The long-awaited "Music from CBS Westerns" is a collection of never-before-released original music tracks from three classic western television series produced and broadcast by CBS in the 1950s and 1960s.

Featured are suites from three episodes of Gunsmoke - "Stolen Horses" with music by Jerome Moross, "The Raid" with music by Franz Waxman, and "Harriet" with music by Bernard Herrmann - along with a suite of Hugo Friedhofer's music from the Rawhide episode "Six Weeks to Bent Fork" and Bernard Herrmann's music from the Cimarron Strip episode "Knife in the Darkness."

When The Film Music Society was invited to archive the vast collection of materials of the now-defunct CBS Music Library, the collection had already been looted of many treasures, including the original open-reel tapes of many classic scores. However, acetate discs existed of much of the music recorded over three decades at the network.

This album was drawn from several sources: "Stolen Horses" and "Harriet" came from surprisingly well-preserved acetate discs. "The Raid" was discovered intact on open-reel tapes, as was most of "Six Weeks to Bent Fork" (although the long suspense cue near the end of the score could only be located in acetate form). Similarly, "Knife in the Darkness" was intact on acetates. The Special Collections Department of the UCLA Music Library is now the repository for both the acetates and the tapes - as well as the few surviving manuscripts of original music, much of which was apparently lost or destroyed over the years - and is now in the process of inventorying this important collection.

1. Gunsmoke: Stolen Horses (10:08)
2. Gunsmoke: The Raid (15:56)
3. Gunsmoke: Harriet (10:01)
4. Rawhide: Six Weeks To Bent Fork (12:22)
5. Cimarron Strip: Knife In The Darkness (17:33)