Gene Autry is a town in Carter County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 158 as of the 2010 census, up from 99 in 2000. It is part of the Ardmore, Oklahoma Micropolitan Statistical Area.
Orvon Grover "Gene" Autry, nicknamed the Singing Cowboy, was an American singer, songwriter, actor, musician, rodeo performer, and baseball owner who gained fame largely by singing in a crooning style on radio, in films, and on television for more than three decades beginning in the early 1930s. Autry was the owner of a television station, several radio stations in Southern California, and the Los Angeles/California Angels Major League Baseball team from 1961 to 1997.
Roy Rogers was an American singer, actor, and television host. Following early work under his given name, first as co-founder of the Sons of the Pioneers and then acting, the rebranded Rogers then became one of the most popular Western stars of his era. Known as the "King of the Cowboys", he appeared in over 100 films and numerous radio and television episodes of The Roy Rogers Show. In many of his films and television episodes, he appeared with his wife, Dale Evans; his Golden Palomino, Trigger; and his German Shepherd, Bullet. His show was broadcast on radio for nine years and then on television from 1951 through 1957. His early roles were uncredited parts in films by fellow cowboy singing star Gene Autry and his productions usually featured a sidekick, often Pat Brady, Andy Devine, George "Gabby" Hayes, or Smiley Burnette. In his later years, he lent his name to the franchise chain of Roy Rogers Restaurants.
Michael Martin Murphey is an American singer-songwriter best known for writing and performing Western music, country music and popular music. A multiple Grammy nominee, Murphey has six gold albums, including Cowboy Songs, the first album of cowboy music to achieve gold status since Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs by Marty Robbins in 1959. He has recorded the hit singles "Wildfire", "Carolina in the Pines", "What's Forever For", "A Long Line of Love", "What She Wants", "Don't Count the Rainy Days", and "Maybe This Time". Murphey is also the author of New Mexico's state ballad, "The Land of Enchantment". Murphey has become a prominent musical voice for the Western horseman, rancher, and cowboy.
A chuckwagon is a type of field kitchen covered wagon historically used for the storage and transportation of food and cooking equipment on the prairies of the United States and Canada. Such wagons formed part of a wagon train of settlers or fed traveling workers such as cowboys or loggers.
Western music is a form of country music composed by and about the people who settled and worked throughout the Western United States and Western Canada. Western music celebrates the lifestyle of the cowboy on the open ranges, Rocky Mountains, and prairies of Western North America. Directly related musically to old English, Irish, Scottish, and folk ballads, also the Mexican folk music of Northern Mexico and Southwestern United States influenced the development of this genre, particularly corrido, ranchera, New Mexico and Tejano. Western music shares similar roots with Appalachian music, which developed around the same time throughout Appalachia and the Appalachian Mountains. The music industry of the mid-20th century grouped the two genres together under the banner of country and western music, later amalgamated into the modern name, country music.
The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum is a museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, with more than 28,000 Western and American Indian art works and artifacts. The facility also has the world's most extensive collection of American rodeo photographs, barbed wire, saddlery, and early rodeo trophies. Museum collections focus on preserving and interpreting the heritage of the American West. The museum becomes an art gallery during the annual Prix de West Invitational Art Exhibition and Sale each June. The Prix de West Artists sell original works of art as a fund raiser for the Museum. The expansion and renovation was designed by Curtis W. Fentress, FAIA, RIBA of Fentress Architects.
The International Western Music Association was incorporated in 1989 to promote and preserve western music in its traditional, historical, and contemporary forms.
Western lifestyle or cowboy culture is the lifestyle, or behaviorisms, of, and resulting from the influence of, the attitudes, ethics and history of the American Western cowboy. In the present day these influences affect this sector of the population's choice of recreation, clothing, and consumption of goods.
A singing cowboy was a subtype of the archetypal cowboy hero of early Western films. It references real-world campfire side ballads in the American frontier, 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. This continues with modern vaquero traditions and within the genre of Western music, and its related New Mexico, Red Dirt, Tejano, and Texas country music styles. 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.
Elmer Stephen Kelton was an American journalist and writer, known particularly for his Western novels. His pseudonyms are: Tom Early, Alex Hawk, Lee McElroy
Larry Scott was an American country music disc jockey who hosted a number of country music shows in the U.S. First announcing on a radio station in Neosho, Missouri in 1955, Scott later moved to the West Coast where he worked at radio stations KBBQ and KLAC from 1967 to 1982.
Russell "Red" Steagall is an American actor, musician, poet, and stage performer, who focuses on American Western and country music genres.
R. W. Hampton is an American western music singer-songwriter, actor and playwright. Hampton has achieved both critical and commercial success, winning multiple awards from the Western Music Association and the Academy of Western Artists and three separate Wrangler Awards from the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.
Howard Terpning is an American painter and illustrator best known for his paintings of Native Americans.
Mike Kearby is an American novelist and inventor. Since 2005, Kearby has published twelve novels and two graphic novels.
The American Cowboy Culture Association is an organization based in Lubbock, Texas, which seeks to promote and preserve the western history and culture of the late 19th and early 20th century American cowboy. Founded in 1989, the association is principally known as a sponsor of the annual National Cowboy Symposium and Celebration. The 2013 symposium was held from September 5 to 8.
The Museum of the Desert Southwest is a museum of local and West Texas regional history located in a brick structure at 409 S. Gaston Street, off U.S. Route 385 in Crane in Crane County, Texas. It was established in 1980.
Buck Ramsey, born Kenneth Melvin Ramsey, was an American cowboy poet and singer. He earned a national reputation for preserving cowboy lore and traditions.
The Texas Trail Hall of Fame is a cowboy hall of fame. Established in 1997, the hall is located at 208 N.W. 24th Street, Fort Worth, Texas, 76164. The hall honors individuals who have contributed to the Western way of life. The Fort Worth Stockyards National Historic District is the home of the hall. It is also where bronze inlaid markers are placed for each inductee. The markers are created to resemble a frontier marshall's badge. Each inductee's name is inscribed on the marker. New inductees are honored each year during ceremonies at the Red Steagall Cowboy Gathering and Western Swing Festival.
