A singing cowboy himself, Douglas B. Green is uniquely suited to write the story of the singing cowboy, from the early days of vaudeville and radio, through the heyday of movie westerns before World War II, to the current revival. He provides rich and careful analysis of the studio system that made Gene Autry and Roy Rogers famous, and he documents the role that country music and regional television stations played in carrying on the singing cowboy tradition after the war. Green's story reveals how the imagery of the singing cowboy has become such a potent force that even now country musicians don cowboy hats to symbolically take part in the legend.