Performer Information

R.W. Hampton released his first album Travelin’ Light in 1984 after he’d spent a number of years as a working cowboy. Born June 17, 1957, Hampton worked for several large ranches in New Mexico and often played his guitar and sang for personal entertainment. His first performance before an audience came in 1978 when he sang “Little Joe The Wrangler” before a cattlemen’s gathering. That led to other performances at other cattlemen’s functions.

R.W.’s second album, The One I Could Never Ride, came after a performance at the Cowboy Symposium in Lubbock, Texas. He performed in Elko in 1986 and two years later decided to go for broke with his music. His third album, Born to Be a Cowboy, contained the song that was the album’s title. Michael Martin Murphey recorded it and it became Hampton’s best-known song.

Hampton continued to record albums and developed a one-man play, “The Last Cowboy,” written with his brother Jeff and playwright Dave Marquis. That became an album which won a “Wrangler Award” from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.

Hampton appeared on the TV special “Kenny Rogers and the American Cowboy” and in several movies, including the HBO movie “The Tracker” with Kris Kristofferson.

Hampton has won many awards from the Western Music Association, the Academy of Western Artists and a second Wrangler from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.

R.W. Hampton is the real deal, a bona fide cowboy with roots planted deeply into ranching culture. He lives in a home on the range and when he sings “Home on the Range” it comes from his heart as well as his everyday life. Hampton’s music is an outgrowth of his lifestyle; deep in his soul is a working cowboy who loves to sing about what he lives. He is a contemporary Western singer, which means that his life is wrapped up in the modern world of ranching and his performances are geared to those who wish they were cowboys. R.W. Hampton’s induction into the Western Music Hall of Fame is well deserved; although he was not present at the creation of the singing cowboy, he has proudly carried that torch forward and kept the flame burning bright.
Don Cusic