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Singing Cowboy Westerns

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 the 1940s. The typical singing cowboys were white-hat-wearing clean-shaven heroes with the habit of showing their emotions in song.

The image of the singing cowboy was established in 1925, when Carl T. Sprague recorded the first cowboy song "When the Work's All Done This Fall". A year later, John I. White became the first representant of the genre to perform on a nationally broadcast radio show, but the full popularity of the singing cowboys wasn't reached until the spread of sound films.

While other Western actors, such as John Wayne and Clint Eastwood, only dabbled in singing roles, some actors became known mainly for their roles as singing cowboys. The most famous of them was Gene Autry and the moniker "The Singing Cowboy" usually refers to him in particular. Autry first rose to popularity as a singer, but his acting career started off quickly with the 1935 film serial, The Phantom Empire and he became a prolific star.

Other notable actors who became famous as singing cowboys were Jimmy Wakely, Tex Ritter and Rex Allen, who didn't start his career until 1950, when the popularity of the genre was waning. 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 end of the decade.

The singing cowboy image has since been parodied, most notably in the 1985 film Rustlers' Rhapsody with Tom Berenger portraying a stereotypical singing cowboy.