CMT Blog: Roy Rogers

I wrote this entry in my journal last week: May 8, 2008 - “Eddy Arnold died this morning. I saw it on the breaking news. I immediately thought of my mother. I know how much he reminded her of grandpa.”

Though she never met Eddy Arnold or knew him on a personal level, my mom could tell what kind of man he was by watching him on television as a little girl and listening to him on the radio. “He was smooth,” she told me, “a real gentleman.” It seems she wasn’t off the mark. At Arnold’s funeral, his pastor described him as “a first-class entertainer and a first-class gentleman.” Vince Gill said he was a man who “taught you how to be kind and how to be a gentleman.”

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How long are we going to keep seeing the term “country western” in articles and blogs about country music? Apparently forever, as far as I can tell. Especially when even a so-called fashion reporter for a Las Vegas rag looks down her nose at Carrie Underwood for a supposed fashion faux pas, after praising Underwood for having previously “shed her country western tassels.” Well, who the hell wears tassels these days, to begin with? Maybe some Music Row execs with their tassels on their $500 Moreschi loafers, but otherwise I have seen nary a tassel in these parts since Cybill Shepherd wore them on her drum majorette boots. And mighty good-looking tassels they were, indeed.

But these writers grab onto the term “country western” and worry it to death, like a dog with a bone. Once upon a time, there were two distinct areas of country music – western, which involved music of the West with cowboy singers like Gene Autry and Roy Rogers, and hillbilly music which evolved into country. Even in 1962, when Ray Charles recorded his landmark Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, the term was going out of favor.

These days, there’s nothing western about what passes for country music, and what little western music lingers is just happy to still be around.

I’ve been racking my brain for days since my first Kid Rock concert trying to figure out what constitutes a “Cowboy.” When I think of a cowboy, I think of Roy Rogers or Gene Autry. I think of “Happy Trails” and “Back in the Saddle Again.” I think of lyrics like, “Where the longhorn cattle feed/On the lowly Gypsum weed.” Not “Stoned pimp, stoned freak, stoned out of my mind,” as Kid Rock brags in his signature song, “Cowboy.” Perhaps he just got his “weeds” confused. 

Call me old-fashioned, but I thought cowboys wore something along the lines of cowboy hats and Wrangler jeans. Even today’s cowboys like George Strait and Alan Jackson still follow suit. They’re not prancing around in brim top hats and unzipped two-piece jumpsuits. Anyway, as much as I don’t think Kid Rock should be classified as country, I do think he has a nice voice when he’s actually singing. I’m definitely not a prude but I did spend most of the concert blushing from his raunchy comments, but I sang along with what I could. By the end of the concert I moved to the front row (thanks to the man in front of me also confusing his weeds). My homecoming date used to listen to “Cowboy” on repeat. Apparently, we listened to the clean version because when Kid Rock got to a certain vulgar part of the song in the concert – “Cuss like a sailor, drink like a mick / My only words of wisdom are…” – I yelled, “Radio Edit!” Dang it! Wrong again!

Will someone please help me figure out what it takes to be a cowboy? So far, here’s the checklist I’ve come up with according to Kid Rock–

1. Call yourself and name signature song, “Cowboy.”
2. Get married at Tootsie’s.
3. Play at the Ryman Auditorium and cover one country song – preferably, “You Never Even Called Me by My Name.”
4. Start a brawl and get arrested at Waffle House at 5 a.m.

Wait, maybe not that last one. I obviously know nothing about what it takes to be a “Cowboy.”

It wasn’t too long ago that country performers routinely incorporated a title with their name, the idea being that such an addition gave them a little extra boost in stature and individuality. Thus, Roy Acuff was the King of Country Music, Kitty Wells the Queen and Tammy Wynette the First Lady. The practice went a long way back. Jimmie Rodgers billed himself as the Singing Brakeman (and later bore the title of Father of Country Music). Grand Ole Opry patriarch Uncle Dave Macon was known as the Dixie Dewdrop. Eddy Arnold gained fame as the Tennessee Plowboy (but gradually eased away from that designation as he sought a broader, more urbane audience). Tennessee Ernie Ford styled himself as the Old Pea Picker, and Ernest Tubb labored as the Texas Troubadour. Patti Page was the Singing Rage.

Sometimes these titles were conferred on performers by their admirers and sometimes by their paid promoters. But whatever its origin, the value of a title lay in whether or not it stuck and eventually became synonymous with the performer’s name.

Before there was a Gary LeVox, Vern Gosdin was the Voice. Roy Rogers was King of the Cowboys, Bill Monroe the Father of Bluegrass, Hank Snow the Singing Ranger, Johnny Cash the Man in Black and Tom T. Hall the Storyteller. Generously proportioned Kenny Price of Hee Haw went to his grave as the Round Mound of Sound. Ranger Doug Green of Riders in the Sky continues to call himself (albeit puckishly) the Idol of American Youth.

So here’s what I’d like to know: What do you think would be fitting honorifics for the likes of Garth Brooks, Vince Gill, Alan Jackson, Reba McEntire, Martina McBride, Kenny Chesney, Keith Urban, Tim McGraw, Faith Hill (separately or in tandem), Josh Turner, Carrie Underwood, Brad Paisley, Miranda Lambert or any other act of your choosing? Here’s your chance to influence country music history. The floor is yours.