The Song Planner

Singing Cowboy Era

tagStarted 1934Peak 1935-1947Last big hit 1948

Located in 1 route

Country & Western → Era / Scene Labels

Hollywood's western fantasy in song: smooth crooned vocals over gentle guitar, fiddle, and accordion, evoking open range, campfires, and tumbleweeds. Polished, sentimental, and clean next to barroom country, built for B-movie screens and radio. Romantic cowboy imagery replaced hardscrabble rural realism.

History

Sound film turned cowboy singers into matinee idols. Gene Autry recorded 'Tumbling Tumbleweeds' in 1935, and his feature of the same name launched the format; Republic groomed Roy Rogers as 'King of the Cowboys' from 1938. The Sons of the Pioneers, with songwriter Bob Nolan, supplied lush vocal-group harmonies. The craze crested through the 1940s before TV and shifting tastes ended it by the early 1950s.

Defining artists

Essential listening

← Explore Country & Western

Sources

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumbling_Tumbleweeds
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_in_the_Saddle_Again
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Want_to_Be_a_Cowboy's_Sweetheart
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_Water_(song)