Born in Biloxi in 1948, Chris LeDoux achieved success as both a competitive rodeo cowboy and a Western singing star. The son of an Air Force major stationed at Keesler Air Force Base, he spent part of his childhood in Biloxi, and those memories later appeared in his song “Born in Mississippi.” After learning to ride horses on his grandparents’ Michigan farm and living in a frequently moving military family that also spent time in Texas, he set his sights on rodeo by age fourteen and began playing guitar and writing songs in high school in Cheyenne, Wyoming. He left college in Wyoming and New Mexico to compete full-time in bareback riding, entered about 80 rodeos a year, and became World Champion Bareback Bronc Rider in 1976. In 1972, to help cover rodeo entry costs, he and his father Al formed the independent label American Cowboy Songs and moved to Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, while his parents ran the business and distributed the songs he wrote and recorded for rodeo fans, promoting him as “The Singin’ Bronc Rider.” That same year he married Peggy Rhoads of Kaycee, Wyoming, and they later raised five children there. While still competing, he sold about four million dollars worth of 22 albums of music he characterized as “Western soul, sagebrush blues, cowboy folk and rodeo rock ‘n’ roll,” and after retiring from rodeo in 1980 he focused on music, becoming a Western cult figure known for energetic live shows. National attention came in 1989 when Garth Brooks referred to a Chris LeDoux record in the hit “Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old),” after which LeDoux signed with Liberty at Capitol Records and in 1992 had a Top Ten national hit and Grammy-nominated duet with Brooks, “Whatcha Gonna Do With a Cowboy.” He helped revive the Western side of “Country & Western” and set the stage for more explosive, visual country arena shows before his life was cut short by liver disease; he died in March 2005 and later that year was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame and received the Academy of Country Music’s Pioneer Award posthumously.
