Singing in the Saddle: The History of the Singing Cowboy

By Douglas B. Green

Book Overview

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

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0826515061
• ISBN13: 9780826515063
• Release Date: October 2005
• Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 7.0" x 9.9"

Customer Reviews

Best History of Singing Cowboys in Existance

Doug Green's love of the singing cowboy is apparent throughout the book, even extending to the humbleness of not covering his own award winning group, Riders in the Sky, in near the detail the group's influence actually is on cowboy music. Going pretty much chronologically from actual cowboys who became singers through today's cowboy troubadours is a happy romp through music history. Those who snipe because he did not confine his work to only movie cowboy singers do not realize that the genre existed before sound movies. What was a local live performance thing, before radio and the recording industry and cinema, has continued to exist even as movie, TV and radio popularity wax and wane. Cowboy music is very much still in the culture of certain places in the US, Canada and Mexico. Ranger Doug covered the subject very well. I highly recommend the book to all who love cowboy music, and to music historians.

Wonderful!

This is a most informative book...with enough information to keep the truly serious Western Music researcher happy, while not "drowning" the average leisure reader with "monotonous" facts. Douglass B. Green (aka: Ranger Doug, "idol of American youth") is a very important figure in the preservation of Western Music History. His book is strong enough to be used as a college text, yet engrossing enough to keep most reading to the very end. This is a most enjoyable book.

An engaging and impressively informative presentation

Singing In The Saddle: The History Of The Singing Cowboy by music historian and performer Douglas B. Green is an engaging and impressively informative presentation of the history of western music, films, and performers of America, both before and after World War II. Black-and-white photographs enhance this avidly detailed and lovingly written survey of an aspect of American Popular culture. Douglas B. Green ("Ranger Doug" from the Grammy Award-wining group Riders in the Sky) is to be commended for his expertise, his ability to write for the non-specialist general reader, and his ability to acquire anecdotal stories and recollections by some of the most experienced and influential members of the "singing cowboy" community.

Essential Singing Cowboy text

Green's Singing in the Saddle provides an articulate wide-ranging history of the Singing Cowboy from its origins in western folk culture to the triumph of the B Westerns. He draws strong portraits of both primary stars and lesser known actors who contributed to the genre. An excellent introduction and a must for country music collections.

The definitive work

Clearly a labor of love, this book covers in detail the history of the singing cowboy in popular music -- and the American imagination. Mini-bios of dozens and dozens of not-so-well-known singers and Western musical groups, in more or less chronological order, stand beside fuller explorations of the work of the Sons of the Pioneers, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and Tex Ritter. Green also puts the singing cowboy phenomenon into cultural context and delineates the shift from ranch-hand songs, to romantic paens about the West itself, to the current mini-renaissance. This is no hard-eyed social history, but an affectionate valentine. My only complaint: Out of humility or whatever, Green gives himself and fellow members of Riders in the Sky relatively little credit for the resurgence of interest in Western music. So let me add a footnote: For many of us out here, Riders in the Sky reawakened long-buried childhood dreams of tumbling tumbleweeds and blue shadows on the trail, making awesome music and contributing some classic songs to the canon themselves. For that -- and this excellent book -- thanks!