Singing Cowboys tells the fabled story of the men and women who shone brightly during the magical era of the singing cowboy movie star. It was an era when Western heroes sang and yodeled as well as threw punches and drew six-guns; an era where for a time nearly half the Western films churned out in Hollywood's golden age either featured a singer as a hero, or had singing second leads or singing ranch hands to provide that dreamy, romantic, exquisitely beautiful music we now think of as western.

 

Follow the singing cowboy movie fad, from Gene Autry's first films in 1935 to Marty Robbins' drive-in quickie movies in 1959. Singing Cowboys recalls with fondness the stories of nearly sixty men, women, and groups who embodied the singing cowboy tradition, from Tex Ritter to Dale Evans. All the biggest stars are included, as are many great old-timey artists whose names are not so well known. Their voices and images filled an entire generation with optimism and hope, and encouraged us all to dream big-the "cowboy way."

Featuring such famed cowboy singers as:
Gene Autry
Bing Crosby
Dale Evans
Tito Guizar
Dorothy Page
Riders of the Purple Sage
Tex Ritter
Marty Robbins
Roy Rogers
John Wayne
Ray Whitley
and dozens more!

 

About the Author:
Douglas B. Green supports his literary career moonlighting as singer, guitarist, and songwriter "Ranger Doug" with Riders In The Sky, a western music band that has30+ albums to its credit and has won two Grammy awards. Green is the author of numberous articles, album liner notes, and book chapters in anthologies, as well as three other books, Country Roots (1976) and Singing in the Saddle (2002), which won a Wrangler Award and the Belmont Book Award. His most recent publication Classic Country Singers was released in 2008.
 

When not on tour, he lives just down the Granny White Pike from Eddy Arnold in Brentwood, Tennessee.

 

Hardcover. 144 pgs. CD.