Born to Ride: Three Country Stars Who Were Pro Rodeo Cowboys First

Country music and rodeo have always shared a soul. Both celebrate grit, sacrifice, and the kind of stubborn pride that keeps you climbing back on no matter how many times you hit the dirt. These three artists did not just write about that life. They lived it at the highest levels of professional competition before they ever set foot on a music stage.

Chris LeDoux: The World Champion Who Sold Cassettes from His Pickup

Chris LeDoux may be the most purely authentic figure in the history of country music. Born in Biloxi, Mississippi, to an Air Force father, he moved often as a child before his family settled in Wyoming, where he fell in love with rodeo competing in junior events and eventually earned a rodeo scholarship to Casper College. He turned professional in 1970 and qualified for the National Finals Rodeo four times, earning the 1976 world bareback riding crown.

The music started as a way to pay the bills on the road. To help pay his expenses while traveling the country, he began composing songs describing his lifestyle. Within two years he had written enough songs to make up an album, and soon established a recording company, American Cowboy Songs, with his father. After recording his songs in a friend's basement, LeDoux began selling his tapes at rodeo events out of the back of his pickup truck. His parents eventually set up a tape-duplicating operation in their own home to keep up with demand.

Nashville had no idea he existed until Garth Brooks name-dropped him in his 1989 hit "Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old)," singing about listening to "a worn-out tape of Chris LeDoux." Capitol Records Nashville signed him shortly after, and LeDoux went on to release over 20 albums and record a gold duet with Brooks called "Whatcha Gonna Do With a Cowboy." He was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in 2005, the first person ever inducted in two categories: for his bareback riding and for his contributions to the sport through his music. He passed away that same year from liver cancer at fifty-six years old. The legend was already permanent.

Justin McBride: Two World Titles and a Guitar

Born in Belton, Texas, and raised in Mullen, Nebraska, Justin McBride grew up in a rodeo family as a fifth-generation cowboy. His father rode bulls, and his early years on the ranch laid the foundation for a career defined by classic cowboy toughness. After attending the University of Nevada, Las Vegas on a rodeo scholarship, he turned professional at nineteen and made his PBR debut in 1999.

He was the 2005 and 2007 PBR World Champion, set a record with 32 career PBR Premier Series event wins, and was the first professional bull rider to earn more than five million dollars in the course of his career. "I could stay on for eight seconds," he said simply. "I learned how to stay on them. I figured out what I needed to do physically and mentally to ride any bull that I got on."

Growing up a fifth-generation working cowboy, McBride was influenced by the cowboy life and its music, remembering going to youth rodeos in his family's old pickup, listening to western-style country music on cassette tapes. Upon retirement from bull riding, he focused on music the same way he once had on rodeo, releasing two studio albums and a live record, including Don't Let Go and Everybody Loves a Cowboy, and performing at the Grand Ole Opry in 2009. He later became a color commentator for PBR broadcasts and now coaches the Nashville Stampede in the PBR Team Series. The arena and the stage were always the same place to him. Read his full bio on our website.

Cody Johnson: He Left the Chutes for the Stage and Never Looked Back

Cody Johnson grew up in Sebastopol, Texas, population 120, where bull riding was less of a career choice and more of a calling. He started riding bulls at fifteen years old, spent years competing on the rodeo circuit, and broke bones doing it. His ankle. His clavicle. Multiple ribs. He wore every injury like a badge and kept climbing back on.

When the accumulated damage finally forced him to step back from competition, he did the only other thing he knew how to do. He started playing music seriously, building an independent career from the ground up in Texas without a label, a manager, or any infrastructure beyond a loyal fanbase and a stage he could command. He toured alongside Justin McBride, which tells you everything about where he came from and who claimed him as one of their own. His breakthrough single "Dear Rodeo" became one of the most emotionally raw songs ever written about leaving a sport behind, because it was not metaphor. It was memoir.

Today he holds the ACM Entertainer of the Year award, a CMA Male Vocalist trophy, and a stadium record at RODEOHOUSTON that puts him in the same sentence as George Strait. The bull rider from Sebastopol got everything he ever wanted. He just had to walk away from the arena to get it. Explore Cody's full story on our website.

Three cowboys. Three rodeo careers built on real dirt and real danger. Three music careers that could not have existed without everything the arena taught them first.