“I’m back in the saddle again
Out where a friend is a friend
Where the longhorn cattle feed
On the lowly gypsum weed
Back in the saddle again” – Back in the Saddle Again (Gene Autry / Ray Whitley) © Warner Chappell Music, Inc
Orvon Grover “Gene” Autry was born September 29, 1907, in Grayson County, north Texas. He was the grandson of a Methodist preacher. In the 1920s he moved with his parents, Delbert & Elnora, to southern Oklahoma, where he worked on his father’s ranch while still in school.
After graduating from high school in 1925, he began working as a telegrapher for the St. Louis–San Francisco Railway. While working for the railroad, Autry would sing and accompany himself on the guitar to pass the lonely hours in the telegraph office, especially when he worked the midnight shift. He also began performing at local dances.
One night he was heard singing in the telegraph office by the famous humorist Will Rogers, who encouraged him to sing professionally.
In the autumn of 1928, having saved enough money to travel to New York, he auditioned for Victor Records, shortly before its purchase by RCA Corporation. He was turned down by the record company, not for lacking talent, but because they had recently signed two similar-sounding singers. He was advised to sing on the radio in order to gain experience and to come back to the record company in a year or two. Later that year Autry was singing on Tulsa radio station KVOO (now KFAQ) as “Oklahoma’s Yodeling Cowboy”.
In 1929 Autry signed a recording deal with Columbia records. He then spent four years in Chicago with the National Barn Dance radio show, as well as with his own show, where he met singer-songwriter Smiley Burnette.
In the early days of his recording career, Autry experimented with recording a variety of musical genres, including hillbilly style records, labor songs, blues, and late Prohibition-era songs that dealt with bootlegging, corrupt police and loose women. He had his first hit record in 1932 with “That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine”, which was a duet with fellow railroad man Jimmy Long, and co-written by Autry and Long.
“Ridin’ the range once more
Totin’ my old .44
Where you sleep out every night
And the only law is right
Back in the saddle again” – Back in the Saddle Again (Autry/Whitley)
Gene Autry and Smiley Burnette were discovered by film producer Nat Levine in 1934, and together they made their debut for Mascot Pictures Corp. in the film In Old Santa Fe, as part of a singing cowboy quartet. Autry was then offered the starring role in a 12-part serial, The Phantom Empire. Shortly thereafter, Mascot Pictures was absorbed by the newly formed entity, Republic Pictures Corp., where Autry would make a further 44 films up to 1940.
Gene Autry held the number one spot in the Motion Picture Herald Top Ten Money-Making Western Stars poll for the years 1936 – 1942, and the number two spot for the years 1946 – 1954 (Autry served in the AAF ’43-’45), when Roy Rogers had supplanted him at number one.
It has been said that when Autry told Republic Pictures of his intentions to enlist in the military during WWII, they threatened that they would promote Roy Rogers as “King of the Cowboys” in his absence, which they did. After returning from his war service, where he served as a tech sergeant in the US Army Air Forces, piloting a C-109 transport plane, he finished out his contract with Republic, then left to form his own production company in 1951, under a distribution deal with Columbia Pictures.
“Whoopi-ty-aye-oh
Rockin’ to and fro
Back in the saddle again
Whoopi-ty-aye-yay
I go my way
Back in the saddle again” – Back in the Saddle Again (Autry/Whitley)
From 1940 to 1956, Autry had a weekly show on CBS Radio, Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch, which was a huge hit. Autry’s loyal mount Champion also had a CBS-TV and Mutual Broadcasting radio series, The Adventures of Champion, which consisted of 15-minute episodes broadcast each weekday afternoon in 1949-50. Aware that the majority of his radio audience was young people, Gene Autry created the Cowboy Code, or Ten Cowboy Commandments, which consisted of rules base on his philosophies going back to his early days in broadcasting & film.
Gene Autry was featured in several comic book series that ran through the 1940s & 1950s, with Mexican publisher Editorial Novaro releasing 423 issues of Gene Autry comics from 1954 to 1984.
At the height of his film popularity in 1942, Autry owned a string of rodeo stock based in Ardmore, Oklahoma. Later, after partnering with the World Championship Rodeo Company, He moved the entire company to a 24,000-acre ranch near Fowler, Colorado, with former champion bronc rider Harry Knight managing the operation. For a period, Autry’s ranch provided livestock for most of the major rodeos in Texas, Colorado, Montana, and Nebraska. For his work as a livestock contractor, Autry was inducted into the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association’s Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame in 1979.
“I’m back in the saddle again
Out where a friend is a friend
Where the longhorn cattle feed
On the lowly gypsum weed
Back in the saddle again” – Back in the Saddle Again (Autry/Whitley)
Gene Autry recorded “Back in the Saddle Again” for the first time on April 18, 1939, then performed it on film that same year in the Republic Pictures film, Rovin’ Tumbleweeds. In January 1940, he introduced it as the theme song for Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch, which ran on CBS Radio through 1956. It was also the theme song for his television show. Although the song has long been associated with Autry, it was originally written by Ray Whitley for the RKO Pictures film, Border G-Man, where Whitely sang the song with his group Six Bar Cowboys. Autry liked the song and revised it with Whitely, turning it into what would become his signature tune.
Autry’s 1939 recording of “Back in the Saddle Again” became his second gold record. In 1976 Autry used the song’s title for the name of his autobiography. In 1997 the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame; in 2001, a group of voters selected by the RIAA ranked “Back in the Saddle Again” the 98th best song of the Twentieth Century, and members of the Western Writers of America have chosen it as fifth of the Top 100 Western songs of all time.
“Ridin’ the range once more
Totin’ my old .44
Where you sleep out every night
And the only law is right
Back in the saddle again” – Back in the Saddle Again (Autry/Whitley)
Gene Autry retired from show business in 1964, having made almost 100 films up to 1955 and over 600 records. After he retired, he invested in real estate, radio stations, and television. He built a museum in Los Angeles’ Griffith Park, now known as the Autry National Center, to house his collection of Western memorabilia.
He was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1969 and to the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970. Other honors include being inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; being inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 1991; being inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2003; on November 16, 1941, the town of Berwyn, Oklahoma was renamed Gene Autry in his honor, and he is the only person to have five stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (for recording, radio, motion pictures, television & live performance).
Gene Autry died of lymphoma on October 2, 1998, three days after his 91st birthday. He is buried in the Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles, where his epitaph reads:
“America’s Favorite Cowboy … American Hero, Philanthropist, Patriot and Veteran, Movie Star, Singer, Composer, Baseball Fan and Owner, 33rd Degree Mason, Media Entrepreneur, Loving Husband, Gentleman”
“Whoopi-ty-aye-oh
Rockin’ to and fro
Back in the saddle again
Whoopi-ty-aye-yay
I go my way
Back in the saddle again” – Back in the Saddle Again (Autry/ Whitley)
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Autry
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_in_the_Saddle_Again
All photos sourced from the internet, none belong to the author.