Jack Thorp rode for cattle companies in the last years of what was known as the "open range." He would ride looking for stray horses across county and state lines and usually would find them. He also found cowpunchers singing songs he had never heard. In time he went on what he called his "song hunt" riding over 1500 miles through parts of Texas and New Mexico and wrote down what he found in a notebook. He went on to publish the first book focused exclusively on cowboy songs in 1908 and in a sense created the idea of it being a genre unto itself. What he was seeking was cowboy songs and no other. The title of his book reflects this clearly, Songs of the Cowboys. He would expand this collection in 1921 with a second edition published through Houghton Mifflin.

He also published books that tell of his ranching days, Tales of the Chuckwagon, 1926; and an autobiography co-written with Neil Clark, Pardner of the Wind published posthumously in 1945. Jack got around and met some who stand out in the history of the old West, Pat Garrett, Bell Starr, Judge Roy Bean. He befriended other writers, Charlie Siringo, Will James, Eugene Manlove Rhodes and later in his life, J. Frank Dobie who wrote a tribute to Jack in his own book, The Longhorns.

Along with collecting cowboy songs, he wrote some of his own that are still sung today and they are found in his songbooks: "Little Joe the Wrangler", "Chopo", "The Pecos River Queen", "Whose Old Cow?" and "Speckles", all of which ended up in John Lomax's 1910 Cowboy Songs without credit to the author along with other material seemingly lifted entirely from Thorp's book. An annoyed Thorp would later refer to Lomax only as "a very learned professor."

Of the legacy of Jack Thorp, the most revered is his song "Little Joe the Wrangler." It is found in almost every cowboy songbook and has been recorded by many including Jules Vern Allen, Tex Ritter, Cisco Houston, The Sons of the Pioneers, Marty Robbins, Don Edwards, Chris LeDoux, Red Steagall, Michael Martin Murphey, Rex Allen, Rex Allen Jr. & Riders in the Sky. There is even a 1942 motion picture titled Little Joe the Wrangler starring Tex Ritter. Baxter Black says of Little Joe, "America has a wonderful soft spot and a reverence for the downtrodden. And here comes this kid, and suddenly his world changes. Cowboys are taking him in and treating him fair and square. And it's the promise of hope. He now has a future." Recently there was a parody of Little Joe (Surly Joe) sung by Tim Blake Nelson in the 2018 Coen brothers film, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. Little could Jack Thorp have imagined how far his song search would ramble long after he was gone.

Rex Rideout

Awards:

• 2020 Hall of Fame Inductees