Like A Rhinestone Cowboy – CR BURGAN MUSIC

“I’ve been walkin’ these streets so long
Singin’ the same old song
I know every crack in these dirty sidewalks of Broadway
Where hustle’s the name of the game
And nice guys get washed away like the snow and the rain” – Rhinestone Cowboy (Larry Weiss) © Warner Chappell Music, Inc

“You don’t have to have cows to be a cowboy” – Nudie Cohn

Nuta Kotlyarenko was born in Kiev on December 15, 1902, to a Ukrainian Jewish family. At the age of 11, he was sent by his parents to the United States along with his older brother Julius, to escape the anti-Semitism and pogroms of Czarist Russia.

Arriving with his brother at Ellis Island, his difficult to pronounce Eastern European name was soon transformed into the moniker that would become his brand – Nudie Cohn.

Settling into New York City, where they had family, Julius was busy getting acquainted with girls, while Nudie passed his time watching Western films in theaters throughout the city.

At age 16, after working as a shoe-shine boy, and trying his hand at other occupations, Nudie traveled to California to become a boxer, known briefly as “Battling Nudie”. Not finding great success as a pugilist, he took bit parts in movies, and having acquired sewing skills from his bootmaker father, he produced made-to-order outfits. Actress Gloria Swanson was one of his first customers.

In 1928, Cohn set about hitchhiking back to New York, to visit his family.

During a stopover at a boarding house in Mankato, Minnesota, Nudie met Helen Barbara Kruger, whose parents owned the establishment. They soon fell in love and were married in 1934.

Along with his new bride – whom Nudie took to calling “Bobbie” – he returned to his family and his roots in New York City, where together they opened their first business. Calling their new enterprise, “Nudies for the Ladies”, they worked as a team stitching sequined & bejeweled G-strings & undergarments for the many burlesque & vaudeville performers in the city.

In the early 1940s, Nudie & Bobbie moved to California, where they began designing and manufacturing clothing in their garage.

“There’s been a load of compromisin’
On the road to my horizon
But I’m gonna be where the lights are shinin’ on me” – Rhinestone Cowboy (Weiss)

In 1947 Cohn struck a deal with a struggling young country singer named Tex Williams: If Williams would use the proceeds from an auctioned horse to buy Cohn an embroidery machine, Cohn would make Williams a suit of clothes at no cost. It was not long before all the up & coming stars of Country & Western were seeking out Nudie & Bobbie’s creations.

As business increased, the Cohn’s needed more space and opened their first shop on the corner of Victory and Vineland in North Hollywood. Having christened their new shop, “Nudie’s of Hollywood”, their customers included Spade Cooley, Cliffie Stone, Porter Wagoner, Gene Autry, and Hank Williams.

In the early ’50s they took a chance and approached Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, and eventually became their custom tailors. Besides being two of their highest-profile clients, Roy & Dale also became life-long friends. Soon the Cohn’s flashy creations were visible every week to television viewers of The Roy Rogers Show.

Nudie’s granddaughter Jamie relates the story of an early encounter between Roy & Nudie:

“Roy had said to him, ‘Listen I’ve heard about you around town and I want something for when I play at Madison Square Garden, so that the kid in the nosebleed section can see me on stage,’” recounts Jamie.

“So my grandpa comes up with the idea of adding fringe to the shirt, and on every piece of fringe, he put rhinestones all the way down and that became the signature of Roy Rogers.”

“Like a rhinestone cowboy
Riding out on a horse in a star-spangled rodeo
Like a rhinestone cowboy
Getting cards and letters from people I don’t even know
And offers comin’ over the phone” – Rhinestone Cowboy (Weiss)

Another high profile client that helped cement the Cohns’ reputation throughout the country music community and beyond was Lefty Frizzell. When the singer approached Cohn in 1957 to help him stand out on a crowded bill, the tailor told him, “Lefty if you’ve got the guts to wear it, and it’s a hit, you can pay me for it.” He decorated both suit lapels with Frizzell’s initials in blue rhinestones and the singer’s trademark was born.

Early movie & television cowboys (and cowgirls) were already well known for their flamboyant style of dress, and Nudie Cohn’s creations took the ostentation to unprecedented levels with his liberal use of rhinestones, sequins, appliques and bright images embroidered on his one-of-a-kind outfits. Many of Cohn’s patrons would soon become identified by their “themed” Nudie suits, and you can bet that if an artist happened to be headlining the Grand Ole Opry, they were most likely doing it in one of Cohn’s custom creations.

