LeDoux was born in Biloxi, Mississippi on October 2, 1948. He was of French descent on his father's side. His father was in the US Air Force and was stationed at Keesler Air Force Base at the time of his birth. The family moved often when he was a child, due to his father's Air Force career. He learned to ride horses while visiting his grandparents on their Wyoming farm. At age 13, LeDoux participated in his first rodeo, and before long was winning junior rodeo competitions.
LeDoux continued to compete in rodeo events and played football through his high school years. When his family moved to Cheyenne, Wyoming, he attended Cheyenne Central High School. After twice winning the Wyoming State Rodeo Championship bareback riding title during high school, LeDoux earned 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.
LeDoux married Peggy Rhoads on January 4, 1972. They had five children: Clay, Ned, Will, Beau, and Cindy.
In 1970, LeDoux became a professional rodeo cowboy on the national circuit. 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".
In 1976 LeDoux won the world bareback riding championship at the National Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma City. Winning the championship gave LeDoux more credibility with music audiences, as he now had proof that the cowboy songs he wrote were authentic. LeDoux continued competing for the next four years. He retired in 1980. With his rodeo career at an end, LeDoux and his family settled on a ranch in Kaycee, Wyoming. LeDoux continued to write and record his songs, and began playing concerts. His concerts were very popular, and often featured a mechanical bull (which he rode between songs) and fireworks. By 1982 he had sold more than 250,000 copies of his albums, with little or no marketing. By the end of the decade he had self-released 22 albums.
Despite offers from various record labels, LeDoux refused to sign a recording contract, instead choosing to retain his independence and control over his work while enjoying his regional following. In 1989, however, he shot to national prominence when he was mentioned in Garth Brooks' Top 10 country hit "Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old)." Capitalizing on the sudden attention, LeDoux signed a contract with Capitol Records subsidiary Liberty Records and released his first national album, Western Underground, in 1991. His follow-up album, Whatcha Gonna Do with a Cowboy, was certified gold and reached the Top 10. The title track, a duet with Brooks, became LeDoux's first and only Top 10 country single, reaching No. 7 in 1992. In concert, he ended the song by saying, "Thanks, Garth!"
For the 35th annual Grammy Awards in 1992, the single track "Whatcha Gonna Do with a Cowboy" was nominated for Best Country Vocal Collaboration.
For the next decade, LeDoux continued to record for Liberty. He released six additional records, including One Road Man, which made the country Top 40 in 1998. Toward the end of his career, LeDoux began recording material written by other artists, which he attributed to the challenge of composing new lyrics. With his 2000 release, Cowboy, he returned to his roots, re-recording many of his earliest songwriting creations.
The RIAA certified two gold and one platinum recordings for LeDoux. On February 22, 1993, the single "Whatcha Gonna Do with a Cowboy" went gold. On June 2, 1997, the album The Best of Chris LeDoux went gold. And on October 5, 2005, the album 20 Greatest Hits went platinum.
In August 2000, LeDoux was diagnosed with primary sclerosing cholangitis, which required him to receive a liver transplant. Garth Brooks volunteered to donate part of his liver, but it was incompatible. An alternative donor was located, and LeDoux received a transplant on October 7, 2000. After his recovery he released two additional albums. In November 2004, LeDoux was diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma for which he underwent radiation treatment until his death.
LeDoux died of cancer on March 9, 2005, at age 56. His funeral was held on March 11.
Official bio:
Enough tears have fallen to fill the Powder River through Kaycee, Wyoming where Chris LeDoux called home. He died of a rare form of cancer in March of 2005. During his all-too-short 56 years of life, LeDoux was indeed a rare breed. Beloved by the rodeo world, LeDoux’s music captured the spirit of the sport - and of the American West - as few will ever likely match. The young Chris put pen to paper often. Poem after poem reflected his love of rodeo and of a young girl, Peggy, who would become his wife and bear him five children. His sense of humor and self-deprecating manner were constants even in the most painful of times. Besides writing words to become songs, Chris liked to sketch cartoons ala Charlie Russell and “Ole Chuck” would have been honored to ride alongside LeDoux. Many heroes don’t quite live up to their reputations. This Wyoming, and rodeo, hero outshined them all. A practical joke player extraordinaire, who would not intentionally hurt even the squirrels on the golf course, Chris will forever be thought of with a certain amount of reverence in these parts. There is a hole in Wyoming’s heart.
He was world champion professional bareback rider in 1976. When speaking about that accomplishment LeDoux chuckled recalling his bounty. “I won a saddle and a buckle and I got a hat and a pair of boots – and a little bit of money. The money’s gone. The boots are worn out. The hat’s gone – someone bit a big chunk out of it at Fort Worth that next winter. I still have the saddle and the buckle. But that championship gave me credibility in the music that I’m doing and helped tremendously,” LeDoux believed. His stage act came to represent a rodeo complete with mechanical bull, pyrotechnics, and pulsating energy that kept standing-room-only crowds on their feet for two hours – always howling for more. The moment the net fell and the first strains of “Copenhagen” rang out is one all Chris LeDoux fans cherished. Flinging tins was a sport in itself. It was a way to show love too, sort of like resting a bunch of roses at Barbara Streisand’s feet. Forgive the comparison but it is just the kind of image that would make Chris smile and say, “Yeah.”
