Perspective

Last month, I shared the first of a two-part series about one of America’s cowboy heroes — Gene Autry. When we left off, Texas-born Autry was setting off for the Big Apple in hopes of getting his official start in the music business. Unfortunately, Autry found the trip disappointing. He met with the Victor Talking Machine Co. (Victor Records) and was turned down — not because of his singing ability, but because the company already had two similar singers under contract. A Victor executive advised Autry to start singing on the radio, gain some experience and then return for another audition. Autry returned to Oklahoma with that advice and landed a slot on Tulsa radio station KVOO, where he performed as “Oklahoma’s Yodeling Cowboy.” When he signed with Columbia Records and moved to Chicago to appear on “America’s Barn Dance” in 1929, his native Texas grew more distant than ever. Over the course of his career, Autry recorded nearly 650 songs. Of those, he wrote 300, including one of his most widely played tunes, “Back in the Saddle Again.” His popularity boomed across the nation, and Autry’s record sales numbered in the tens of millions. He outsold the likes of Bing Crosby, a star who appealed to every region of America, and he turned out the first-ever gold-certified record. While Autry built a wildly popular career on radio, diversification turned him into the huge star he became. After achieving stardom, he went into the movie business and was wildly successful, starring in “B” Westerns that appealed more to small-town America than big-city markets. Of course, Autry realized that in the 1930s, more people lived in small rural communities than big cities. Autry played along sidekick Smiley Burnett and guest-starred with his horse “Champion” in low budget films debuting at the rate of seven per year. By 1940, he could command more money per film, and his name became a marquee drawing card in cities and rural communities alike. Autry productions grew in budget as much as they did popularity. In the 1940s, when kids caught the cowboy “bug” and Western films offered an entire generation the means of escaping the trials of childhood and schooling, Autry not only appeared on screen but also released 39 hit records. All those songs peaked in the Top 10 on US Country Charts, and nine became No. 1 hits. On screen, Republic Studios promoted Autry as “King of the Singing Cowboys.” His drawing power reached immense proportions and carried an entire generation of stars including fellow Texan Bill Boyd, born just a county east of Autry in Ladonia, Texas. Autry soon called the shots in what rapidly rose into a lucrative career. After his contract with Republic Studios ended, Autry moved to Columbia Pictures. At Columbia, he mesmerized audiences nationwide with his ballads, surrounded by Western plots, on the movie screen. The change also took him back across the country, again bypassing his native Texas to land in California. The “Monogram Ranch,” purchased in the early 1950s, became the filming site of many of Autry’s and other Western stars films and television shows, including “Gunsmoke.” By the end of the 1950s, Autry was one of wealthiest Hollywood stars and claimed a spot among the richest men in America. He later built the Museum of Western Heritage in Los Angeles, a display of countless Western artifacts accumulated over a lifetime. In 1961, he purchased his own major league baseball franchise, the California Angels. He owned the team he until his death in 1998. Autry also got into the rodeo business. He purchased a ranch adjacent to Berwyn, Oklahoma, owned stock supplying rodeo promoters throughout the West. He also starred in his own line of comic books and earned royalties from toys ranging from pistols to guitars. He even owned a Los Angeles television station. While he may not have made his riches in Texas, he certainly earned them in the true Texas way — diversity coupled with ingenuity and a recognition of good investments over bad. Looking back to 1936, when Autry was only a few years into his career, the city council of Tioga took up a proposal to rename itself “Autry Springs.” Although newspapers reported Gene Autry played no role in the campaign, they also documented a plan to turn Tioga into a resort community, much like Mineral Wells west of Fort Worth. Tioga claimed mineral waters of its own, and it seems Autry, or at least his