Gene Autry Centennial: Back in the Saddle Again
Edward Morris
December 12, 2007
Throughout 2007, the centennial year of Gene Autry's birth, fans and historians recalled the course-changing impact this "singing cowboy" had on Country Music. Autry was the original "hat act" and the man who cemented the "Western" in what used to be called Country and Western Music. As such, he is the subject of recent full-length biographies, a film book, tribute albums, a major museum exhibit and other celebrations.
According to historian Douglas B. Green, best known as "Ranger Doug" of Riders In The Sky, Autry's contribution to Country Music was to "popularize it to a whole subset of American culture that wouldn't have cared much about it if he hadn't come along. . He already had a million-selling record in the Country field, such as it was in the day, when he started making movies. He was a big, big Country star of his era. He was the next Jimmie Rodgers, I think, in everyone's mind, until he took the turn to Westerns."
Orvon Grover Autry was born on Sept. 29, 1907, a few miles outside of Tioga, Texas, to a father who dealt in livestock with varying degrees of financial success and a mother who would teach him to play guitar. The family's shaky economic footing, his biographers have said, endowed the youngster with a zeal for security. "It always surprises me when people seem surprised by my success in business," Autry wrote in his memoir, Back in the Saddle Again. "Actually working with numbers was what I did best. What I did less well was sing, act and play the guitar."
In 1928, by which time he had become serious about performing, Autry took time off from his job as a railroad telegrapher and went to New York. His plans were to seek a job in radio and possibly win a recording contract. While neither transpired, he did make some music business contacts, who encouraged him to polish his act and find his own style. He returned to New York the following year and made his first recordings for Columbia Records. At that time, he was clearly under the sway of Jimmie Rodgers; it would take a few more years for his Western persona to develop.
Autry scored his first hit in 1932 with "That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine," a duet he recorded with his mentor, Jimmy Long. At about the same time, the singer joined the cast of the WLS "National Barn Dance" radio show in Chicago, a move that would expand the market for his songs, recordings, songbooks and personalized guitars to millions of fans. His growing popularity earned him a singing role in Ken Maynard's 1934 movie, "In Old Santa Fe." The next year saw him star in the bizarre sci-fi Western serial, "The Phantom Empire." From there, it was just a short gallop to cowboy mega stardom. Autry appeared in 93 feature films in addition to the public listening to him on his "Melody Ranch" radio show broadcast weekly on the CBS Radio Network from 1940 to 1956.
In a 1982 review of reissued albums of cowboy music, New York Times critic Robert Shelton noted, "The Hollywood success of Gene Autry and Roy Rogers had an important side effect. White rural musicians, who had tended to dress in demeaning hillbilly costumes or in casual work clothes when they performed in the 1920s, suddenly began buying Stetson hats, chaps, colorfully embroidered Western shirts and other dude cowboy paraphernalia."
Although the business-savvy Autry would branch from movies into many other enterprises, including ownership of the California Angels baseball team, music remained a mainstay of his career into the 1950s. Autry made 640 recordings, nearly half of which he wrote or co-wrote, which sold in excess of 100 million copies, including the first single ever commemorated as Gold. His classics included "The Last Roundup" (1933), "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" (1935), "South of the Border" (1939), "Back in the Saddle Again" (1940), "Don't Fence Me In" and "At Mail Call Today" (1945), "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You" (1946), "Here Comes Santa Claus (Right Down Santa Claus Lane)" (1948), "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" (1949) and "Peter Cottontail" and "Frosty the Snow Man" (1950).
Country artists as varied as the rough-hewn Johnny Cash and the smooth-crooning Marty Robbins looked to Autry as a musical and stylistic role model. He was the first major movie star to produce and star in a weekly television series and he is the only entertainer to have all five stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: one each for radio, recording, motion pictures, television and live theatre/performance. Inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1969, Autry died in 1998 at the age of 91.
To remind generations who never heard Autry in his prime of his significance to Country Music, Rounder Records has reissued Riders In The Sky's 1996 album, Public Cowboy No. 1. Newly subtitled a Centennial Salute to Gene Autry, it became the focal point of this year's Riders' tour, which included a stop at the Hollywood Bowl for a performance of Autry's music with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Riders In The Sky also contributed a track to Boots Too Big to Fill: A Tribute to Gene Autry, released in June by Rainy Day Records. This collection of Western standards features performances by John Anderson, Glen Campbell, Charlie Daniels, Vince Gill, Connie Smith, Marty Stuart, Pam Tillis, Ian Tyson and several others, including Charlotte Autry, a cousin to Gene, and a more distant relative, Fresno Mayor Alan Autry.
