Tex Owens (June 15, 1892 – September 9, 1962) was an American country music singer and songwriter, best remembered today for writing the

Eddy Arnold Richard Edward Arnold (May 15, 1918 – May 8, 2008) was an American country music singer who performed for six decades. He was a Nashville sound (country/popular music) innovator of the late 1950s, and scored 147 songs on the ''Billboard'' cou ...

hit

Cattle Call An audition is a sample performance by an actor, singer, musician, dancer or other performer. It typically involves the performer displaying their talent through a previously memorized and rehearsed solo piece or by performing a work or piece g ...

. The youngest of thirteen children, he was born Doie Hensley Owens in Killeen, Texas into a large and musically talented family. His brother was a singer and songwriter and his sister became a well-known Grand Ole Opry performer as Texas Ruby.

Life and career

In his early teens Owens spent a year with a traveling tent show as a blackface singer. By his late teens he left music and found work in the Texas oilfields, and in Missouri, Kansas, and Colorado as a farmhand and mechanic. For a time, he was a lawman in Bridgeport, Oklahoma. He was brought back to music in

Lamar, Colorado Lamar is the home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Prowers County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 7,804 at the 2010 United States Census. The city was named after Confederate ...

, while he was hospitalized for an appendectomy. A group of children (five of whom had frozen to death before being rescued) who had been stranded in a blizzard were brought into the hospital, and he entertained them by singing songs. Their appreciative reaction pulled him back into music. After performing in

medicine show Medicine shows were touring acts (traveling by truck, horse, or wagon teams) that peddled "miracle cure" patent medicines and other products between various entertainments. They developed from European mountebank shows and were common in the Unit ...

s with his two daughters, he became known as "The Original Texas Ranger" on radio station KMBC in Kansas City, Missouri. His ''Brush Creek Follies'' show there lasted for more than eleven years and became nationally famous. He made many other radio appearances, hosting the ''Boone County Jamboree'' on WLW in

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

. In 1943 Owens moved to Hollywood and began to appear in films. During the shooting of the 1948 John Wayne movie '' Red River'', his horse fell on him and he broke his back, an injury from which he never fully recovered. He retired from movies in the 1950s and moved to Texas, where he died of a heart attack in 1962, aged 70. In 1971, Tex Owens was posthumously inducted into the

Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame The Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame was established in 1970 by the Nashville Songwriters Foundation, Inc. in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. A non-profit organization, its objective is to honor and preserve the songwriting legacy that is ...

. Owens's daughter, Laura Lee Owens (1920-1989) was the first female vocalist to tour with

Bob Wills James Robert Wills (March 6, 1905 – May 13, 1975) was an American Western swing musician, songwriter, and bandleader. Considered by music authorities as the founder of Western swing, he was known widely as the King of Western Swing (although ...

and the Texas Playboys. She later married band leader Dickie McBride and performed with him as Laura Lee McBride. In the 1970s, she toured with

Ernest Tubb Ernest Dale Tubb (February 9, 1914 – September 6, 1984), nicknamed the Texas Troubadour, was an American singer and songwriter and one of the pioneers of country music. His biggest career hit song, " Walking the Floor Over You" (1941), ...

and the Texas Troubadours.

Cattle Call

Owens made a recording of the song on August 28, 1934. The recording was not a success. Eddy Arnold recorded it in 1944 and again in 1955; both recordings were extremely successful. Tex Owens wrote over 100 songs, but this one was far and away his biggest success. Inspiration for the song came ''Cattle Call'' while he was in Kansas City watching the snow fall.

"Watching the snow, my sympathy went out to cattle everywhere, and I just wished I could call them all around me and break some corn over a wagon wheel and feed them. That's when the words 'cattle call' came to my mind. I picked up my guitar, and in thirty minutes I had wrote the music and four verses to the song."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Owens, Tex American country singer-songwriters American male singer-songwriters 1892 births 1962 deaths 20th-century American singers 20th-century American male singers