Chris LeDoux"s friend Garth Brooks was just 11 when LeDoux made his first LP in 1973. Since then, his earthy simplicity has given him a cult following and more importantly, an honesty foreign to many of today"s marketing-obsessed contemporary acts. On 2000"s Cowboy, he revisits 11 of his early recordings (8 of them originals) with modern arrangements that avoid the usual overamplified bombast. Time can"t diminish the impact of "He Rides the Wild Horses," "Blue Eyes and Freckles," and "I"m Country." LeDoux"s maturity infuses the magnificent "Song of Wyoming" with even greater depth. It likewise enhances the pathos of "Silence on the Line," a tale of a rodeo hopeful at a crossroads. On "Hippies in Calgary," LeDoux redefines the song"s dated 1970s hippie-redneck tensions into pure comedy. Reviving the proudly rustic tongue-in-check "I"m Country," he advocates bringing all the city folks to the country, then pauses to warn, "Then the country won"t be country anymore." Given the last few years of the "90s, you can add prescience to his many gifts. --Rich Kienzle