Nobody Loved Wyoming Like Chris LeDoux, Here Are The Songs That Prove It

Chris LeDoux was a rodeo star, a bronze sculptor, and most famously a country music singer who loved the state of Wyoming. 

He was not born in Wyoming.

Chris LeDoux was born in Biloxi, Mississippi, on October 2, 1948.

But once he got to Wyoming, like many of us, he never wanted to leave.

A true cowboy that lived every song he wrote.

So you know that if Chris LeDoux was singing it, there was a life experience behind it.

Keep that in mind as we go back and listen to the words of SWEET WYOMING HOME.

A song he released in 1988.

Every word is from his own life experiences.

Anyone living in Wyoming can relate to what he's saying.

Chris LeDoux (October 2, 1948 – March 9, 2005).

He was prolific. During his career, LeDoux recorded 36 albums (many self-released).

Those albums have sold more than six million units in the United States as of January 2007.

Chris earned two gold and one platinum album certifications from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

He was nominated for a Grammy Award.

The Academy of Country Music gave him the Cliffie Stone Pioneer Award.

LeDoux is also the only person to participate and also perform at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.

He learned to ride horses while visiting his grandparents near Kaycee Wyoming.

He participated in his first rodeo at age 13, and before long was winning junior rodeo competitions.

He competed in rodeo events and played football throughout his high school years.

When his family moved to Cheyenne, Wyoming, he attended Cheyenne Central High School.

He twice won the Wyoming State Rodeo Championship bareback riding title during high school.

That earned him a rodeo scholarship to Casper College in Casper.

During his junior year at Eastern New Mexico University, LeDoux won the Intercollegiate National bareback riding championship.

In 1970, LeDoux joined the professional rodeo cowboy on the national circuit.

To help pay his expenses while traveling the country, he began composing songs describing. Not a bad choice.

Within two years, he had written enough songs to make up an album.

As a self-starter, he established a recording company, American Cowboy Songs, with his father.

They recorded his songs in a friend's basement.

LeDoux "began selling his tapes at rodeo events out of the back of his pickup truck".

In 1976, LeDoux won the world bareback riding championship at the National Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma City.