Singing Cowboy - Into The Sunset

Into The Sunset

Other notable actors who became famous as singing cowboys were Jimmy Wakely, Warner Brothers' Dick Foran, and Rex Allen, who didn't start his career until 1950, when the popularity of the genre was waning. Herb Jeffries made four films beginning with the intriguingly titled Harlem on the Prairie. Nonsinging cowboy actors such as Buck Jones complained that producers would find it too easy to pad out the length of a film with songs rather than action, characterization, or plot exposition.

With the advent of television, the making of B-movies dropped off and the era of singing cowboys was coming to an end. Autry and Rogers went on to star in The Gene Autry Show and The Roy Rogers Show, respectively, but the series' runs ended by the close of the decade, and the singing cowboy gradually ceased to exist in popular culture except as an exercise in nostalgia. Though he did not appear in the film, Tex Ritter sang the continuing ballad of High Noon.

The singing cowboy image has since been parodied, most notably in the 1985 film Rustlers' Rhapsody, with Tom Berenger portraying a stereotypical singing cowboy, and in the Pixar film Toy Story 2. The musical group Riders in the Sky continues the tradition of the singing cowboy today.