I am in my den tonight with the lights low and my shoes kicked off, wishing that natural gas was less expensive as I hear the furnace kick on again. My TV is on mute, serving as an adequate if irregular night light and I’m listening to Chris LeDoux’s “Cadillac Ranch” on the stereo. I’m pretty sure I’m pumping out too many decibels this late at night in Dunlap, Iowa. Oh well, if the police come to shut down my party, I guess I will comply since my guests number exactly zero and it is time for bed anyway.
“Cadillac Ranch” is a humorous little song about a farmer converting his barn into a honkytonk and saving the family farm with the proceeds. This was on the “Whatcha Gonna Do With a Cowboy” CD and is also on the “American Cowboy” boxed set of CDs.
I’m sitting here remembering all the wonderful evenings spent listening to Chris LeDoux live, from tiny little dive bars with a couple hundred people squeezed inside to sold-out stadiums, he was always a gracious, entertaining, and authentic presence. I saw him a couple of times in Sloan, Iowa, the closest he ever got to my little hometown. I trekked down to the American Royal rodeo in Kansas City with one of my best friends in the world “to catch the Chris show” and I watched him at one of his later appearances at a casino show held outdoors – it was so hot with the late June sun soaking into the asphalt parking lot and this was a rare appearance where he didn’t headline the show.
The neat thing about Chris LeDoux was that he related almost instantly to people just by the way he lived his life. He wasn’t simply a good artist, he was also a good man and it showed and people respected that. But boy, was it fun to be at a show! Depending on the song, his music could make you laugh or cry, but mostly you were just so thankful to be alive in that particular moment. It was a palpable feeling shared with all of the folks there, a sort of mini-woodstock for non-hippies and without the mud or the cold pork and beans.
I remember one time shaking his hand after a show in Des Moines, Iowa. You could sense in him a person who was less than comfortable as his gyrating, booming stage persona, but who was certainly true to what the message of his music and his life were all about.
Chris passed away in 2005 and it seems like just yesterday I read that news. At the time it didn’t really hit me, I guess mostly because I didn’t let it hit me. I just kept playing the music, putting off in my own mind the need to think about life after the rodeo legend turned hit musician.
With the vast amount of music he produced, it wouldn’t be hard to convince yourself he wasn’t gone by simply playing through his discography start to finish because it would take so long.
During his musical career, like his rodeo career, he was more than prolific, laying it all on the line and always giving fans something to cheer about. It was a real shame that he died in his 50′s, and we won’t see another like him. Music is usually my therapy in trying times and my tonic during good times and Chris Ledoux is one reason why. Here’s to his memory and to his music.
“Sit tall in the saddle, hold your head up high, keep your eyes fixed where the trail meets the sky and live like you ain’t afraid to die, and don’t be scared just enjoy your ride.” -from the song The Ride on the album Horsepower by Chris LeDoux
