Ned LeDoux Rides His Father's Songbook Into The Lincoln

Some tribute shows are a marketing hook. This one is a bloodline. On July 24, during the thick of Frontier Days, Ned LeDoux plays The Lincoln's After Hours series with a set built entirely from the catalog of his late father, Chris LeDoux — the rodeo-champion-turned-country-legend whose songs are practically Wyoming's unofficial hymnal.

The occasion is the launch of what LeDoux is calling the Bareback Jack Tour, marking the anniversary of Chris LeDoux's 1976 PRCA bareback riding world championship — a full 50 years on. Cheyenne is the kickoff, and the symbolism is hard to miss: Chris LeDoux won rodeo hardware here at Frontier Park before he ever sold a record out of the back of a truck. Ned starting the tribute run in Cheyenne, during Frontier Days, at a downtown theatre a few minutes from the arena, is about as on-the-nose as Wyoming sentiment gets — in the best way.

The set list, by LeDoux's own description, is all Chris, all night: the bronc-busting anthems and dusty ballads that made the elder LeDoux a cult figure long before Garth Brooks name-checked him into the mainstream. Reporting on the launch pegs the July 24 Lincoln show as a late, After Hours-style set with a $25 admission. That price, during Frontier Days week, is the kind of deal that gets buried under arena hype — and shouldn't.

Ned LeDoux has spent a decade building his own catalog — full-lengths Buckskin (2022) and Safe Haven (2025), plus a steady drip of singles — and he's a capable headliner in his own right. But the Bareback Jack shows are a different animal: a son standing in a room full of people who loved his father's music, playing it back to them. Given where Chris LeDoux's story started, doing it in Cheyenne first is the whole point.

Why it matters: the Lincoln landing this launch is a quiet flex for a room that's carrying more of Cheyenne's non-festival calendar than it used to, especially after the Outlaw Saloon's closure removed the town's biggest honky-tonk. A theatre that can pull a legacy country name for a Frontier Days late show is a theatre the touring industry will keep calling.

Bring cash for the merch table and a little patience for the lump in your throat. This one's going to hit.

Sources: 'Bareback Jack' Rides Again — Cowboy State Daily; Country hits late nights at The Lincoln — WyomingNews; Ned LeDoux — Shows