The Singing Cowboys. [first edition]

The Singing Cowboys is a nostalgic, back-in-the-saddle examination of the B musical Western films of the thirties, forties, and fifties, and the singing cowpokes who made them so popular. The author, David Rothel, spent a fondly remembered portion of his youth sitting in the Lincoln Theatre in Elyria, Ohio, where the singing cowboys-Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Tex Ritter, and all the rest-played out their adventures and yodeled their songs on the silver screen. Thousands, perhaps millions, of youngsters from that era shared this common experience during their formative years, causing the musical Westerns and their singing cowboy stars to be potent draws at theater box offices all over the United States and in many other parts of the world. Now years later, with the movie trail dust from the horse operas long settled, David Rothel began to wonder about those jaunty cowboys with their fancy shirts and jingly spurs who had meant so much to him in years past. What were they really like? What was the view like from their side of the camera? What was it like to toil as a singing cowboy in such B Western factories as Republic Pictures, Monogram, and Producers Releasing Corporation? Do their musical Westerns look the same today when viewed through adult eyes? Finally-and most intriguing of all-what became of the singing cowboys after the movie cameras no longer recorded their celluloid adventures?