To most of the world, Douglas Green is better known as Ranger Doug, Idol of American Youth and the yodeling guitarist of cowboy trio (sometimes a quartet) Riders in the Sky. Longtime readers of country music journalism, however, know him as a first-rate scholar of singing cowboy films and records, even predating the formation of his band in late 1977.
And though the Riders keep Green on the road for much of the year, over the past 5 years, the 56-year-old Green has found the time to write "Singing in the Saddle: The History of the Singing Cowboy," published in October by Vanderbilt University Press and the Country Music Foundation.
It's an impressive volume; close to 400 pages detailing the roots of cowboy songs in the late 19th century and tracing the rise and fall of the genre on stage, screen, radio and records through the 20th century.
It could easily be said that it's the book Green was born to write given his vocation of the past quarter-century.
"I felt then - as I feel now - that singing cowboys are kind of overlooked by music historians," says Green in a telephone interview from his band's tour bus while en route from Nashville to an engagement in Minnesota. "They've been touched (upon) by film historians, but it was mostly the 'Oh-gosh-aw-shucks' school. I think (music historians) thought it was 'too Hollywood.' Too slick. Not folk enough."
"That is true, but ignores, for example, everything the Sons of the Pioneers did or wrote, because they certainly came out of a folk or authentic background. As authentic as could be, really."
Born in Illinois in 1946, Green was just old enough to catch the tail end of the singing cowboy era.
"I was a Saturday afternoon front-row kid. I loved those movies," says Green. "I loved watching Roy and Gene on television, and music was a big part of our house. We spent a lot of time in California when I was a kid, and I think that's where I got into going to the movies. Going to Knox Berry Farms and hearing guys actually singing this stuff live made a big impression on me."
Following college (during which time Green served two brief stints as one of Bill Monroe's Bluegrass Boys) and graduate school, Green signed on as editor of the prestigious Journal of Country Music between 1974 and 1977.
During this time, he wrote the 1976 book "Country Roots: The Origins of Country Music." More important, though, was his lengthy essay, "Singing Cowboy: An American Dream," which appeared in a 1978 issue of the magazine and served as the genesis of his new book.
Green says that he had considered expanding the original essay into a book soon after the essay had been published, but a lack of time due to family and band commitments kept the project on a slow track until relatively recently.
"I had two publishers approach me, but neither wanted to pay any kind of advance. And I was just starting Riders in the Sky at the time, so naturally I didn't have the time or energy to do it. So, I just kept reading, collecting information, got to know people, did interviews and collected pictures - but with no particular plan in mind. The things that sent it over the top were the invention of the laptop computer and bookings at casinos that lasted (up to) two weeks, where you really don't have anything to do but go down and do a show between 8 and 10. And boy, that's a lot of free time."
Dating the start of the singing cowboy era is a little difficult since there was a thin line between a traditional western featuring a few songs (1929's "In Old Arizona" was the first of these) and the full-blown musical westerns that began appearing in 1933, including Ken Maynard's "The Strawberry Roan" and John Wayne's lone film as Singin' Sandy, "Riders of Destiny," in which Wayne's singing voice was overdubbed by Bill Bradbury.
In any event, by 1934, film studios were tripping over each other trying to make singing cowboy movies, partly because it was far cheaper to film someone singing and playing guitar than it was to film action sequences such as fights, Indian raids and horseback chase scenes.
Intriguingly, a few key figures in Green's book - particularly Gene Autry and Bob Nolan - were notorious for a certain reluctance to talk much about their careers.
Autry, for example, was generally uninterested in discussing his early recordings of the late '20s and early '30s, many of which were strongly influenced by Jimmie Rodgers.
"I really don't know why that is," says Green. "He was a lot more interested in talking about who he'd met. He scarcely mentioned Jimmie Rodgers at all, and he goes into loads of stuff on Kate Smith. He was an odd duck in that way. Maybe it was so long ago that he was much more interested in talking about the future of the California Angels (who Autry had owned until his death in 1998)."
Manitoba-born Bob Nolan, co-founder of and chief songwriter for the Sons of the Pioneers, also comes across in Green's book as a little mysterious, resisting at least one attempt by Columbia studio head Harry Cohn to spin the ' handsome, strapping Nolan off into feature roles of his own.
Following the departure in 1948 of another of the group's founding singer/songwriters, Tim Spencer, Nolan too left the group, recording only on rare occasions after the '50s until his death from a heart attack in 1980.
