By Photo: Tumbleweed1954 / Wikimedia Commons, CC0
Chris LeDoux is one of the few people to reach the top of two very different worlds: professional rodeo and country music. He won a world championship in bareback riding, then built a loyal music audience by selling his own recordings at rodeos, long before a major label signed him.
The rider
LeDoux was born on October 2, 1948, in Biloxi, Mississippi, into an Air Force family that moved often. He spent much of his youth in Wyoming, including in Cheyenne, where he took up rodeo as a teenager. He competed in high school and college rodeo before turning professional. In 1976 he won the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association world championship in bareback riding, the title that defined the rest of his life.
The singer
While still competing, LeDoux wrote and recorded songs about rodeo life, the road between shows, injuries and horses. He released the albums himself and sold them at rodeos and Western stores. Over two decades he put out more than 20 independent albums, and his audience grew mostly by word of mouth among rodeo fans.
That changed in 1989, when Garth Brooks mentioned “a worn-out tape of Chris LeDoux” in the lyrics of his first hit, “Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old).” The line brought LeDoux to a national audience, and he signed with Capitol’s Liberty Records. In 1992 he and Brooks recorded the duet “Whatcha Gonna Do with a Cowboy,” which became LeDoux’s best-known single. His live shows, with rodeo energy and stunts, were known as some of the liveliest in country music.
Kaycee
LeDoux and his family made their home on a ranch near Kaycee, in Johnson County, Wyoming, where he also worked as a sculptor of Western bronzes. He died on March 9, 2005, after an illness. Kaycee honors him with Chris LeDoux Memorial Park.
Listening
For a starting point, look for the compilations of his independent recordings and his Liberty and Capitol albums from the early 1990s. For the rodeos where his songs still feel at home, see our rodeo calendar for the region.
Sources
- Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, world champion records.
- Capitol Records Nashville discography and press materials.
- Obituaries published in March 2005; Town of Kaycee.