supporters, had eyes on using his fame to turn the town into both a tourist attraction and a money-making machine. On Jan. 6, 1937, Tioga held a community-wide vote on the issue, and Tioga’s 600 or so citizens overwhelmingly declined the change by a margin of 2:1. A number of reasons for the ballot issue’s failure were reported, most notably that the older citizens of the community voted against the proposal. Another story, unconfirmed, claims one of Tioga’s prominent citizens — a doctor, who attended Autry’s birth — spoke loudly against the name change, claiming Autry’s parents never paid their bill. Regardless, Autry Springs was left without a home, and the tourist attraction never came to fruition. Still, when Autry’s true birthplace passed on its claim to the singing cowboy, an Oklahoma town stepped in. Although Berwyn, Oklahoma, couldn’t market itself as the home of Gene Autry, the community could claim that it served as the springboard for launching Autry’s career. After all, had the young singer not spent his shift in the local telegraph office, singing and playing his guitar, he might have never met Will Rogers or taken a shot at the recording business. And when Autry purchased land for his ranch adjacent to the community, Berwyn saw an opportunity to capitalize on its neighbor’s name. In 1941, bolstered by the efforts of a local deputy sheriff, citizens of Berwyn claimed Gene Autry as their own, not out of genuine right but from association. On Nov. 16, just three weeks before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Gene Autry, Oklahoma, was born. A crowd of 35,000 turned out for the ceremony, which concluded with Autry performing his nationwide radio show, “Melody Ranch,” on CBS live from a flat car on the railroad tracks. And so, that is the story of the man who should be remembered among Texas’ most popular native sons — the only entertainer to have amassed five stars on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame. While Oklahoma may have stepped in and taken Autry’s Texas valor, he will forever remain a Texan by birth.

Those who know me sometimes say I have a one-track mind when it comes to music. That is a fallacy. After all, I listen to both country AND western. So, for a bit of a twist, I thought I’d concentrate a couple of columns on the less appreciated (at least by today’s standards) of the two — western. With that, here’s the story of how tiny Tioga, Texas, lost its claim as the home of recording and silver screen star Gene Autry. Not only did Tioga lose its star, but so did Autry’s home state. Silent film actors like Tom Mix, a native of Pennsylvania, are credited with starring in the earliest Western films. While cowboy antics of the Old West as fictionalized on motion picture screens remained only a generation in the past, Mix and others, like Broncho Billy Anderson and William S. Hart, began filming early westerns around the turn of the 20th century. Perhaps the most noted film of the era was “The Great Train Robbery” — which is actually not based in the West, as some would expect, but instead in Paterson, New Jersey. A number of western movie stars of both the silent and modern era played cowboy roles set in the rough and tumble towns of Texas, the badlands of New Mexico and the deserts of Arizona. These actors came from across the country and called states like New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Michigan and California their homes. The early western stars used the concept of “Texas” as a stage for their on-film personas. Too often, the actors never actually set foot in the Lone Star State. After all, California offered its share of terrain that resembled parts of Texas, and it cost producers far less to film near the motion picture hub of Los Angeles than traveling nearly halfway across the country. In many ways, it could be said that Hollywood stole Texas’ identity and passed the masquerade off as “authentic” to the generations of western movie fans who followed. But if you’re from Texas, misleading moviegoers was not nearly as criminal as the true story of a Texan who was considered among the most popular of all 20th century entertainers. Orvon Grover “Gene” Autry was born Sept. 29, 1907, near the small town of Tioga in north central Texas. At the time of Autry’s birth, Tioga claimed less than 800 citizens, a number that declined to 600 by the time Autry began his show business