Singing in the Saddle by Green, Douglas B.;

Long description:

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.

Table of Contents:

Contents

Preface ix

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction xiii

1. The Lure of the West 1
2. The Cowboy and Song 9
3. Western Music in the Air: Records and Radio to 1934 20
4. The Sons of the Pioneers and Billy Hill: Painting the West in Song 69
5. Western Music Rides to the Big Screen 94
6. Gene Autry: Public Cowboy # 1 120 Sidebar: Gene Autry on the Road 140
7. The Next Generation: Tex Ritter, Roy Rogers, Dick Foran, Ray Whitley, and the Rest of the Posse 149

Sidebar: Tex Ritter on the Road 162

1. Roy Rogers: King of the Cowboys 187
2. High Noon: The Musical Western at Its Zenith 198
3. Riding into the Celluloid Sunset 226
4. In the Ether: Radio, Records, and Television from 1934 275
5. The Fallow Years 305
6. Revival 316

Time Line 325

Notes 335

Bibliography 341

Index 357