Cowboy

During the long cattle drives of the 1800s, cowboys actually did sing to their cattle to keep them calm at night. They also often sang to themselves and to one another on the trail and around campfires to relieve boredom. Such Cowboy classics as "Streets of Laredo" and "The Dying Cowboy" came out of this era, although they were actually bastardizations of centuries-old Anglo-Folk songs. Thanks to America's fascination with the mythology of the cowboy and the settling of the West, singing cowboys became a hot commodity during the 1920s and '30s. Early artists like Carl Sprague were fairly traditional, but later crooners like the Sons of the Pioneers and Gene Autry turned campfire classics into pop songs. During the 1930s, sound movies were just taking off, giving many of these singing cowboys a chance to win even more fame riding white steeds across the silver screen. A few women got in on the action too, most notably Patsy Montana with her classic song "I Want to be a Cowboy's Sweetheart." The cowboy trend has survived into contemporary times just barely, thanks to revivalist groups like Riders in the Sky.