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| The scourge of outlaws across the West... |
With this chapter, we enter the world of the Singing Cowboys...
The Basics
Orvon Grover “Gene” Autry was born 1907 and raised on a ranch in North Texas near a town called Tioga; for whatever reason, every source I read mentioned he was the grandson of a Methodist preacher, but only one (Alan Cackett) explained that’s where he learned music (on a mail-order guitar with his mom) and singing (in his grandfather’s choir). Autry started with a day job – as a “relief telegrapher” for the St. Louis & Frisco Railroad – but he kept himself going through the night shift by singing and playing. After a nudge from the famous comedian, Will Rogers, who’d heard him sing, he went to New York City to try to land a spot, but got an encouraging rejection instead – i.e., they told him to come back after a couple years on radio.
Autry started in the Tulsa market and got big enough on KVOO (he was "Oklahoma's Yodeling Cowboy") to due some recording (“My Dreaming of You” and “My Alabama Home,” both with a former co-worker, Jimmie Long) and pad his resume for a return to New York. He arrived just before the 1929 Stock Market Crash and a profound depression in the recording industry, but he made up for that by recording for any label that would have him, at times “cutting masters for five different companies, each of which issued his sides on multiple labels for chain-store distribution.” Because he started in the business before country fully separated from the blues, some of his early tunes (see, “Do Right Daddy Blues”) carried the influence, but he mostly sounded like Jimmie Rodgers (profiled here). Both his sound and image cleaned up over the years, starting in 1933 when he started to play up his cowboy persona (which he’d earned; he did work on a ranch), but he refined it further still over about 20 years first in radio, then the movies, and finally on TV.
The work ethic he brought to his earliest recording work never left him. Over a career that dipped into the early 1950s, Autry made 640 recordings, wrote or co-wrote 300 songs, and he scored more than a dozen gold and platinum records (something I read said he was the first to receive a gold record, but I’ve read that at least three times now). On the back of country hits that include his signature single, “Back in the Saddle Again” (a guy named Ray Whitney wrote that one), “South of the Border (Down Mexico Way),” not to mention just about every mid-century country standard you can name, plus, some of the most famous Christmas songs ever written/recorded – e.g., “Rudolph the Red- Nosed Reindeer,” “Up on the House Top,” and, his own composition, “Here Comes Santa Claus” – Autry’s recordings sold over 100 million copies.
The Basics
Orvon Grover “Gene” Autry was born 1907 and raised on a ranch in North Texas near a town called Tioga; for whatever reason, every source I read mentioned he was the grandson of a Methodist preacher, but only one (Alan Cackett) explained that’s where he learned music (on a mail-order guitar with his mom) and singing (in his grandfather’s choir). Autry started with a day job – as a “relief telegrapher” for the St. Louis & Frisco Railroad – but he kept himself going through the night shift by singing and playing. After a nudge from the famous comedian, Will Rogers, who’d heard him sing, he went to New York City to try to land a spot, but got an encouraging rejection instead – i.e., they told him to come back after a couple years on radio.
Autry started in the Tulsa market and got big enough on KVOO (he was "Oklahoma's Yodeling Cowboy") to due some recording (“My Dreaming of You” and “My Alabama Home,” both with a former co-worker, Jimmie Long) and pad his resume for a return to New York. He arrived just before the 1929 Stock Market Crash and a profound depression in the recording industry, but he made up for that by recording for any label that would have him, at times “cutting masters for five different companies, each of which issued his sides on multiple labels for chain-store distribution.” Because he started in the business before country fully separated from the blues, some of his early tunes (see, “Do Right Daddy Blues”) carried the influence, but he mostly sounded like Jimmie Rodgers (profiled here). Both his sound and image cleaned up over the years, starting in 1933 when he started to play up his cowboy persona (which he’d earned; he did work on a ranch), but he refined it further still over about 20 years first in radio, then the movies, and finally on TV.
The work ethic he brought to his earliest recording work never left him. Over a career that dipped into the early 1950s, Autry made 640 recordings, wrote or co-wrote 300 songs, and he scored more than a dozen gold and platinum records (something I read said he was the first to receive a gold record, but I’ve read that at least three times now). On the back of country hits that include his signature single, “Back in the Saddle Again” (a guy named Ray Whitney wrote that one), “South of the Border (Down Mexico Way),” not to mention just about every mid-century country standard you can name, plus, some of the most famous Christmas songs ever written/recorded – e.g., “Rudolph the Red- Nosed Reindeer,” “Up on the House Top,” and, his own composition, “Here Comes Santa Claus” – Autry’s recordings sold over 100 million copies.
