Singing in the Saddle: The History of the Singing Cowboy

By Douglas B. Green

Book Overview

Ranger Doug Green's immensely popular history of Western Music

A singing cowboy himself, Douglas B. Green is uniquely suited to write the story of the singing cowboy, 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 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 the war. Green's story reveals how the imagery of the singing cowboy has become such a potent force that even now country musicians don cowboy hats to symbolically take part in the legend.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0915608456
• ISBN13: 9780915608454
• Release Date: December 2024
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Length: 370 Pages
• Weight: 1.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 7.0" x 10.0"

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!