Two recent Autry biographies - Holly George-Warren's Public Cowboy No. 1: The Life and Times of Gene Autry and Don Cusic's Gene Autry: His Life and Career - both dig deeper into the singer's background than he did in his own 1978 memoir. "Throughout his long life," Ranger Doug observed in his Singing in the Saddle: The History of the Singing Cowboy, "Autry remained indifferent about discussing his music and the passion that drove him as a youth. His autobiography hardly touched on his musical origins."
"Gene Autry changed the look of Country Music," said Cusic, a professor in Belmont University's Mike Curb College of Entertainment & Music Business in Nashville. "The most enduring symbol of Country Music is the cowboy, and Autry is responsible for that, although of course he didn't do it by himself. The story of Country Music can be seen as the story of a fight for respect, and Autry gave Country Music a lot of respect. He made it appealing to young people growing up in the city, and he represented wholesome values and a 'do the right thing' ethos."
Two museums observed the Autry centennial year through special programs. The Gene Autry Oklahoma Museum, located appropriately in Gene Autry, Okla., staged a five-day film and music festival in September, with concerts by Riders In The Sky. Also featured on the program was Johnny Western, who had toured with Autry in the '50s and remained his lifelong friend. Other festival highlights included appearances by Western actors James Drury, Dick Jones and Dale Robertson.
Meanwhile, the Autry National Center in Los Angeles, formerly the Gene Autry Museum of Western Heritage, continues to showcase its exhibit, "Gene Autry and the Twentieth Century West," through Jan. 13, 2008.
Perhaps the most succinct summation of the man who rode the magnificent horse Champion to glory is inscribed on his plaque at the Country Music Hall of Fame. It says, in part: "America's great singing cowboy paved the way for others with his Western songs on radio and in the movies, where he set box office records. He was among the first Country and Western performers to win world-wide acclaim. Born a cowboy, he overcame every adversity to move to the top of his field, always lending dignity to the industry."
On the Web: www.geneautry.com, www.autrynationalcenter.org, www.geneautryokmuseum.com
2007 CMA Close Up News Service / Country Music Association, Inc.
According to historian Douglas B. Green, best known as "Ranger Doug" of Riders In The Sky, Autry's contribution to Country Music was to "popularize it to a whole subset of American culture that wouldn't have cared much about it if he hadn't come along. . He already had a million-selling record in the Country field, such as it was in the day, when he started making movies. He was a big, big Country star of his era. He was the next Jimmie Rodgers, I think, in everyone's mind, until he took the turn to Westerns."
Orvon Grover Autry was born on Sept. 29, 1907, a few miles outside of Tioga, Texas, to a father who dealt in livestock with varying degrees of financial success and a mother who would teach him to play guitar. The family's shaky economic footing, his biographers have said, endowed the youngster with a zeal for security. "It always surprises me when people seem surprised by my success in business," Autry wrote in his memoir, Back in the Saddle Again. "Actually working with numbers was what I did best. What I did less well was sing, act and play the guitar."
In 1928, by which time he had become serious about performing, Autry took time off from his job as a railroad telegrapher and went to New York. His plans were to seek a job in radio and possibly win a recording contract. While neither transpired, he did make some music business contacts, who encouraged him to polish his act and find his own style. He returned to New York the following year and made his first recordings for Columbia Records. At that time, he was clearly under the sway of Jimmie Rodgers; it would take a few more years for his Western persona to develop.
Autry scored his first hit in 1932 with "That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine," a duet he recorded with his mentor, Jimmy Long. At about the same time, the singer joined the cast of the WLS "National Barn Dance" radio show in Chicago, a move that would expand the market for his songs, recordings, songbooks and personalized guitars to millions of fans. His growing popularity earned him a singing role in Ken Maynard's 1934 movie, "In Old Santa Fe." The next year saw him star in the bizarre sci-fi Western serial, "The Phantom Empire." From there, it was just a short gallop to cowboy mega stardom. Autry appeared in 93 feature films in addition to the public listening to him on his "Melody Ranch" radio show broadcast weekly on the CBS Radio Network from 1940 to 1956.
