Chris LeDoux 085

Chris LeDoux 085

Look closer for seven titles and seven lyrics: Bare Back Jack; Western Skies; County Fair; Stampede; Copenhagen Angel; Bang a Drum; Life is a Highway; “And how I got the part – I just don’t know.” (Look at You Girl); “But I feel like I could do anything in the world.” (also Look at You Girl); “But The little long hair has got control.” (Little Long-Haired Outlaw); “Well it was turned up in a big ole Texas grin.” (This Cowboy’s Hat); “Juke box won’t play no sad songs.” (Five Dollar Fine); “Bandana hanging on the mirror, still wet from ear to ear.” (Cadillac Cowboy).

The Story:

Chris LeDoux (10-02-1948 – 03-09-2005) was an American country music singer-songwriter, bronze sculptor, and hall of fame rodeo champion. During his career, LeDoux recorded 36 albums, many self-released. He’s sold more than six million units in the United States as of January 2007. He was awarded two gold and one platinum album certifications from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). On February 22, 1993, the single “Whatcha Gonna Do with a Cowboy” went gold. June 2, 1997, the album The Best of Chris LeDoux went gold. October 5, 2005, the album 20 Greatest Hits went platinum. For the 35th annual Grammy Awards in 1992, the single track “Whatcha Gonna Do with a Cowboy” was nominated for Best Country Vocal Collaboration. He was honored with the Academy of Country Music Cliffie Stone Pioneer Award. LeDoux is the only person to perform and also participate at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.

LeDoux was born in Biloxi, Mississippi. Of French descent, his father was in the US Air Force, stationed at Keesler Air Force Base at the time of his birth. The family moved often following his father’s Air Force career. He learned to ride horses visiting his grandparents on their Wyoming farm. At age 13, (’61) LeDoux participated in his first rodeo. Soon he was winning junior rodeo competitions.

LeDoux continued to compete in rodeo events and played football through his high-school years. When his family moved to Cheyenne, Wyoming, he attended Cheyenne Central High School. LeDoux won the Wyoming State Rodeo Championship bareback riding title twice during high school (’62-’66), earning him a rodeo scholarship to Casper College. During junior year at Eastern New Mexico University (’69), he won the Intercollegiate National bareback riding championship.

LeDoux married Peggy Rhoads on January 4, 1972. They had five children: Clay, Ned, Will, Beau, and Cindy.

Rodeo success and music beginnings

In 1970, LeDoux became a professional rodeo cowboy on the national circuit. To help pay his expenses while traveling the country, he began composing songs describing his lifestyle. Within two years, he had written enough songs to make up an album, and soon established a recording company, American Cowboy Songs, with his father. After recording his songs in a friend’s basement, LeDoux “began selling his tapes at rodeo events out of the back of his pickup truck”.

In 1976, LeDoux took world bareback riding champion at the National Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma City. The championship gave LeDoux more credibility with music audiences. He had proof that the cowboy songs he wrote, were authentic. LeDoux continued competing for the next four years and retired in 1980.

Music career

His rodeo career at an end, LeDoux settled his family on a ranch in Kaycee, Wyoming. LeDoux continued to write and record songs and began playing concerts. His concerts were very popular, and often featured him on a mechanical bull and fireworks. By 1982, he sold more than 250,000 copies of his albums, with little or no marketing. By the end of the decade, he had self-released 22 albums. 

Despite offers from various record labels, LeDoux refused to sign a recording contract, instead choosing to retain his independence and control over his work 

enjoying his regional following. In 1989, he shot to national prominence when he was mentioned in Garth Brooks’ top-10 country hit “Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old).” Capitalizing on the sudden attention, LeDoux signed a contract with Capitol Records subsidiary Liberty Records and released his first national album, Western Underground, in 1991. His follow-up album, Whatcha Gonna Do with a Cowboy, was certified gold and reached the top 10. The title track, a duet with Brooks, was LeDoux’s first and only top-10 country single, reaching number seven in 1992. In concert, he’d end the song saying, “Thanks, Garth!”

For the next decade, LeDoux continued to record for Liberty. He released six additional records, including One Road Man, which made the country top 40 in 1998. Toward the end of his career, LeDoux began covering other artists’ songs, attributing the challenge of composing new lyrics. In 2000, the Cowboy album, he returned to his roots, re-recording many of his earliest songwriting creations. 

Illness and death

In August 2000, LeDoux was diagnosed with primary sclerosing cholangitis, which required him to receive a liver transplant. Garth Brooks volunteered to donate part of his liver, but it was incompatible. An alternative donor was located, and LeDoux received a transplant on October 7, 2000. After his recovery, he released two additional albums. In November 2004, LeDoux was diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma, for which he underwent radiation treatment until his death.

credit – Wikipedia

CLAY MASTERS / Daily Nebraskan 03-11-2005

With the departure of LeDoux from this world and the country music industry we have now lost the last true cowboy singer/songwriter. 

The country music industry has been lagging for a number of years now and it’s a unique thing when the country music artist writes his/her own songs. Artists today in the country genre create albums chalked with watered down filler music surrounding two or three songs that are billed to be slapped on country radio. 

For LeDoux, this was not the case. His albums were timeless and unlike almost every other modern country entertainer that gets airplay today, LeDoux’s albums had originality from a voice that had lived the true American cowboy life. 

LeDoux remained true to country music roots and didn’t sell out, like the older artists of the genre — Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings. 

His songs were what he lived and his words were simple. 

In elementary school I first discovered LeDoux. I found myself totally admiring someone completely changing careers, who was successful in doing so. 

I have long since drifted away from modern country music due to the lag discussed earlier. But LeDoux has always been the one artist I can still pull out every once and a while and feel a connection with and take me back to my younger years when I fantasized being a cowboy myself. 

LeDoux will be missed greatly by more than just country music fans. He will be missed by the people who believe in music and songwriting. 

credit – chrisledoux.com

The artwork: 

The first print of this illustration is available to support a non-profit fundraiser. Contact lisafromlsu@gmail.com.for details.

Digital Print on Archival Matte – Original rendered in graphite and Prisma Colors: Olive Green and Ultra Marine because he would take on the army and her majesty’s marines For Your Love; True Blue for the blue northern in Cowboy’s Hat; Parma Violet for the cotton candy clouds in Western Skies.

Artist: Tobin Bortner of Bastrop, Texas – drawing done in December of 2023 – ©Tobin Signs/Look Closer Illustrations 
DERIVATIVE Work – photo credits: face and hat from losslessbox_do_am – s26238770 – (Stampede album cover); jacket, cup and hand from pinterest_com – 4763ec8f515fdfb1ba23550011dc8d0f; Copenhagen logo from www_ralphs_com – kroger_com – 0007310000107.

What you get:
$40 (36.95 + 3.05 tax)
11 x 14 Print Package with Authenticity Sheet
signed and numbered (run of 20)
Domestic Priority Mail $8 (Free shipping)