The Guardian newspaper in the UK has paid tribute to Gene Autry, noting the date November 15, 1934, when Autry (already a radio star) became cinema's first Singing Cowboy as Number 7 in its series of the "50 key events in the history of world and folk music."
In 1934, he made his silver-screen debut in a B-western called In Old Santa Fe, the first of his 93 films. ... In 1939, he visited the UK with his horse, Champion, and while he was really a Hollywood creation, he brought the songs of the range to the world.
"Don't Fence Me In" is one of the iconic songs of the Wild West; the quintessentially Singing Cowboy's ode to the open range and all the aspirations and cliches that that embodies.... it was popularized by Roy Rogers (my biggest childhood TV cowboy crush) years before I was born. Here's Roy (and Trigger) introducing it in the 1944 movie "Hollywood Canteen."
Far from originating on the prairies, the song was an early offering by the ultra-urban, ultra-urbane Cole Porter, who wrote it in 1934 for a movie that was never produced.
Over the years, there have been a zillion covers of the tune -- including this, on German TV, by Ken Curtis -- in his costume from his days as "Festus" on Gunsmoke.
Gunsmoke, and the Festus character, were popular in Germany -- one of the folks I would see at country and western festivals in Berlin affected the Festus look and went by the moniker Festus Junior.
Festus Junior at Berlin Country Music Messe 2008. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber
Below -- a different take on the song by another ultra-urbanite, David Byrne:
For several years I've been exploring the imaginary wild west in contemporary Europe -- observing and experiencing the many ways that Europeans embrace the mythology of the American Frontier to enhance, imbue or create their own identities. (Or, indeed, just have fun.) On this blog I will post pictures, stories and links relating to this multi-faceted subculture, from European country music to rodeos, theme parks, round-ups and saloons....
I'm an American writer and photographer who has researched and written widely on Jewish culture and heritage issues for more than three decades. I've written several books on the topic and manage the website www.jewish-heritage-europe.eu, a project of the Rothschild Foundation (Hanadiv) Europe.
I also am working longterm on "Sturm, Twang and Sauerkraut Cowboys: Imaginary Wild Wests in Contemporary Europe," an exploration of the American West in the European imagination for which I won a 2006 Guggenheim Fellowship and an NEH summer stipend grant. In 2015 I was the Arnold Distinguished Visiting Chair in Jewish Studies at the College of Charleston, SC. My other honors and awards include Poland's “Knight's Cross of the Order of Merit" and the Michael Hammer Tribute Research Award from the Hadassah Brandeis Institute (HBI).
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