When I was A Cowboy    (Click on title to listen to the song)

This song is public domain, which means that its origin is unknown. The artist can claim the writing and publishing credits on their individual recordings only. This one is licensed to John Beland and myself for the Flying Burritos Brothers "Sons of the Golden West" CD. John knew of this song through his good friend Larry Murray who was a part of the 1960's group "Hearts and Flowers" which had recorded the version that we knew. Hearts and Flowers were one of the most eclectic 1960s Californian folk-rock groups, as well as being one of the very first to point the way toward country-rock. .

Over the course of their two Capitol albums, they blended folk, country, and rock with inventive sprinkles of pop and psychedelia on both original material and covers of songs by Donovan, Arlo Guthrie, Hoyt Axton, Gerry Goffin-Carole King, Kaleidoscope, Tim Hardin, and others. As was the way with many such innovative bands of the time, they were lost in the shuffle in an era when rock was expanding furiously in all directions. If they're mentioned at all by historians, it's usually because one of them went on to join a superstar group in the 1970s that played a far slicker variation of the kind of folk-rock pioneered by bands like Hearts and Flowers the previous decade.

Like so many 1960s folk-rock groups, Hearts and Flowers' roots extended deep into the early-1960s folk revival. Larry Murray, who would write more original material on the two Hearts and Flowers albums than any other member, had played bluegrass with Chris Hillman and Bernie Leadon in the Scottsville Squirrel Barkers, who made a rare album in 1962. Murray also played with Hillman in a Randy Sparks-overseen folk outfit called the Green Grass Group before Hillman joined the Byrds. For a brief time Murray played in another group with a young Jennifer Warnes and Peter Sachse, whom he remembers were offered a contract at Columbia by Byrds producer Terry Melcher.
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