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How Chris LeDoux, 'The Bon Jovi of the Cowboys,' Mixed Country, Rock and Rodeo
It might not be to everyone's liking. What do I know?
HOME > MUSIC > COUNTRY MUSIC
JULY 22, 2021 2:24PM ET
How Chris LeDoux, ‘The Bon Jovi of the Cowboys,’ Mixed Country, Rock and Rodeo
Fifty years since the release of his debut album, the dynamic performer, who died in 2005, is remembered with a new compilation and bronze statue
By JOSEPH HUDAK
Chris LeDoux, a country singer and real-life rodeo champ, is celebrated in a new retrospective, 'Wyoming Cowboy.'
Beth Gwinn/Redferns/Getty
By the time Garth Brooks name-checked Chris LeDoux in his debut single, 1989’s “Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old),” the real-life rodeo champ and balladeer was already a cult star. LeDoux wrote and sang detail-rich songs about the grueling rodeo circuit with a restless spirit and his own hard-won experience. His bronc-riding peers ate it up, buying LeDoux’s homemade tapes from the back of the singer’s truck.
But they also bootlegged their own copies of albums like 1971’s Songs of Rodeo Life and passed them around, as Brooks called out in “Much Too Young” when he sang about “a worn-out tape of Chris LeDoux.”
“I found that to be very, very true,” says Mark Sissel, the longtime guitar player in LeDoux’s backing band Western Underground. “When I met those rodeo cowboys they’d say, ‘I have a cassette tape that’s the fifth generation from another cassette tape.’ They’d just wear them out and then have to try to find another in a feed store or somewhere.”
LeDoux died in 2005 at age 56 after a battle with cancer, leaving behind a legacy that continues to cast a shadow in country music. Traces of the rodeo imagery that LeDoux helped popularize can still be heard in the songs of stars like Brooks, who paid tribute to his friend with “Good Ride Cowboy,” Aaron Watson, and Randy Houser, along with newcomers like Kylie Frey.
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Songs of Rodeo Life, LeDoux’s first of 22 independently recorded and released albums, Capitol Nashville/UMe released the LeDoux retrospective Wyoming Cowboy – A Collection in July. Assembled by Sissel and available digitally and on vinyl, the compilation includes LeDoux classics like “Hooked on an 8 Second Ride,” “Cadillac Cowboy,” and “This Cowboy’s Hat,” along with LeDoux’s 1992 collaboration with Brooks, “Whatcha Gonna Do With a Cowboy.” There are also two deep cuts, 1978’s U.K. release “Oklahoma Hospitality” and a brief vocal-and-guitar ballad from 1975 simply titled “Album Introduction.”
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JULY 22, 2021 2:24PM ET
How Chris LeDoux, ‘The Bon Jovi of the Cowboys,’ Mixed Country, Rock and Rodeo
Fifty years since the release of his debut album, the dynamic performer, who died in 2005, is remembered with a new compilation and bronze statue
By JOSEPH HUDAK
Chris LeDoux, a country singer and real-life rodeo champ, is celebrated in a new retrospective, 'Wyoming Cowboy.'
Beth Gwinn/Redferns/Getty
By the time Garth Brooks name-checked Chris LeDoux in his debut single, 1989’s “Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old),” the real-life rodeo champ and balladeer was already a cult star. LeDoux wrote and sang detail-rich songs about the grueling rodeo circuit with a restless spirit and his own hard-won experience. His bronc-riding peers ate it up, buying LeDoux’s homemade tapes from the back of the singer’s truck.
But they also bootlegged their own copies of albums like 1971’s Songs of Rodeo Life and passed them around, as Brooks called out in “Much Too Young” when he sang about “a worn-out tape of Chris LeDoux.”
“I found that to be very, very true,” says Mark Sissel, the longtime guitar player in LeDoux’s backing band Western Underground. “When I met those rodeo cowboys they’d say, ‘I have a cassette tape that’s the fifth generation from another cassette tape.’ They’d just wear them out and then have to try to find another in a feed store or somewhere.”
LeDoux died in 2005 at age 56 after a battle with cancer, leaving behind a legacy that continues to cast a shadow in country music. Traces of the rodeo imagery that LeDoux helped popularize can still be heard in the songs of stars like Brooks, who paid tribute to his friend with “Good Ride Cowboy,” Aaron Watson, and Randy Houser, along with newcomers like Kylie Frey.
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Songs of Rodeo Life, LeDoux’s first of 22 independently recorded and released albums, Capitol Nashville/UMe released the LeDoux retrospective Wyoming Cowboy – A Collection in July. Assembled by Sissel and available digitally and on vinyl, the compilation includes LeDoux classics like “Hooked on an 8 Second Ride,” “Cadillac Cowboy,” and “This Cowboy’s Hat,” along with LeDoux’s 1992 collaboration with Brooks, “Whatcha Gonna Do With a Cowboy.” There are also two deep cuts, 1978’s U.K. release “Oklahoma Hospitality” and a brief vocal-and-guitar ballad from 1975 simply titled “Album Introduction.”
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1 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
the West and Plains, because it suited the mood (along with almost anything by George Strait). My kids would say (quietly to themselves) "Hey Tex, where'd you park your horse?" to anyone with a cowboy hat, for years. 
