“Music has been the better part of my career. Movies are wonderful fun and they give you a famous face. But how the words and melody are joined, how they come together out of air and enter the mind, this is art. Songs are forever" - Gene Autry

“I did pretty good for a guy who never finished high school and used to yodel at square dances.” – Roy Rogers

In the early 20th century, Westerns were one of the most popular genres in Hollywood, and one of the young stars at the forefront was Gene Autry, a Texan whose life story made him a natural to be the country’s most famous “singing cowboy”. Autry would become a symbol of masculinity and morality on screen during the 1930s, but it was effortless for someone who had already grown up riding horses to school.

Autry came of age at a time when the “singing cowboy” was at the apex of his popularity, and like his most famous successor, Roy Rogers, Autry actually got his start in show business as a singer. Even today, Autry might be best known for being a pioneer of country music and the author of Christmas hits "Here Comes Santa Claus", "Frosty the Snowman", and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". Autry would produce hundreds of recordings during his life, helping ensure the popularity of the country music genre and earning inductions into several related halls of fame.