood stuff painted the cowboy experience as something incredibly rosy . . . just riding your horse and loving everything,” Bishop said. “But really, it was a lot of hard work. The Roy Rogers image of riding along playing guitar, well, there’s just no way that could have happened.”

Joined at OCC by fellow musician Richard Lawrence and poets Wallace McRae and Paul Zarzyski, Bishop will strip away some of Hollywood’s gloss to reveal the history of the real American cowboy experience through music, verse and conversation.

“We might play something like ‘Ghostriders in the Sky’ or some other song that represents a popular image of the West, and compare that with a traditional folk song that covered the same kind of territory, like ‘Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie’ or ‘The Streets of Laredo,’ ” Bishop said. “Both types of songs have to do with the same thing: life after death and worries about whether the guy lived his life well enough to merit it.”

A few contemporary tunes, such as “The Old Double Diamond,” which recounts the auctioning of a failed Wyoming cattle ranch, are also included, along with poems written and performed by McRae, a fourth-generation Montana rancher, and Zarzyski, a rodeo cowboy, and readings from journal entries from early cowboys.

The combination should help listeners of all ages relate more closely to the cowboy way of life, Bishop said.

“Whether they happened out on the trail or to people today, there are certain life experiences that we all share with cowboys,” he noted. “For example, the song ‘Little Joe the Wrangler,’ can really knock the socks off a tough junior high or high school kid because it speaks to him. It’s about a boy who grows up in an abusive household, runs away to a cow outfit and gets a job as a wrangler.

“The whole thing speaks to self-reliance and to the importance of community, of learning to work with people and make things happen. A kid is going to see that human experiences don’t change that much; we can draw on the same well of strengths and values as the cowboys.”

An anthropologist, Bishop once worked as a field researcher for the Smithsonian Institution, combing the San Joaquin Valley in search of musicians carrying on the rural Southern white musical culture, and later serving as on-stage host for some of these groups in performance at the Festival of American Folk Life in Washington.

In 1979, with support from his grandfather, a journalist and author of Western-themed short stories (including one titled “Horse Sense”), he set out on his own as a musician performing cowboy ballads and folk songs.

With musician John Nielson, he started Horse Sense in 1981; the group has since toured Latin America, Asia, Africa, Western Europe, Canada and the United States, primarily through the Arts America program, a wing of the U.S. Information Agency that sponsors artists who “interpret the American experience,” Bishop said. The group’s recordings include “Horse Sense for Kids and Other People,” a 1990 release on the Music for Little People label, and four albums on the Kicking Mule label.

Although his show stresses fact over fiction, Bishop is quick to acknowledge that in the case of the cowboy, the dividing line is not always clear.

“From the moment there were cowboys, there were people writing about them,” Bishop said. “It wouldn’t have been uncommon to see a cowboy seated on a horse, reading a dime novel about a cowboy seated on a horse, and taking the idea of that romanticized cowboy right to heart.

“Cowboys are a real self-conscious breed. They believe they’re real special folks.”

What: Horse Sense.

When: Sunday, Sept. 20, at 1:30 and 4 p.m.

Where: Orange Coast College Recital Hall, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa Mesa.

Whereabouts: Exit the San Diego (405) Freeway at Fairview Road and drive south. Turn right onto the campus at Merrimac Way to parking lot.

Wherewithal: $7 to $11.

Where to call: (714) 432-5880.