Sheb Wooley

Among pop culture scholars, Sheb Wooley is best remembered for his late-'50s rock & roll/comedy hit "Purple People Eater," which sold over three million copies. But among country music afficianados, especially fans of cowboy songs, Sheb Wooley is the real article, or as near as one gets to it in modern times. A rodeo rider from the time that he was a boy, he was making a living on the circuit as a teenager, before he ever turned to music as a career. He turned to music and then acting, appearing in such Westerns as High Noon, before he was ever well-known as a singer, and later spent six seasons playing cowhand Pete Nolan on the television series Rawhide, even as he pursued a career in country music. In addition to cowboy songs, his repertory includes traditional country music and hillbilly tunes, along with the ubiquitous "Purple People Eater." Later on in the 1960s, he also developed a drunken comic persona named Ben Colder, whose success in satirizing various elements of country music, its audience, and its sensibilities actually threatened to eclipse Sheb Wooley. Sheb Wooley was born in Erick, OK, on April 10, 1921. An avid rider from an early age, he was competing in local rodeos before he was ten years old, and by the time he was a teenager was one of the best young riders on the circuit. Music was also one of his interests, and Wooley got his first guitar when his father swapped a shotgun for the instrument. The family was poor, and living was very tough during the 1930s; more than once their crops were virtually blown away by the dry dust bowl winds. Wooley led his own country band in high school, but music didn't offer the prospect of a living, and he made his living for a time working the oil fields of Oklahoma as a welder. As with many Oklahomans looking for...