His interest in rodeo stemmed from a childhood in Texas surrounded by friends and neighbors for whom rodeo was a way of life. LeDoux decided to give it a try, won a buckle, and was “bitten by the bug.” The family moved to Wyoming where rodeo continued to peak his interest. Before he gave much thought to girls or hot cars, Chris LeDoux dreamt of becoming a rodeo champ. He wrote his classic tune “Bareback Jack” while a student at Casper College. His mom had bought a guitar for Chris at Jay’s Music Store in Cheyenne a few years earlier. He first strummed and sang along to Marty Robbins “Big Iron.” He had many rodeo stars to gaze upon while living in Cheyenne and musicians then started to gain his attention. Favorites included Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and Charlie Daniels. “I started listening to country music and loved it. I wanted to be able to play the guitar and sing some of those songs,” LeDoux remembered.
Football competed for some of his extracurricular time while at Central High School in Cheyenne but it was always Cheyenne Frontier Days that gave him “Gold Buckle Dreams.” His bareback riding skills rose measurably as fellow contestants offered pointers. Soon Chris LeDoux was among the top riders. He could have chosen many different paths during that period in the late 1960s and 70s but decided a wife and family – settling in rural Wyoming – was the best course for his life. A successful rodeo career was overtaken by music. Hundreds of songs about the West, cowboy and rodeo life, and love ensued. It was Garth Brooks who kicked things up several notches by singing the line “Worn out tapes of Chris LeDoux” in Brooks’ 1989 hit “Much Too Young (to Feel This Damn Old).” Almost immediately millions more fans of Chris launched a career that brought recognition and a degree of fame well outside the rodeo world.
Writing songs became more work than fun and Chris would come to depend on others for many of his recordings during the latter part of his long musical journey. “Writing to me is like sitting in a room by yourself all day pulling one hair out a time. I did enough of that. I’m ready to enjoy other things - be outside,” he said. He would get back home to the Kaycee ranch often and when there fix fence and do ranch chores his father-in-law saved for him. “I’m usually home calving time,” LeDoux recalled. “I kind of wish I was out on the road then.”
Another passion entered LeDoux’s life in the latter half of the 1990s. Golf. That surprised the cowboy musician. “I hate to admit it. I cussed the game for years. But it’s addicting. I don’t understand it. Maybe it’s just the nice little parks you get to walk through.”
Aren’t we glad he walked through our lives? More like leaped, and sang, and helped teach us to believe there is a lot of good out there we can do for others while at the same time enriching our own souls beyond measure.
Chris LeDoux’s band, Western Underground, carries on in his honor. Guitar player, and road manager, Mark Sissel stood by Chris’s side for 16 years. “It was like getting up every morning and walking down the road with John Wayne. The only difference was there was no on-screen/off-screen. Chris was the same every day – an extraordinary person; an exceptional man,” Sissel told the crowd at the first annual Tribute to Chris LeDoux in Casper, Wyo. last fall.
For Your Love
Chris Ledoux Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
I'd rope the moon
And put it
In a blender
Mix up a conception
That might
Make you surrender
I'd bide the brand
Rob me a gin mill
I'd fill the ocean full
I'd take on the army
Her majesty's marine
Your love
Ain't just a cover
It's a whole magazine
For your love
I'd stop a freight train
Single handed
Spreadin out the bins
In the Rio Grande
I'd climb the tower
At the TV station
Broadcast my affection
To the united nation
I'd take on the governor
In Washington DC
Your love
Ain't just an engine
It's a rockin' machine
[Chorus]
For your love
I'd stop the hands of time
For your love
I'd dig a diamond mine
For your love
I'd do it all the time
Yes I would
For your love
I'd walk a tight rope
And wrestle anacondas
Jump a motorcycle
Over half a dozen Hondas
Carve your initials
On a forest of bamboo
Paint the Brooklyn bridge
Baby paint with a broom
I'd take on the press
From Tokyo to Prada
Your love ain't just
A hot sauce
It's a whole enchilada
[Chorus]
Yeah now
The lyrics of the song “For Your Love” by Chris Ledoux portray the extent to which he is willing to go for the love of his life. The opening lines, “For your love, I’d rope the moon and put it in a blender, mix up a conception that might make you surrender,” depict an almost impossible desire that he is willing to fulfill for the sake of his love. The following lines describe his readiness to take on dangerous challenges such as bidding the brand off a buckin’ branded bull, robbing a gin mill, and taking on the army for the sake of his significant other. He also expresses his willingness to stop a freight train and climb a tower at a TV station to declare his love to the world, including the United Nations.