"He had a famous reputation as a recluse," says Green of Nolan, who wrote timeless cowboy numbers such as "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" and "Cool Water," among others. "He was apparently an artist and a dreamer. But he was more of a regular guy than you'd think. He wasn't a hermit or a grouch. He was a very nice man. He seemed very open and honest with his feelings. I wish I'd had more time with him, really."
One singing cowboy who Green not only got to know well, but actually performed and recorded with was Roy Rogers. Forever linked with Autry both in terms of sheer popularity and the success of his post-war business dealings, it was perhaps appropriate that Autry and Rogers died within three months of each other in 1998.
"I try not to be starstruck, but it was very hard not to be that way around him. He was very much the guy you see on screen. He was not pretentious; just the guy next door who happens to be a cowboy hero. I think he enjoyed working with us because we reminded him of the days when he started the (Sons of the) Pioneers. The last 30 years of his performing career, he mostly had country bands (with) drums, that steady beat. And with us, it harkened back to that airy acoustic sound. We did 'Hee-Haw' (with him in 1988) and sat around the dressing room singing the old songs. And, man, he looked 20 years younger. He kept saying, 'This is great! This is just like when we started!'"
Though it seems that no one set out to make 'the final singing cowboy picture,' most saw the end coming, and Rex Allen's 1954 release "Phantom Stallion" marked the finish of the singing cowboy, at least as far as films were concerned.
As Gene Autry later wrote, "There were no farewell toasts, no retirement dinner with someone handing out a pocket watch for 20 years of faithful service."
The movies simply stopped being made. Autry had hung up his spurs the previous year with "Last of the Pony Riders," and Roy Rogers had called it quits in 1951, except for a few cameo roles here and there in later years.
Most of the others had quit even before that; Tex Ritter closed the bunkhouse door for the last time in 1945, for instance.
Asked why it all ended, Green replies that the answers are really fairly simple.
"Well, my supposition in the book was partly (because of) television, which is what everybody blamed at the time. And partly because public tastes change. What was popular in the '70s and '80s isn't popular now. Same thing with singing cowboys. The sunny depression-era 'forget-your-troubles' fantasies of those movies didn't really suit people who'd been overseas in World War II, had seen real death firsthand and were genuinely worried about the future of the world. It wasn't a fantasy that sustained itself too much after the war."
After their last musical westerns appeared, most of the singing western heroes moved into other areas of show business.
The great black singing cowboy of the late '30s, Herb Jeffries, gained wider fame with Duke Ellington's band between 1940 and 1942 before going solo, and was still recording as recently as the mid-'90s. Rogers and Autry both made successful TV shows that ran until later in the '50s, and both continued to record and perform even after their TV shows ended, though Autry had retired even from these activities by the early '60s.
Others, such as Jimmy Wakeley and Tex Ritter, pursued successful careers as country performers, only occasionally recording western material.
The last few years have taken a deep toll on the remaining ranks of the singing cowboys of the pre- and post-war years. In the past four years alone, Autry, Rogers and his wife Dale Evans, and Rex Allen have all passed away.
And though a number of singing cowboys whose careers began on TV in the late '40s and '50s - such as Rex Trailer and Kenny Roberts - are still alive, Green says that only 81-year-old Monte Hale and Jeffries, 91, survive from the pre-television era.
Still, western music has enjoyed something of a revival over the past couple of decades. Much of that can be credited to the efforts of Green and his bandmates; "Woody Paul" Chrisman, Fred "Too Slim" LaBour and Joey the CowPolka King.
Though other western-oriented acts perform and record today with distinction, including Michael Martin Murphey, Sons of the San Joaquin and Don Edwards, there's little doubt about which act has the highest visibility.
Interestingly enough, Green's book is being published on the eve of his own group's 25th anniversary, with plans for a new album and the impending publication of a book covering the group's history.
"You hope that what you do will leave a lasting enough mark to give you a career," says Green. "But no musician with any sense at all can really expect it. Certainly I didn't. It's both a vindication and a real delight. Whatever it is, it's still working," adding that he attributes the group's longevity to "separate hotel rooms."
Asked if children today still look at cowboys with awe in the same way that he did when he was a boy, Green says, "Yeah, I think so. Very much. They don't see them as much as when I was a kid, but I think the image and the appeal of the cowboy is the same to little kids as it ever was. We play for kids now, and they love the big hats, the furry chaps and that western beat."
"I'm glad John Lasseter tapped into that with Woody in the 'Toy Story' movies. I think that kids still react to that sense of wonder that he had - the cowboy hero who's a little bit corny, but you still love him."