career two decades later. Tioga was cattle country — and true to his on-screen persona, Autry was every bit a cowboy, growing up on his parents’ ranch. One newspaper declared that Autry was “riding a horse before he could walk.” He eventually worked on the ranch and entered his first rodeo at the age of 12. But even more than cattle, Gene Autry loved music. Although the stories documenting Autry’s earliest days in music vary, most agree he began singing at a very young age. When he was 10, Autry decided he didn’t like the way his voice sounded without instruments in the background. He saved up $5 to buy a mail-order guitar and taught himself to play chords. Soon he was playing and singing at nightspots along the Red River. While the reported date of the event varies, at some point during this period Autry and his family moved 60 miles north of Tioga to Ravia, Oklahoma. In fact, many accounts of Gene Autry’s life note Ravia as his boyhood home. But Texas doesn’t like to turn loose of its heroes. Perhaps it’s a coincidence that Tioga, Texas, took its name from a New York Indian tribe. After all, as so many supposedly Texas-based movies were filmed on out-of-state sets, it could be considered poetic justice that Autry lived in a town named after northerners. Then again, Autry was no Yankee. He was Texas-born and played the role of a Texan in most of the 93 films in which he starred from the 1930s to the 1950s. If only it could be so easy for Texas to lay claim to Hollywood’s first and most successful singing cowboy. Some historians have credited Autry as the second most influential star in the development of country music, arriving on the scene just a few years after Jimmie Rodgers. Biographer Don Cusic noted Autry as using the appeal of western movies along with his distinction as a singing cowboy, to introduce much of America to country music, a genre rooted in the South. And there is little doubt Autry’s singing gave a sub-genre of country music — western — its first widespread popularity outside states like Texas and Oklahoma. Moviegoers perceived Autry for what he was — a singing cowboy from Texas (although it was a brand of Texas twisted to Hollywood’s marketing preferences). Autry never lived in the cactus-thriving region of West Texas and Big Bend Country, the fictional set of many of his movies. And he certainly was not native to California, where he shot his 1950s television show, “The Gene Autry Show,” on a ranch he purchased. Despite the entertainment business’ ability to parlay the Texas mystique into untold millions of dollars, in reality, Autry only occasionally performed live shows in his home state. The rest, as they said, was “Hollywood.” It was also reality — Autry didn’t begin riding the trail to stardom until he drifted across the Red River to Oklahoma. Ravia was only a short distance north of Tioga, but it might as well have been a world away. After all, Texans stake claim to anything happening inside Texas boundaries. In North Texas, the determining factor depends on which side of the Red River the event occurs. And the privilege of claiming to be Texan follows along the imaginary lines dividing Texas from its four bordering states and Mexico. The width of a cowboy boot is the difference between being a Texan or just another cowpoke. Autry attended school in Ravia, Oklahoma, and eventually took a job as a telegraph operator with the Frisco Railroad. Working the late-night shift, he passed his time singing and strumming his guitar in the Berwyn telegraph station, a short distance from his adopted home. Eventually, he went to work for another telegraph company in Chelsea, a town in northeast Oklahoma. Here, company policy prohibited Autry from playing music on the job, and he soon found himself unemployed. But before his dismissal, his singing caught the ear of Oklahoma’s famed humorist Will Rogers, who suggested the young singer take his music to a larger stage. Autry didn’t find that larger stage in Dallas or San Antonio; rather, he traveled to the Victor Talking Machine Company in New York City to get his official start in the music business. That’s where we’ll pick up next month for the continuation of Autry’s story. Until next time, have a listen to the western side of the country music business. In some cases, it’ll conjure up old memories, and in others it may just spur a love for a whole new brand of listening pleasure.