The chorus of the song highlights his devotion to his love, stating that he would stop the hands of time, dig a diamond mine and even walk on a tight rope and wrestle anacondas for love. He talks about carving initials on a forest of bamboo, painting the Brooklyn Bridge with a broom, and taking on the press from Tokyo to Prada for love. All in all, the song sends a clear message that love should be valued above anything and that one should be willing to do anything for the person they love.
Line by Line Meaning
For your love
I will do anything for you
I'd rope the moon
I will achieve that which is seemingly impossible for your love
And put it
I will grasp and possess the impossible
In a blender
I will blend the impossible and make the unimagined
Mix up a conception
I will create something completely new and unexpected for your love
That might
which may
Make you surrender
bring you to submission of my love
I'd bide the brand
I will take on challenges that are reserved for the daring
Off a buckin' branded bull
even if it scares me
Rob me a gin mill
I will take risks and break the law if I have to for your love
I'd fill the ocean full
I would do anything to fill the vast emptiness within me with the love you have for me
I'd take on the army
even if I have to challenge the entire military forces
Her majesty's marine
or the naval forces of Great Britain
Your love
what you inspire in me
Ain't just a cover
it is not the superficial facade of attraction or infatuation
It's a whole magazine
it is a plethora of emotions, experiences and inspirations beyond imagination
I'd stop a freight train
I would stop anything, no matter how big, powerful or fast it is
Single handed
with my own strength
Spreadin out the bins
even if it is a dirty and dangerous job, like spreading out the grains in train cargo
In the Rio Grande
even if it puts me in danger, like crossing the treacherous river
I'd climb the tower
I would go to great heights
At the TV station
even if it makes me vulnerable, like broadcasting my emotions to the world
Broadcast my affection
to show the world my love and passion for you
To the united nation
even if it brings condemnation or ridicule
I'd take on the governor
even if it means facing the highest authority
In Washington DC
even if I have to take on the government
Your love
what you inspire in me
Ain't just an engine
it is not just the power or driving force behind my actions
It's a rockin' machine
it is the source of my balance, stability and satisfaction
[Chorus]
Repeating that I'll do anything for your love
For your love
I will do anything for you
I'd stop the hands of time
I can even change time, no matter how immutable it is for your love
I'd dig a diamond mine
I would dig deeper than anyone else can for your love
For your love
I will do anything for you
I'd do it all the time
I would do this without end, because my love for you is infinite
Yes I would
Confirming my commitment to do anything for your love
For your love
I will do anything for you
I'd walk a tight rope
Even if it means taking risks and balancing on thin lines
And wrestle anacondas
Or handling the most dangerous situations that life can throw at me
Jump a motorcycle
I would take on challenges that are fast and thrilling
Over half a dozen Hondas
even when there are numerous obstacles
Carve your initials
I would make my love be known to the world
On a forest of bamboo
even if it takes me to the ends of the earth
Paint the Brooklyn bridge
I can paint the world with love, no matter how vast
Baby paint with a broom
even if it is a menial or unglamorous task
I'd take on the press
I would bear the scrutiny and criticism of the public
From Tokyo to Prada
even from people of different cultures, backgrounds, or social backgrounds
Your love ain't just
my love is more than just a passing attraction or temptation
A hot sauce
it is like the spice of life that unleashes my passions like a hot sauce
It's a whole enchilada
it is the whole spectrum of emotions that make life exciting and fulfilling
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Universal Music Publishing Group, Royalty Network, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: Graham Gouldman
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Kenny G
Nobody but Chris Ledoux and his band could rock this hard and the product was still country. Damn he was something else. One of a kind.
Katelyn Hardie
He had such an amazing spirit!
Shauna Colgan
I'll be honest. What I love most about this video are Chris' facial expressions <3
Piper Baker
Me too
Kim Smith
A great guy, singer,, family man, and cowboy. You will be forever missed.
Lou
One of the most entertaining concerts I went to. He went way to young. I will always wonder what songs he could have made. Very sad loss.
OL Glory Studio
I miss him even tho he died before I was born. Heres something his son Ned leDoux sings also. Sounds just like Chris
S.A. Adams-Ford
@OL Glory Studio
When you realize something worth experiencing stopped being before you were even born, 'you miss it.' Jimmy Roger's died years before I was born. I was 8 days old when Hank Williams died. Those two great pioneers of what was to evolve into country music as we know it now are two things I have studied about but never experienced. I miss that.
OL Glory Studio
@S.A. Adams-Ford You know what I've never thought of it like that. That's a really good way to put it all. Thanks. And that's kinda cool that Hank was still around when you where alive. He really is a great singer and that's coming from 13 year old. But country is for all ages. God bless you.
S.A. Adams-Ford
@OL Glory Studio
There's a lot to be said for all kinds of music. I also like heavy metal. And even if it's a kind of music I don't particularly like I still appreciate the effort and dedication of the artist.