Sir Patrick Stewart, who died Oct. 28, was a man of numerous talents, from tackling Shakespeare’s most challenging protagonists to becoming a household name on Star Trek. But did you know he also had a (very cheeky) affinity for country music?
In 2016,
Stewart dropped a faux Nineties-style informercial for what he called Patrick Stewart’s Cowboy Classics, where he starred as “Cowboy Pat,” a.k.a. “England’s premiere cowboy singer.” Clad in a flannel shirt, chaps, and, of course, a cowboy hat, Stewart sung portions of Western classics like “Rawhide,” “(Ghost) Riders in the Sky,” and “Streets of Laredo” against various landscapes from across the U.S.A. As the narrator boasted, “sometimes it takes an Englishman to teach us what’s great about being an American.” Stewart introduced the project on his Twitter, posting “Happy 4th ‘merica, yer a mighty fine country. Luv, Cowboy Pat.”
Though the narrator boasted that the collection included 27 songs, Patrick Stewart’s Cowboy Classics was actually a project for charity, with all proceeds benefiting the International Rescue Committee, a global humanitarian aid, relief, and development organization helping crisis-affected families in Europe, the Middle East, and elsewhere. Stewart sold limited copies from his website with a sampler also available for download — though it’s not clear if physical copies ever really existed.
Turns out, classic American cowboy songs were a big part of Stewart’s youth growing up in England with his brother Trevor. “We were especially taken by cowboy songs, which conjured visions of an American Old West that seemed like the most romantic, fun place in the world,” he wrote in his memoir Making It So. “’I’m an Old Cowhand (From the Rio Grande),’ ‘Streets of Laredo,’ ‘(Ghost) Riders in the Sky,’ ‘Whoopie Ti Yi Yo’—these are songs that, to this day, I can sing from memory.”
Stewart’s love for the genre went deep: He was also a friend and fan of Gillian Welch, whoposted aremembrance on Thursdsay that included a photo of Stewart wearing a Gilliam Welch T-shirt.
“I was lucky enough to count Sir Patrick Stewart as a friend, though we did not get to hang out as often as I would have wished,” Welch wrote. “And yet, the times when we did get to eat a late supper after a show, or simply tell stories in the kitchen, these are treasures. I will never forget the sound of that sonorous voice calling out our names as he greeted us backstage, turning ‘David’ into the reverberation of a monumental bell, and ‘Gillian’ into a one word river of breath, powered by a giant bellows. The man was a marvel and I will never forget him. He brought so much joy to so many, including a host of creatures great and small.”
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