Gene Autry Biography

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Gene Autry
Country Music | 3 CD Set
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It would be easy to create a list of big names associated with country-western music but the list would be somewhat superfluous; there's only one name needed to hail the emergence of that music to a broad audience. That is not to say he was the best or the most creative; he was in the right place at the right time. Orvon Gene Autry did more to make country music a popular style in the 30s than anyone else, the singer/actor responsible for many of those who came after, right up to Garth Brooks and Clint Black. Of course, this being said, we have to acknowledge a few other originals, the most obvious being Jimmie Rodgers, Milton Brown, Roy Rogers and later Bob Wills. Autry was influenced by Jimmie Rodgers but he took it a step further in the early 30s as he traded in the hillbilly look of overalls and took to the colorful bandannas, flowery shirts and cowboy hats while singing romantic ballads of the West, even if a lot of it helped broaden the mythical West. In Depression America, this warm, romantic stuff where the guy in the white hat riding the cool and smart horse was a welcome part of a life that in places like Oklahoma, Arkansas and other states was terribly depressing. Born in Texas in 1907, Autry s family was dirt-poor and moved frequently, as tenant farmers usually did. Eventually landing in Oklahoma, young Gene learned to ride early and also learned to sing, his minister grandfather putting him in the Baptist church choir and then in local events. He got his first guitar at age twelve, a decision he made when he realized he could not sing and play his first instrument, the saxophone. He traveled briefly as a teenager with a medicine show but gave that up to take a job as a telegraph operator at a train stop in Oklahoma in 1924. Autry took his guitar to work to practice and was no doubt heard by travelers, one of them was said to be famous folk humorist Will Rogers, who apparently advised him to seek work in radio, which in the mid-20s was the beacon that was beginning to tie the nation together. Failing to find much work in New York, Autry (who at this time was a strong Jimmie Rodgers copier) returned to find work at radio KVOO in Tulsa and became the Oklahoma Singing (or Yodeling) Cowboy. He had also been discovered by a country music agent and before long was in the recording studios of RCA Victor. In 1929, he made his first records, "My Dreaming of You" and "My Alabama Home." His agent put him with American Record Company (ARC), which produced several other labels aimed at chain-store sales. His work on the Conqueror label for Sears Roebuck stores pushed him up a notch, Autry joining Chicago radio WLS. By 1931, he had become a featured star on the National Barn Dance show and also had his own show, Conqueror Radio Time. Sears Roebuck got in the act, too, selling Gene Autry Roundup guitars and songbooks. WLS likened him to a singing cowboy, even as he was more country than western and still doing more hillbilly songs a la Rodgers than anything else. That all changed in 1934. He had begun to include his own songs in his repertoire, like "My Old Pal of Yesterday," and in 1931 his recording of "That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine," done as a duet with co-writer Jimmy Long, became a major hit and his first million-seller. By 1934, he was well-known in radio and on records and publicized as a singing cowboy, even as he rarely sang cowboy songs. This changed when he got a small part in the film "In Old Santa Fe" and began to look like a real cowboy. He then starred in an odd film serial called "The Phantom Empire," which was a merger of science fiction and westerns, and his cowboy image now became his personality. He got his first starring role in a real movie in 1935 when Republic Pictures released "Tumbling Tumbleweeds," in which he sang several songs, including the title tune, his "Silver-Haired Daddy" and "Ridin Down the Canyon." His success in Depression America was immense and by 1940 as the Depression was ending and World War II was heating up, Gene Autry was ranked fourth among Hollywood movie stars at the box-office. He began his Melody Ranch radio show in 1940 on CBS and saw it become a super national hit that lasted until 1956. In movies and radio, he had become the quintessential cowboy singer who rode into town on his white horse, nailed the bad guys, won the prettiest gal in town and rode off into the sunset on the smartest horse in the world, Champion. Given all this radio and movie activity, Autry also toured with a stage show that included roping, comedy, some fancy horse-riding (by Gene) and even Indian dancers. He was famous, so much so that a little town in Oklahoma, Berwyn, even changed its name to Gene Autry, Okla. And his own songs, like his signature tune "Back In the Saddle Again," were becoming cliches of that Western style of life that continued to play up the myth of the Old West. And they were popular and big moneymakers. This all veered off into another area in 1942 when he joined the Army Air Corps, even enlisting on his Melody Ranch radio show. At 35, he was in the military helping in recruitment but soon became a pilot for the Air Ferry Command, serving in the Far East, India, and North Africa. After leaving the service, he resumed his career and between 1944-51 had some 25 Top 10 country hits, including "Here Comes Santa Claus," "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer," "Peter Cottontail" and "Frosty the Snowman," all of which sold more than a million copies. He also garnered interest on the pop charts with several Top 20 tunes that appealed to both country and pop fans, one of those being "Buttons and Bows." By 1947, Autry had his own production company that made his later films released by Columbia. His last B-western was "Last Of the Pony Riders," in 1953, the last of the 89 films he had made. By this time, of course, the western genre had become Roy Rogers territory, too, and although it was said at the time that he and Autry feuded, the opposite was the case as feuds were regularly made up by film publicity departments. By the mid- 50s, Autry was a businessman who became very wealthy as he bought a number of radio and television stations and produced several television series, including the re-appearance of "Melody Ranch" in the 60s. He occasionally appeared on the show. In 1986, The Nashville Network (TNN) cable network put all of his old western films on television as Melody Ranch Theatre, Autry introducing each film. During his career, he had three horses named Champion in films plus one for personal appearances and a pony named Little Champ. Champion III died in 1991 at age 42. It is also said that Autry was the first country-western singer to sport a custom made guitar with his name inlaid in fancy pearl. He was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1969 and in 1980 into the Cowboy Hall of Fame of Great Westerners. He had his last chart entry in 1971 when he sang "Old Soldiers Never Die." And in a much publicized move away from music, Gene Autry bought the California Angels major league baseball team, capping his business career that resulted from many years of being the penultimate screen cowboy.

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