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| The gift before your Red Rider BB gun. |
He also had a massive film career, vying with the other famous Singing Cowboy, Roy Rogers, during the war years and into the 1950s for the crown of “King of the Cowboys.” Autry made 91 feature films, the first half with his long-time friend and original collaborator Lester Alvin “Smiley Burnette,” the second half with a guy named Pat Buttram. In terms of popularity (and bankability) he ranked among the biggest movie stars of his era (e.g., Mickey Rooney, Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy), but he owed a lot of his success to his weekly radio show, Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch, which broadcast from 1940-1956; the show was so popular that even his horse, Champion (and all the successor “Champions”) had radio shows of his(/their) own. On top of all that, he was a merch/business king, selling everything from comic books to those old cast-iron cap gun revolvers with the little red rings. So, naturally, he has honors falling out of his ass - and beyond induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame:
“Autry 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. He was a 33rd Degree Mason and Honorary Inspector General and was given the prestigious award of the Grand Cross of the Court of Honor.”
He broke into TV by the early 1950s and had his own eponymous show, which had a 91-episode run. After stepping away from the camera, Autry switched to producing and had an impressive run of shows there – e.g., Annie Oakley, The Range Rider, Buffalo Bill Jr., The Adventures Of Champion as well as the first 39 episodes of Death Valley Days. Around the same time, he ran his own label Challenge Records (which gave the world “Tequila” by The Champs and that still honors him with a little "GA” in a shield above the label’s name), but his late-life ventures included opening a museum that honors the American West (I know, I know), which now goes by the name Autry’s Museum of the American West (in Griffith Park, LA), and he owned the Los Angeles Angels, which became the Anaheim Angels after their move to the ‘burbs. To sum up that career in two quotes:
“His smooth, relaxed baritone voice extended his appeal to devotees of mainstream pop music, while the down-home warmth of his delivery assured members of the country audience that was one of them. The virtual antithesis of many of today’s vocalists, Autry adhered to the melody line with a total absence of vocal gymnastics or bluesy embellishments, with his clear, straightforward singing evoking both sincerity and serenity.”
And, on that film persona:
“Invariably cast as himself—that is, Gene Autry—a good-natured and unassuming country singer, he was no swaggering superhero, but rather a guileless young man who triumphed against all odds by virtue of his innate goodness. Charismatic and handsome astride his horse, Champion, Autry sprinkled his movies with music, humor (Smiley Burnette was his regular comic sidekick), and a minimum of gunplay.”
A Half Dozen Points of Interest
1) Autry’s Wilder Years
Before he had an image to uphold and a genre that defined him, Autry recorded a wider variety of songs. Some of his later-early songs – “Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine” being the most famous – dealt in themes he wouldn’t touch in later years: “These late Prohibition-era songs deal with bootlegging, corrupt police, and women whose occupation was certainly vice.” Though he was a registered Republican by the end, Autry wrote a tribute to a labor legend titled, “The Death of Mother Jones.”
2) The Dark Back-Story Behind the “King of the Cowboy” “Feud”
When World War II broke out, Autry decided to enlist – and he took it all very seriously (see No. 3). When Republic Studios, the studio that released his movies, caught wind of his choice, they tried to talk him out of it with threats of promoting Roy Rogers as “King of the Cowboys.” On his return from his very real military service, Autry attempted to terminate his contract with Republic (and, if civil courts could weigh assholeism as a factor, he would have had a case). They prevailed and he gave them four more movies, but he switched to Columbia as soon as possible and Buttram as his new side-kick.
3) Again, the Man Took His Service Seriously
With exceptions here and there, most high-profile musicians did (a lot) more entertaining than fighting during World War II (many of them exclusively). Part of Autry service did involve entertainment, but, he also came into the Air Force with time-in as a pilot, so he offered his services:
“During the war, he ferried fuel, ammunition, and arms in the China-India-Burma theater of war and flew over the Himalayas, the hazardous air route known as ‘The Hump.’ When the war ended Autry was reassigned to Special Services, where he toured with a USO troupe in the South Pacific before resuming his movie career in 1946.”
4) The Origin Story for “Here Comes Santa Claus”
Autry served as Grand Marshal for the 1946 Santa Claus Parade in Hollywood. As he rolled along the route, he recalled hearing spectators of all ages shout, “here comes Santa Claus.” He wrote it in 1947 and it became an instant classic the next year.
