Good thread Jerry!!

Frogprince,
When I was a kid, my mother took me to the Oriental Theater in Chicago's downtown "Loop" to see the film The Strawberry Roan starring the man himself, Gene Autry. It was, I believe, Gene's first color film! Before that they were all filmed in black and white. --- The song "Strawberry Roan" was sung in that film.

But the best part of it was that Gene Autry was there IN PERSON !! So was his horse "Champion". It was a live stage show to go with the film. Of course, Champ was THE Strawberry Roan in the film.

I've told this story here at Mudcat before, and I tell it on a new CD Dennis Cook is putting together for me in Maryland. (It is to be called Chicago Town And Points West.) Me not being able to pick   now, we took older tapes of my shows, mostly from the 1970s I think --- back when I still could. But I digress...

There is more to this story, but that'll have to wait. I told it on that CD to introduce my version of a song Gene sang that day --"Riding Down The Canyon." Smiley Burnett and Gene wrote that in the back seat of a car on the way to a gig near Chicago when both of those guys were singing with the National Barn Dance in that city.

Art Thieme