In 1962, for singer Porter Wagoner, Cohn crafted a peach-colored suit bedazzled with rhinestones and stitched with a covered wagon on the back of the coat, and wagon wheels on the pants legs. Believing that the value of the exposure that the popular artist would bring to his design would be immeasurable, he offered the suit to Wagoner for free. Cohn was proven to be correct in his expectation, and his reputation and renown soared. By 1963 the Cohn’s were moving to a larger location, renaming the operation, “Nudie’s Rodeo Tailors”.

Perhaps one of Nudie Cohn’s most well-known suits is the gold lamé tuxedo that Elvis Presley donned for the cover of his LP, 50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can’t Be Wrong – Elvis’s Gold Records – Volume 2, released in November 1959. Elvis’ manager, Col. Tom Parker had come up with the idea for a special gold suit for his young phenom in 1956. Parker had become friends with Cohn several years earlier, through Parker’s association with singer Hank Snow – an early client of Cohn’s – and commissioned the garment for Elvis. Although the ensemble would become known as the “Famous $10,000 Gold Lamé Suit”, Nudie would later joke that $9,500 was pure profit, and the actual bill of sale for the suit was for $2,500.

“Well, I really don’t mind the rain
And a smile can hide all the pain
But you’re down when you’re ridin’ the train that’s takin’ the long way
And I dream of the things I’ll do
With a subway token and a dollar tucked inside my shoe” – Rhinestone Cowboy (Weiss)

As one era led into another, Nudie’s clientele began extending beyond the rank & file of Country & Western stars and included some of the biggest names in show business: John Wayne, Elton John, John Lennon, Cher, Chicago, ZZ Top, the Rolling Stones, Mike Nesmith, Ronald Reagan, Robert Mitchum, Pat Buttram, Tony Curtis, Michael Landon, Glen Campbell, Eric Clapton, Steve McQueen, Johnny Cash, America, The Flying Burrito Brothers, and David Lee Roth, among others. Nudie also created the costumes worn by Robert Redford in the film, The Electric Horseman.

In 1969, Nudie Cohn was featured on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. In the accompanying interview he stated:
“My impression of an entertainer is, he should wear a flashy outfit to be fair to the public. He shouldn’t be wearing a sport coat like the people in the audience. The costume is the first impression and it should be flashy.”

He explains that he developed this attitude when he was a youngster, shining shoes outside New York’s Palace Theatre, the Carnegie Hall of the Vaudeville circuit.

As changing times gave way to evolving tastes in entertainment and popular music, Cohn commented, “My costumes used to be called corny, now they call us mod. I don’t care. Country music has took over rock and roll. Doesn’t matter to me who buys clothes. Whatever does the best.”

Nudie Cohn on the cover of Rolling Stone — Nudie Cohn on the cover of *Rolling Stone*

For adorning the cover of the then counter-culture magazine, Rolling Stone gives context to Cohn’s notoriety by stating in the article:

Not only does Nudie claim to dress 80 percent of all movie and television western stars (from Hopalong Cassidy to Lorne Green), he also is reputed to control about three-quarters of the other tailor-made western clothing business in the U.S., outfitting Porter Wagoner, Jimmy Dean, Audie Murphy, Roy Rogers and perhaps a hundred other stars, as well as thousands of reg’lar folks. All of which helps Nudie stuff an estimated $500,000 a year into his sequined saddlebags. For his excellence at his art, Nudie was recently presented a special award by the Academy of Country and Western Music.

Nudie Cohn died in 1984 at the age of 81. His eulogy was delivered by Dale Evans. Nudie’s Rodeo Tailors continued to do business under the ownership of Nudie’s widow Bobbie and granddaughter Jamie but closed in 1994. Bobbie passed away in 2006, at the age of 92. She is buried with her husband at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills).

“There’ll be a load of compromisin’
On the road to my horizon
But I’m gonna be where the lights are shinin’ on me” – Rhinestone Cowboy (Weiss)

In 2006, Porter Wagoner said he had accumulated 52 Nudie suits, each costing between $11,000 and $18,000, since receiving his first free outfit in 1962. The Belgian entertainer Bobbejaan Schoepen was a client and personal friend, with a collection of 35 complete Nudie outfits which is believed to be the largest in Europe. Other Nudie suits are on display in various museums, while some are still worn on occasion.

A new generation of designers carries on the “Nudie” tradition with their own flashy creations that pay homage to a legendary American original.

Jamie Nudie keeps the memory of her grandparents alive with a website featuring T-shirts and other merchandise and has licensed the Nudie name to Nudie’s Honky Tonk in Nashville, Tennessee, where one of Nudie’s customized automobiles hangs above the stage.