5) The Ten Cowboy Commandments
When he became popular enough to be role model, Autry took advantage and elaborated on his already squeaky-clean image by giving his young (largely male) fans a code by which to live:
1) The Cowboy must never shoot first, hit a smaller man, or take unfair advantage.
2) He must never go back on his word, or a trust confided in him.
3) He must always tell the truth.
4) He must be gentle with children, the elderly, and animals.
5) He must not advocate or possess racially or religiously intolerant ideas.
6) He must help people in distress.
7) He must be a good worker.
8) He must keep himself clean in thought, speech, action, and personal habits.
9) He must respect women, parents, and his nation's laws.
10) The Cowboy is a patriot.
Would to God today’s country music fans still got excited about any of those besides their Bizarro version of No. 10...
6) Maybe Not So Squeaky Clean...
Autry both worked with and married Ina Mae Spivey – who also happened to be Jimmie Long’s daughter. They married in 1932 and stayed together until her death in 1980, but he had a “sustained affair” with Gail Davis, the actress who played Annie Oakley on a couple of his shows.
Going the other way, that appears to be his only affair, which keeps him closer to the Cowboy Commandments....
Sources
Wikipedia – Gene Autry
Gene Autry Official Bio
AlanCackett.com Bio
Country Music Hall of Fame Bio
About the Sampler
I linked to a half dozen (or so) of the songs on the sampler up above, so I’ll leave them out down here. The rest I split between his early, rawer (and, for me, better) recordings, a kind of a middle passage, and the songs that came in that squeaky-clean hey-day. The chronology isn’t perfect, but it should be close. To list them in that order:
Early, Rawer: “Dallas County Jail Blues,” “T.B. Blues” (this was a cover of a Jimmie Rodgers tune), “The Rheumatism Blues,” “Bear Cat Papa Blues,” and “Wildcat Mama Blues” (which, for the record, mentions Bear Cat Papa).
Middle Passage: “Mexicali Rose,” “Tumbling Tumbleweeds,” “The Yellow Rose of Texas,” and “Amapola (Pretty Little Poppy).”
Hey-Day/Camp: “Buttons and Bows,” “Deep in the Heart of Texas,” “Cowboy’s Trademark” and “The Call of the Canyon.”
I larded the rest with his most famous Christmas tunes (linked to above), and closed out the Gene Autry Sampler with a couple songs – “Dixie Cannonball” and “Back in the Saddle Again” (again) – to show what Autry sounded like when he got his hands on stereo recording and better production options.
All in all, I didn’t find Gene Autry interesting on the usual level you get from musicians – e.g., the rock star, the tortured genius, the shit-stirrer – but, my God, did the man live. And how is it only now that I mention Autry’s considered the second major influence after Jimmie Rodgers?
The next chapter pokes around the competition...
“Autry 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. He was a 33rd Degree Mason and Honorary Inspector General and was given the prestigious award of the Grand Cross of the Court of Honor.”
He broke into TV by the early 1950s and had his own eponymous show, which had a 91-episode run. After stepping away from the camera, Autry switched to producing and had an impressive run of shows there – e.g., Annie Oakley, The Range Rider, Buffalo Bill Jr., The Adventures Of Champion as well as the first 39 episodes of Death Valley Days. Around the same time, he ran his own label Challenge Records (which gave the world “Tequila” by The Champs and that still honors him with a little "GA” in a shield above the label’s name), but his late-life ventures included opening a museum that honors the American West (I know, I know), which now goes by the name Autry’s Museum of the American West (in Griffith Park, LA), and he owned the Los Angeles Angels, which became the Anaheim Angels after their move to the ‘burbs. To sum up that career in two quotes:
“His smooth, relaxed baritone voice extended his appeal to devotees of mainstream pop music, while the down-home warmth of his delivery assured members of the country audience that was one of them. The virtual antithesis of many of today’s vocalists, Autry adhered to the melody line with a total absence of vocal gymnastics or bluesy embellishments, with his clear, straightforward singing evoking both sincerity and serenity.”
And, on that film persona:
“Invariably cast as himself—that is, Gene Autry—a good-natured and unassuming country singer, he was no swaggering superhero, but rather a guileless young man who triumphed against all odds by virtue of his innate goodness. Charismatic and handsome astride his horse, Champion, Autry sprinkled his movies with music, humor (Smiley Burnette was his regular comic sidekick), and a minimum of gunplay.”
