Lobo Rangers Sing Praises of Cowboys

Lost love, big trucks and poisoned livers may be the stuff of today’s country songs, but Agoura’s Lobo Rangers honor a different tradition.

“Our music celebrates stuff that happens on the outside, such as cows, horses and nature,” said Dave Bourne, the 58-year-old leader of the five-member band.

Against the backdrop of the Santa Monica Mountains, the group performed an outdoor concert Sunday at the Peter Strauss Ranch in Agoura. The event was organized by the Tarzana-based Topanga Banjo Fiddle Contest & Folk Festival Inc., in cooperation with the National Park Service, which owns the 64-acre ranch. About 100 Lobo Rangers fans showed up.

“I grew up on 1950s television programs, which were mostly western movies, and that’s when I developed a love for western music,” said Linda Cooper Smith of Arcadia, who attended the event with her friend, Jeanelle Robinson, also of Arcadia.

During the one-hour set, the band performed melodic tunes about cowboy life during the Wild West era. In addition, they performed familiar tunes such as Stephen Foster’s “Camptown Races” and Gene Autry’s “Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?”

“This is music designed for western movies of the early 1930s,” said Bourne, the group’s lead singer and guitarist. “It may not be authentic as far as what the real cowboys sang, but it’s very authentic for Hollywood westerns.”

Following the concert, storyteller Ken Graydon, 65, spun tales about the way cowboys really lived in the 19th century.

One dealt with a cowboy named “Bucky” who, in a drunken stupor, hung a nosebag filled with oats on a statue of a horse. The town marshal found out and forced Bucky to remove the nosebag. When he did, Bucky noticed that the container was empty. He looked up at the statue of the horse, which, in turn, winked at him.

“At that point, he figures this is enough to make him stop drinking,” Graydon said.