May 2018 10 It was the classic tale of Romeo and Juliet come to real life in Outlaw- ridden Oklahoma in Old West times except that while “Juliet” did live on to a ripe old age, “Romeo” was gunned down by her own brothers! The story is about how it inspired a couple of country rock musicians from the Eagles and Poco to put it to music but before we look at the two particular songs and their connection to real Old West history – one written and sung by Bernie Leadon of the Eagles, the other one written by Rusty Young from Poco, it might be of interest to see how the tale of the doomed George “Bitter Creek” Newcomb and his star-crossed lover Rose “Rose of Cimarron” Dunn inspired their creation. Here’s the story… Famed singer-songwriter Jackson Browne received a unique present from fellow L.A. singer-songwriter Ned Doheny on the occasion of his 21st birthday back in 1969. It was a coffee table book with a stark dark cover illuminating only the red lettering of its title – “The Album of Gunfighters” – and the yellow line drawing of a gunfighter ready to shoot. Browne excitedly showed the book and its photographs of famous lawmen and outlaws portrayed as they were in life – and in the cases of most of the outlaws in death - to the two other young men sharing a studio apartment, downstairs from him, in Echo Park on the outskirts of downtown Los Angeles. The two other men were also singer-songwriters and their names were Glenn Lewis Frey and John David Souther. Frey and Souther had formed a folk country rock duo called “Longbranch Pennywhistle” and had been playing around the folk clubs in the Los Angeles area while Browne, who had recently left the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, had himself been making some noise with his song “These Days”. The three men perused through “The Album of Gunfighters” paying special attention to the portraits of Bill Doolin and his fellow members of the Doolin- Dalton gang. It is very doubtful that the idea of recording a musical epic centered on the members of that doomed Oklahoma gang came to them that very evening, but nonetheless, the seeds of an idea began to germinate that night. Flash forward almost four years. Borrowing heavily on those photos of the doomed Bill Doolin-Bill Dalton gang seen in the “Album of Gunfighters” book, Frey’s band now known as the Eagles - Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Randy Meisner, and Bernie Leadon (with great help from Jackson Browne and J.D. Souther) went to London to record their second, and only conceptual album, “Desperado” – a chronicle of the rise and fall of that Doolin-Dalton gang. While on the surface there was more of an emphasis of the modern-day country rockers being the new “Outlaws” it could not be denied that the Eagles musically told the story of the Doolin-Daltons from the bloody aftermath of the Coffeyville fiasco to their fearsome reputation robbing banks, then climaxing with that September 1, 1893 shootout on the streets of Ingalls, Oklahoma. That shootout was the beginning of the end of the Doolin-Dalton gang as one by one, they were tracked down by the famed “Oklahoma Guardsmen”, U.S. Deputy Marshals Bill Tilghman, Heck Thomas, Chris Madsen, Bud Ledbetter, and their associates. Almost all of them fell to the blast of a shotgun only two years after the Ingalls shootout. While the Eagles never did exactly set the demise of the gang to music, there were more than a few hints of their eventual fate in the title song, the climactic musical epic known as “Doolin-Dalton (reprise) – Desperado”. While the Eagles failed to mention the names of the majority of the gang outside of Bill Doolin and Bill Dalton, they did make one notable exception. One of the Doolin- Dalton gang members was a young cowboy known as George Newcomb, who chose the outlaw life first joining up with the original Dalton gang and along with Bill Doolin narrowly avoided the slaughter at Coffeyville. Somehow he got the moniker of “Bitter Creek” – and somehow Eagles guitarist Bernie Leadon took an interest in his story and set it to music, making Bitter Creek Newcomb the only other member of the Doolin-Dalton gang named in a song. Bitter Creek was considered to be a bit of a “Romeo” but he actually had a “Juliet”, a young girl described by none other than Bill Doolin himself before he was shot down to be a “sweet little girl who unfortunately fell in love with an outlaw.” So when Bitter Creek rode with the Doolin-Daltons into the gun inferno known as the Ingalls shootout and was severely wounded, it was this “sweet little girl” who rushed to his side. She was 15 year old Rose Dunn, who had of two opportunistic brothers that had temporarily tied their fortunes to the gang, and she was the lover of Bitter Creek. He adored her and she worshiped him so much that during a lull in the afternoon shootout, she calmly walked out of a barn with bullets flying all around her to carry buckets of ammunition to the besieged robbers while the U.S. Marshals, one of them Jim Masterson, the brother of the more famous Bat, looked on in amazement. She briefly treated her wounded lover, and then watched as he and the other outlaws escaped out the back. With the law, especially those three “Oklahoma Royal Guardsmen” – Tilghman, Thomas and Madsen on their tail, the gang would soon break up with each man going his own way, and each of them, in fact, all 11 of them, inevitably falling to “lead poisoning” within the next two years. None more tragically than “Bitter Creek” Newcomb along with his sidekick and fellow gang member Charlie Pierce, who for those next two years were alternately on the run or hiding out at the Dunn ranch. Bitter Creek’s “Juliet” would live a long life and marry well. Her “Romeo”, the man she was first in love with, would fall victim, along with Charlie Pierce, to the guns of her own “ne’er do well” brothers. For when the treacherous Dunn brothers caught wind of the reward money for Bitter Creek and Charlie Pierce – DEAD OR ALIVE – they contacted guardsmen Heck Thomas, informing him that those two particular fugitives kept going in and out of their home, and set a trap for them. On a July evening in 1895, almost two years after the Ingalls shootout, the two outlaws returned to the Dunn ranch and were promptly gunned down without a chance to respond by the Dunn brothers –probably without Rose’s knowledge who put money before their sister’s love. It was either outside of the ranch or as some sources state, while they were about to sleep. Pretty Rose Dunn would forget her dead boyfriend; marry well to an Oklahoma politician. She would become known as the “Rose of the Cimarron” and live to a ripe old age. And thus Bitter Creek Newcomb’s paramour would inspire the Eagles’ contemporaries, Poco, and most notably their steel guitar player, Rusty Young, to compose a song about her; just three years after the Eagles memorialized her “Bitter Creek”. Poco recorded it with future Eagle Timothy B. Schmit on vocals, and so did the “Queen” of Country herself, Emmylou Harris. So there you have it. The true tale of the “Romeo and Juliet” of the outlaw West who influenced and inspired two great American country rock bands to chronicle their lives. The short of one of “Romeo” Bitter Creek Newcomb and the long one of his “Juliet” – the Rose of Cimarron. Links: Eagles “Bitter Creek” - 1973: Bernie Leadon, Lead Vocals, Lead Guitar, Banjo; Randy Meisner, Vocals, Bass; Glenn Frey, (rip) Vocals, Guitar; Don Henley, Drums; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vQU8YSGZ64. Poco - “Rose of Cimarron” - 1976: Paul Cotton, 1st Lead Vocals, Lead Guitar; Timothy B. Schmit, 2nd Lead Vocals, Bass; Rusty Young, Pedal Steel; George Grantham, Vocals, Drums; Al Garth, Vocals, Fiddle, Flute, Keyboards; https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=JF91ul0ZR64. By Alan Rockman When Country Rock Musical Art Imitated Real Life In The Old West Above: Rose, the mystery woman. Right: There was a $5,000 bounty on Bitter Creek’s head.