A Half Dozen Points of Interest
1) Autry’s Wilder Years
Before he had an image to uphold and a genre that defined him, Autry recorded a wider variety of songs. Some of his later-early songs – “Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine” being the most famous – dealt in themes he wouldn’t touch in later years: “These late Prohibition-era songs deal with bootlegging, corrupt police, and women whose occupation was certainly vice.” Though he was a registered Republican by the end, Autry wrote a tribute to a labor legend titled, “The Death of Mother Jones.”
2) The Dark Back-Story Behind the “King of the Cowboy” “Feud”
When World War II broke out, Autry decided to enlist – and he took it all very seriously (see No. 3). When Republic Studios, the studio that released his movies, caught wind of his choice, they tried to talk him out of it with threats of promoting Roy Rogers as “King of the Cowboys.” On his return from his very real military service, Autry attempted to terminate his contract with Republic (and, if civil courts could weigh assholeism as a factor, he would have had a case). They prevailed and he gave them four more movies, but he switched to Columbia as soon as possible and Buttram as his new side-kick.
3) Again, the Man Took His Service Seriously
With exceptions here and there, most high-profile musicians did (a lot) more entertaining than fighting during World War II (many of them exclusively). Part of Autry service did involve entertainment, but, he also came into the Air Force with time-in as a pilot, so he offered his services:
“During the war, he ferried fuel, ammunition, and arms in the China-India-Burma theater of war and flew over the Himalayas, the hazardous air route known as ‘The Hump.’ When the war ended Autry was reassigned to Special Services, where he toured with a USO troupe in the South Pacific before resuming his movie career in 1946.”
4) The Origin Story for “Here Comes Santa Claus”
Autry served as Grand Marshal for the 1946 Santa Claus Parade in Hollywood. As he rolled along the route, he recalled hearing spectators of all ages shout, “here comes Santa Claus.” He wrote it in 1947 and it became an instant classic the next year.
5) The Ten Cowboy Commandments
When he became popular enough to be role model, Autry took advantage and elaborated on his already squeaky-clean image by giving his young (largely male) fans a code by which to live:
1) The Cowboy must never shoot first, hit a smaller man, or take unfair advantage.
2) He must never go back on his word, or a trust confided in him.
3) He must always tell the truth.
4) He must be gentle with children, the elderly, and animals.
5) He must not advocate or possess racially or religiously intolerant ideas.
6) He must help people in distress.
7) He must be a good worker.
8) He must keep himself clean in thought, speech, action, and personal habits.
9) He must respect women, parents, and his nation's laws.
10) The Cowboy is a patriot.
Would to God today’s country music fans still got excited about any of those besides their Bizarro version of No. 10...
6) Maybe Not So Squeaky Clean...
Autry both worked with and married Ina Mae Spivey – who also happened to be Jimmie Long’s daughter. They married in 1932 and stayed together until her death in 1980, but he had a “sustained affair” with Gail Davis, the actress who played Annie Oakley on a couple of his shows.
Going the other way, that appears to be his only affair, which keeps him closer to the Cowboy Commandments....
Sources
Wikipedia – Gene Autry
Gene Autry Official Bio
AlanCackett.com Bio
Country Music Hall of Fame Bio
About the Sampler
I linked to a half dozen (or so) of the songs on the sampler up above, so I’ll leave them out down here. The rest I split between his early, rawer (and, for me, better) recordings, a kind of a middle passage, and the songs that came in that squeaky-clean hey-day. The chronology isn’t perfect, but it should be close. To list them in that order:
Early, Rawer: “Dallas County Jail Blues,” “T.B. Blues” (this was a cover of a Jimmie Rodgers tune), “The Rheumatism Blues,” “Bear Cat Papa Blues,” and “Wildcat Mama Blues” (which, for the record, mentions Bear Cat Papa).
Middle Passage: “Mexicali Rose,” “Tumbling Tumbleweeds,” “The Yellow Rose of Texas,” and “Amapola (Pretty Little Poppy).”
Hey-Day/Camp: “Buttons and Bows,” “Deep in the Heart of Texas,” “Cowboy’s Trademark” and “The Call of the Canyon.”
I larded the rest with his most famous Christmas tunes (linked to above), and closed out the Gene Autry Sampler with a couple songs – “Dixie Cannonball” and “Back in the Saddle Again” (again) – to show what Autry sounded like when he got his hands on stereo recording and better production options.
All in all, I didn’t find Gene Autry interesting on the usual level you get from musicians – e.g., the rock star, the tortured genius, the shit-stirrer – but, my God, did the man live. And how is it only now that I mention Autry’s considered the second major influence after Jimmie Rodgers?
The next chapter pokes around the competition...
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