Leon Everette may have grown up in Queens, New York, but his South Carolina roots were pure country. During his childhood, Everette didn’t aspire to be a musician. He said the radio was always on, but it was just background noise for an otherwise urban upbringing. In fact, it wasn’t until Everette joined the U.S. Navy and was assigned to an aircraft carrier in the South Pacific that he developed an interest in music. His fellow seamen had a variety of instruments with which to while away the hours. During a stopover in the Philippines, Everette purchased a guitar and smuggled it aboard. Before long, he was eyeballing other naval musicians and learning their techniques and picking up the notes by ear. By the time his stint in the Navy was up, Everette had won a singing contest. He returned to South Carolina with a country music career on his mind. Unfortunately, it had to wait while Everette made a living, working for a power and gas company. But Everette had learned to thrive on applause, and the power industry didn’t offer the residuals he yearned for. Against the wishes of his wife and family, Everette decided to pursue a career in the music business. After a fallout with his boss at the power company, he abruptly quit, bought a new guitar, formed a band and started playing clubs in South Carolina and Georgia. The band was popular, but Everette was the only member who yearned to pursue a career in music. Even winning a contest that included a recording contract with a small label didn’t convince his fellow bandmates, and Everette soon set out on his own. He went to Nashville, where that recording deal offered him very little leverage — but he did manage to crack a door into the industry. He continued to travel solo to Nashville, hoping he’d grab someone’s ear and get a real shot on 16th Avenue. That chance finally came. In 1976, Everette was working in the mail room of True Records, when the company heard that a rival, Doral Records, had released Everette’s first single, “Running State of Mind.” True Records took notice and decided to give Everette a shot. It just so happened that Everette’s first recording session was about the time of Elvis’ death. He recorded a tribute song to the King of Rock ‘n Roll, and it met with immediate success — but only become it was the first out of the gate. As other artists released their own tributes, the popularity of Everette’s song plummeted. Still, Everette’s producers were intrigued with what they heard, and pressured him to record pop music. Everette refused. As far as he was concerned, it was country or nothing. He was so bullheaded about it that when the label threatened to drop him unless he met its terms, he gladly walked away. Not long after the breakup with True Records, Everette performed what he viewed as a farewell show in Iowa. He’d taken a shot at music and didn’t see eye to eye with the industry about his talents, so he decided a 9-5 job back in South Carolina would be his next move. But first, he had to fulfill a contract and perform in the Midwest. There, he met a supportive Florida businessman who knew little about music but offered to bankroll Everette’s career. Everette’s plans to return to the daily grind of an ordinary worker dissipated. Soon, the pair formed Orlando Records. In 1978, Everette returned to Nashville and began to make contacts with songwriters. A chance meeting with Bill Rice of the Foster-Rice songwriting duo paid off. They wrote several chart singles including “We Let Love Fade Away” and “Never Ending Crowded Circle,” but Orlando Records was too small of a production company to make much headway on the radio. Eventually, “Don’t Feel Like the Lone Ranger,” broke into the Top 30, and Orlando Records began to gain traction. Everette’s career desperately needed the boost of a major label, but the hardheaded performer wanted total control of his songs and production. RCA expressed interest, but the large company wasn’t about to give control to an unproven singer. However, when “Over You” hit the Top 10, the company reconsidered. In 1980, Leon Everette signed with RCA and received the creative license he craved. “Giving Up Easy” and “I Keep Going Crazy,” Everette’s first two RCA releases, shot up the charts, both reaching the Top 10. This led to the release of his first RCA album, “I Keep Going Crazy,” a mix of country/rock and ballads. The album even included a version of Willie Nelson’s “It’s Not Supposed to be that Way.” All the while, his stage show grew in popularity because of its high energy and hard-cranking music. Some described Everette as a hurricane on stage. It just so happened that a song of the same name became Everette’s top hit. “Hurricane” is the story of Everette’s meeting with an old man while a hurricane churns “30 miles out in the Gulf Stream” off the Louisiana coast. As the bridge “looks lower” and the “shrimp boats hurry home,” Everette meets a man in the French Quarter of New Orleans who has little fear of what the hurricane might bring to the city. His attitude toward the storm is that “nobody taught ’er that it takes a lot of water to wash away New Orleans.” “Hurricane” became immensely popular along the Gulf Coast and, coupled with its national airplay, the song reached No. 1 on the country charts. Leon Everette’s career was off to the races. He followed with three consecutive Top 10 hits — “Midnight Rodeo,” “Just Give Me What You Think is Fair” and “Soul Searching.” Everette was a true force among male country performers throughout the mid-80s, although he began to fall from the charts after reaching No. 6 with “I Could’a Had You” in 1984. After his career waned, Everette accepted Jesus Christ as his savior and made the switch to gospel music. He remains active in the genre today. Until next time, don’t let a late start or a negative attitude among your peers keep you down. Like Leon Everette, you may be a “Hurricane” lying in wait.