In a 1982 review of reissued albums of cowboy music, New York Times critic Robert Shelton noted, "The Hollywood success of Gene Autry and Roy Rogers had an important side effect. White rural musicians, who had tended to dress in demeaning hillbilly costumes or in casual work clothes when they performed in the 1920s, suddenly began buying Stetson hats, chaps, colorfully embroidered Western shirts and other dude cowboy paraphernalia."
Although the business-savvy Autry would branch from movies into many other enterprises, including ownership of the California Angels baseball team, music remained a mainstay of his career into the 1950s. Autry made 640 recordings, nearly half of which he wrote or co-wrote, which sold in excess of 100 million copies, including the first single ever commemorated as Gold. His classics included "The Last Roundup" (1933), "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" (1935), "South of the Border" (1939), "Back in the Saddle Again" (1940), "Don't Fence Me In" and "At Mail Call Today" (1945), "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You" (1946), "Here Comes Santa Claus (Right Down Santa Claus Lane)" (1948), "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" (1949) and "Peter Cottontail" and "Frosty the Snow Man" (1950).
Country artists as varied as the rough-hewn Johnny Cash and the smooth-crooning Marty Robbins looked to Autry as a musical and stylistic role model. He was the first major movie star to produce and star in a weekly television series and he is the only entertainer to have all five stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: one each for radio, recording, motion pictures, television and live theatre/performance. Inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1969, Autry died in 1998 at the age of 91.
To remind generations who never heard Autry in his prime of his significance to Country Music, Rounder Records has reissued Riders In The Sky's 1996 album, Public Cowboy No. 1. Newly subtitled a Centennial Salute to Gene Autry, it became the focal point of this year's Riders' tour, which included a stop at the Hollywood Bowl for a performance of Autry's music with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Riders In The Sky also contributed a track to Boots Too Big to Fill: A Tribute to Gene Autry, released in June by Rainy Day Records. This collection of Western standards features performances by John Anderson, Glen Campbell, Charlie Daniels, Vince Gill, Connie Smith, Marty Stuart, Pam Tillis, Ian Tyson and several others, including Charlotte Autry, a cousin to Gene, and a more distant relative, Fresno Mayor Alan Autry.
Two recent Autry biographies - Holly George-Warren's Public Cowboy No. 1: The Life and Times of Gene Autry and Don Cusic's Gene Autry: His Life and Career - both dig deeper into the singer's background than he did in his own 1978 memoir. "Throughout his long life," Ranger Doug observed in his Singing in the Saddle: The History of the Singing Cowboy, "Autry remained indifferent about discussing his music and the passion that drove him as a youth. His autobiography hardly touched on his musical origins."
"Gene Autry changed the look of Country Music," said Cusic, a professor in Belmont University's Mike Curb College of Entertainment & Music Business in Nashville. "The most enduring symbol of Country Music is the cowboy, and Autry is responsible for that, although of course he didn't do it by himself. The story of Country Music can be seen as the story of a fight for respect, and Autry gave Country Music a lot of respect. He made it appealing to young people growing up in the city, and he represented wholesome values and a 'do the right thing' ethos."
Two museums observed the Autry centennial year through special programs. The Gene Autry Oklahoma Museum, located appropriately in Gene Autry, Okla., staged a five-day film and music festival in September, with concerts by Riders In The Sky. Also featured on the program was Johnny Western, who had toured with Autry in the '50s and remained his lifelong friend. Other festival highlights included appearances by Western actors James Drury, Dick Jones and Dale Robertson.
Meanwhile, the Autry National Center in Los Angeles, formerly the Gene Autry Museum of Western Heritage, continues to showcase its exhibit, "Gene Autry and the Twentieth Century West," through Jan. 13, 2008.
Perhaps the most succinct summation of the man who rode the magnificent horse Champion to glory is inscribed on his plaque at the Country Music Hall of Fame. It says, in part: "America's great singing cowboy paved the way for others with his Western songs on radio and in the movies, where he set box office records. He was among the first Country and Western performers to win world-wide acclaim. Born a cowboy, he overcame every adversity to move to the top of his field, always lending dignity to the industry."
On the Web: www.geneautry.com, www.autrynationalcenter.org, www.geneautryokmuseum.com
2007 CMA Close Up News Service / Country Music Association, Inc.
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