page_title: Singing cowboy
section_title: Other
hierarchical_section_title: Singing cowboy / Notable actors / Other
caption_attribution_description: English: Snapshot from Oh, Susanna! (1936)
context_page_description: A singing cowboy was a subtype of the archetypal cowboy hero of early Western films, popularized by many of the B-movies of the 1930s and 1940s. The typical singing cowboys were white-hat-wearing, clean-shaven heroes with the habit of showing their emotions in song.
  Around the campfire, the original cowboys sang of life on the trail with all the challenges, hardships, and dangers encountered while pushing cattle for miles up the trails and across the prairies. While much of what is included in the genre of "cowboy music" is "traditional", a number of songs have been written and made famous by groups like the Sons of the Pioneers and Riders in the Sky and individual performers such as Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Tex Ritter, Bob Baker and other "singing cowboys". Singing in the wrangler style, these entertainers have served to preserve the cowboy as a unique American hero.
  The image of the singing cowboy was established in 1925 when Carl T. Sprague of Texas recorded the first cowboy song, "When the Work's All Done This Fall". A year later, John I.
context_section_description: Other notable actors who became famous as singing cowboys were Jimmy Wakely and John 'Dusty' King who appeared in the Range Busters series. Non-singing cowboy actors such as Buck Jones complained that producers would find it too easy to pad out the length of a film with songs rather than action, characterization, or plot exposition.
  With the advent of television, the making of B-movies dropped off and the era of singing cowboys was coming to an end. Autry and Rogers went on to star in The Gene Autry Show and The Roy Rogers Show, respectively, but the series' runs ended by the close of the decade (1950s), and the singing cowboy gradually ceased to exist in popular culture except as an exercise in nostalgia. Though he did not appear in the film, Tex Ritter sang the continuing ballad of High Noon.
  The singing cowboy image has since been parodied, most notably in the 1985 film Rustlers' Rhapsody, with Tom Berenger portraying a stereotypical singing cowboy, and in the Pixar film Toy Story 2. The Coen Brothers use singing cowboys in two films. Alden Ehrenreich portrays singing cowboy Hobie Doyle in their 2016 movie Hail, Caesar!, and Tim Blake Nelson portrays the title character in their 2018 movie The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. The musical group Riders in the Sky continues the tradition of the singing cowboy today.
  Don Edwards
  Stuart Hamblen
  Kirby Grant
  Monte Hale
  Jorge Negrete
  Carl T. Sprague
  Dick Thomas
caption: Autry in 1936
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