The Real Singing Cowboys

The Real Singing Cowboys profiles contemporary cowboy--and cowgirl--singers and musicians who are, or have been, authentic working cowboys or ranchers, or involved in related occupations tied to ranching and cowboy culture. The book includes sixty brief biographies and photos of the singers and musicians, including Glenn Ohrlin, Dave Stamey, Wylie Gustafson, and R.W. Hampton. The stories of traditional occupational songs of working cowboys and how that tradition continues in today’s world provide context for the contemporary performers included in the book. These men, women, and children are, or have been, working cowboys, ranchers, packers, and horse trainers, or have deep roots in cowboy and ranching culture that have shaped and informed their music.

Telling the fabled story of the men and women who shone brightly during the magical era of the singing cowboy movie star, this treasury features such famed cowboy singers as: Gene Autre, Binge Crossly, Dale Evens, Tit Guitar, Dorothy Page, Riders of the Purple Sage, TeX Rita, Marry Robins, Roy Rogers, John Wayne, Ray Whitely, and dozens more.

As the United States expanded west in the 1800s, and cattle became big business, the figure of the young brash cattleman who rode with the herds quickly emerged as a cultural icon. Victorian Americans went crazy for cowboys, snapping up dime-store novels and sheet music, and turning out in droves for Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show. It was only a matter of time before someone brought together these three facets-entertainer, singer, and cowboy. And when Carl T. Sprague recorded the first hit cowboy record ("When the Work's All Done This Fall") in 1925, the singing cowboy as we know him was born. A singing cowboy himself, Douglas B. Green (better known as Ranger Doug from the Grammy-award-winning group Riders In The Sky) is uniquely suited to write the story of the singing cowboy. He has been collecting information and interviews on western music, films, and performers for nearly thirty years. In this volume, he traces this history from the early days of vaudeville and radio, through the heyday of movie westerns before World War II, to the current revival. He provides rich and careful analysis of the studio system that made men such as Gene Autry and Roy Rogers famous, and he documents the role that country music and regional television stations played in carrying on the singing cowboy tradition after World War II. This book, lavishly illustrated with over 140 photos, is a wealth of information that comes out of decades of research. Green has unearthed never-before-published photos and rare movie posters-including one from an all-Black western, Harlem on the Prairie (1938). Through his close friendships with other singing cowboys and their families, Green is able to provide rare insights into the ways that some like Autry became stars and others like Raoul Walsh (who lost his eye in a shooting accident and later became a famous director) did not. Green also traces the history of cowboy music, from popular songs such as "Sweet Betsy from Pike" to the instantly recognizable harmonies of the Sons of the Pioneers. Green even speculates about just when the famous yodel became a ubiquitous part of the singing cowboy's repertoire. More important, Green reveals how the imagery of the singing cowboy has become such a potent force that even now country musicians don cowboy hats so as to symbolically take part in the legend. Nowhere has the recorded history of the singing cowboy and the film history been collected in one volume, and this book is sure to become the resource for students of the style. Co-published with the Country Music Foundation Press

Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Tex Ritter . . . they were the cowboys that everyone loved. Now their magic is captured in a memorable collection of photos, film clips, lobby cards and sheet music. And that's all toppped off with a high-quality compact disc that allows the melodious memories to come racing back. 110 photos, 50 in full-color.

"In this innovative take on a neglected chapter of film history, Peter Stanfield challenges the commonly held view of the singing cowboy as an ephemeral figure of fun and argues instead that he was one of the most important cultural figures to emerge out of the Great Depression.The rural or newly urban working-class families who flocked to see the latest exploits of Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Tex Ritter, andother singing cowboys were an audience largely ignored by mainstreamHollywood film. Hard hit by the depression, faced with the threat--and often the reality--of dispossession and dislocation, pressured to adapt to new ways of living, these small-town filmgoers saw their ambitions, fantasies, and desires embodied in the singing cowboy and their social and political circumstances dramatized in ""B"" Westerns.Stanfield traces the singing cowboy's previously uncharted roots in the performance tradition of blackface minstrelsy and its literary antecedents in dime novels, magazine fiction, and the novels of B. M. Bower, showing how silent cinema conventions, the developing commercial music media, and the prevailing conditions of film production shaped the ""horse opera"" of the 1930s. Cowboy songs offered an alternative to the disruptive modern effects of jazz music, while the series Western--tapping into aesthetic principles shunned by the aspiring middle class--emphasized stunts, fist fights, slapstick comedy, disguises, and hidden identities over narrative logic and character psychology. Singing cowboys also linked recording, radio, publishing, live performance, and film media.Entertaining and thought-provoking, Horse Opera recovers not only the forgotten cowboys of the 1930s but also their forgotten audiences: the ordinary men and women whose lives were brightened by the sights and songs of the singing Western."

The Singing Cowboys is a nostalgic, back-in-the-saddle examination of the musical B-Western films of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s and the singing cowboys that made them so popular. The author, David Rothel, spent a fondly remembered portion of his youth sitting in the Lincoln Theatre in Elyria, Ohio, where the singing cowboys-Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Tex Ritter, and all the rest-played out their adventures and yodeled their songs on the silver screen. Thousands, perhaps millions, of youngsters from that era shared this common experience during their formative years. First published in 1978, The Singing Cowboys has been out of print for many years. Now, Riverwood Press in association with The Lone Pine Museum of Western Film History has republished the book in an updated, expanded, and repackaged edition. We hope you enjoy!