The music
Cowboy songs after supper
Where cowboy songs came from, why a fiddle belongs at a chuckwagon supper, and what kind of family variety hour the house band plays near Rapid City.
Pick a supper night ↗Quick answer
The hour after supper is a family variety show by the house band: the operator bills Western classics, rock and roll, show tunes and cowboy comedy, with sing-alongs and some audience participation. Its roots are older. Western music grew from the songs of people who settled and worked the West, cowboy songs sung around campfires, played on instruments like the fiddle, banjo and guitar.
What the hour holds
After supper the house band plays for about an hour on a stage under the covered pavilion. The operator describes a song list running from Western classics to rock and roll and show tunes, with family-friendly jokes, sing-alongs, musical storytelling and moments when the audience is invited to join in. Guests mention a wide spread of styles, songs most people know, and the fiddle in particular. The band chooses the songs, so expect the format of the show to hold, not a fixed list.
Where cowboy songs came from
Western music, also called cowboy music, is music made by and about the people who settled and worked the Western United States and Western Canada. It celebrates life on the open range and the prairies. Some songs came from cowboys on isolated ranches who reworked folk and popular tunes to describe their own lives. Others told of pioneers, outlaws, miners and Texas Rangers. Cowboy songs sung around nineteenth-century campfires can often be traced back to European folk songs.
The calls and the waltzes
Cowboy song choruses often carried whoops, cries and yells, echoing the solitude of the work, and songs of that kind were said to calm restless cattle at night; they were known as dogie songs. Several favourites, including Home on the Range, are in three-quarter time, a waltz rhythm that owes more to old European dance music than to anything on a cattle drive. Western music also drew on the blues and other African-American folk traditions, and on music from northern Mexico.
The fiddle and its company
Instruments that travelled to the frontier, and so into Western music, include the fiddle, harmonica, banjo, guitar and mandolin, and accordions arrived with German and Bohemian immigrants. That is why a fiddle at a chuckwagon supper feels right: it is one of the instruments the music grew up with. In the twentieth century the industry grouped Western music with similar rural styles under the banner of country and western, later shortened to country music.
The variety-show tradition
The operator bills its evening as a Branson-style variety show, after the town in the Ozarks that built its name on live music. Branson’s first theatre opened in 1934, family shows moved onto its main highway strip from 1967, and in 1991 the television programme 60 Minutes called the town the live music capital of the entire universe. A variety hour, in that tradition, mixes songs with comedy and talk to the room, which suits a supper crowd of all ages.
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Songs the hills remember
Western music covers more than cattle work. Alongside songs of the range and the trail, the genre takes in songs about pioneers, outlaws, Native Americans, nature and miners rushing for gold, which is the story of the Black Hills themselves: the gold rush of the 1870s brought the miners who founded Rapid City. A band playing to a supper crowd here is drawing on the same mix of stories, even when the set list swings to rock and roll.
Making the most of the hour
Sit where the children can see the stage, be ready to clap along, and do not be surprised if someone at your table is pulled into a bit of the act; audience participation is part of the show. If you want to record a song, keep it short so you do not block the view behind you. The hour ends mid-evening, and the ride back to Rapid City follows soon after, so there is no need to rush supper to get a good seat.
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