Back in the Saddle
“I’m back in the saddle again
Out where a friend is a friend
Where the longhorn cattle feed
On the lowly gypsum weed
Back in the saddle again”
(Co-written by Raymond Whitley and Norman Phelps)
Six Bar Cowboys on set of Rhythm Rangers (source: phelpsbrothers.tripod.com)
During the 1930’s, Gene Autry and Roy Rogers were the reigning stars of that peculiar American musical genre known as the Singing Cowboy. Recently, I learned that there was also a group of Chesapeake Singing Cowboys known as the Phelps Brothers. These Tidewater cowpokes hit all the high notes of the 1930’s, appearing in several Western movies, lunching with the stars at the famous Brown Derby in L.A., and even performing “Home on the Range” for a cane tapping President Franklin Roosevelt at the Texas Centennial.
Real cowboys did sing on the range. They sang a medley of camp songs, hymns and popular songs of the day, but nobody was listening until almost the turn of the century. Buffalo Bill’s popular Wild West Shows started touring the East in 1883, and reached their zenith around 1900 with thousands of people attending every event. Bill Cody knew how to put on a great show; complete with wild animals, sharp shooting competitions, dramatized historical re-enactments, rodeo shows, and a colorful assortment of Wild West personalities.
Audiences loved the combination of thrills and adventure in a romanticized Western setting. Cody created many of the clichés we associate with the Old West in over three decades of Wild West Shows. Familiar images such as two gunfighters facing off on a dusty street, painted Indians on horses streaking through herds of buffalo, and a cowboy’s hard living life on the range were all made famous in the Wild West Shows.
Alongside the Wild West Shows, a new literary genre appeared called the Western. The new century saw the remarkable success of the trail blazing novel, The Virginian, by Owen Wister. Set in Wyoming during the 1890’s, the story centered on a fight between the big cattle ranchers and the little guys, with frontier justice being reluctantly meted out by “The Virginian”. The central storyline is the moral tension the hero experiences caught between his horrible duty in executing the lynching, and his admiration for the courage of the thief. Woven into the plot is also a romance between the Virginian and a pretty schoolteacher named Molly Wood.
“The Virginian” was published in 1902, and dedicated to Wister’s good friend Teddy Roosevelt. The novel greatly influenced other writers, including a struggling young author named Zane Grey. Grey, who was to become one of the first millionaire fiction writers, published his bestseller Riders of the Purple Sage in 1907. He went on to write the books and stories that became the storylines for over a hundred Western movies.
The cowboy, this new American hero with his trusty steed, made the jump easily onto the silver screen. The birth of the film industry paralleled the timeline for Grey’s prolific writing career. His stories featured cowboys and gunfighters, men of action, wandering from place to place, living by a personal code of honor, and fighting when necessary to preserve that code. The first cinematic Western, The Great Train Robbery (1903) starring Bronco Billy, was silent. With the advent of sound in movies the cowboys begin singing in films. The first movie with a singing cowboy was Ken Maynard in Son of the Saddle (1930).
Soon Maynard was joined by several singing cowboys such as Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, and Michael Martin Murphy, stirring a generation of children who idolized them. Gene Autry, with his famous white cowboy hat, wrote the Cowboy Code, also known as the Cowboy Commandments, to inspire his fervent young fans.
1. Never shoot first, hit a smaller man, or take unfair advantage.
2. Never go back on his word, or a trust confided in him.
3. Always tell the truth.
4. Be gentle with children, the elderly and animals.
5. Not advocate or possess racially or religiously intolerant ideas.
6. Help people in distress.
7. Be a good worker.
8. Keep himself clean in thought, speech, action and personal habits.
9. Respect women, parents and his nation's laws.
10. Be a patriot.
(In an interesting side note Gene Autry was also the composer of Here Comes Santa Claus, Frosty the Snowman, and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.)
Norman Phelps Publicity Photo in 30's (source: phelpsbrothers.tripod.com)
Autry’s signature song was Back in the Saddle, a song he purchased from Ray Whitley. Ray and his fellow band member Norman Phelps composed the song together, according to the Phelps family history. The Phelps Brothers heralded from South Norfolk, Virginia, where they were a local musical phenomenon known as Norman Phelps and the Virginia Rounders.
Norman and his brothers, Earl and Willie Phelps, started out performing around South Norfolk. The boys played multiple instruments; including the fiddle, guitar, bass, mandolin, and the washboard. They sang beautiful “blood harmonies”, and had an easygoing, fun loving style. Soon the Phelps were appearing in local clubs and playing local radio stations.
In 1936, the brothers took the train to New York City to try out their luck on a bigger stage. In New York they hitched up with Ray Whitley. They performed at the Colonel Johnson Wild West Rodeo Show at Madison Square Garden as “Ray Whitley and the Six-Bar Cowboys”. Afterwards, Colonel Johnson took them to his personal ranch in Texas to learn how to be “real cowboys”. While in Texas they had the opportunity to perform for Franklin Roosevelt at the Texas Centennial Celebration. Then they were off to Hollywood, where they appeared in a series of Westerns and toured the country. In 1940 they decided to return to home, longing for Virginia, old friends and family,
Following WWII, the Phelps purchased a former hotel on the South Branch of the Elizabeth River. They settled in for the next twenty years; establishing a horse barn, a dance hall and a recording studio where they wrote and recorded numerous songs. The brothers enjoyed daily local radio appearances and even had their own weekly local television show in the 1950’s.
Although the brothers are gone now, they are not forgotten, and their legacy lives on in Chesapeake. The 12th Annual Phelps Brothers Music Festival, sponsored by the Chesapeake Parks and Recreation Department and Beahive Promotions, will be held on Sunday, June 13, 2010 from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. at Lakeside Park. Local bluegrass and country musicians will perform, and an exhibit will be set up with the brother’s original musical instruments and pictures. The public is invited to bring a yard chair and enjoy the music. Maybe they will even play a couple of cowboy songs in memory of “Chesapeake’s Singing Cowboys”, just right around the corner from where the boys grew up.
I know there USED to be cowboys in Tidewater because my husband's uncle, T.T. Dyer (who used to sing with Norman Phelps and the Virginia Rounders) sang "Goodbye Buckaroo"(an old Gene Autry song)at Willie Phelps funeral March 1, 2004. Uncle T.T. died May 19, 2004.
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