Ron Kantowski hears cowboy Justin McBride’s new country CD in a setting that brings back memories of Jake and Elwood

By Ron Kantowski

Thursday, Nov. 1, 2007 | 7:36 a.m.

What: Professional Bull Riders World Finals

When: 6 p.m., Thursday-Saturday, 11:30 a.m. Sunday

Where: Thomas & Mack Center

Tickets: $30 and up; www.unlvtickets.com

What: "Don't Let Go," the world champion bull rider's first CD.

Cost: $14.99.

To purchase: The CD is available only through the Professional Bull Riders Web site (www.PBRnow.com ) .

Others of Note

Chris LeDoux, rodeo: A songwriter and bareback champion, LeDoux was the real deal. After his death, he was honored by the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame and the Academy of Country Music.

Oscar De La Hoya, boxing: His 2000 self-titled CD was nominated for a Grammy.

The 1985 Chicago Bears, football: "The Super Bowl Shuffle" is still the project by which the rest in their category are measured.

Shaquille O'Neal, basketball: Has put out five rap albums, including a greatest hits compilation.

Bernie Williams, baseball: The former Yankees center fielder is a jazz guitarist who has received positive reviews.

Wayman Tisdale, basketball: The ex - NBA power forward is the real deal as a bass guitarist, having recorded five albums and jammed with the Dave Koz band.

Mike Reid , football: The former Penn State Nittany Lion and Cincinnati Bengal is an accomplished pianist and song writer who has written for Bonnie Raitt and Bette Midler . He won a 1985 Grammy for writing the Ronnie Milsap hit "Stranger in My House."

Jack McDowell, baseball: The ex-White Sox hurler hangs with Eddie Vedder, has toured with The Smithereens and has been compared to Marshall Crenshaw.

Tony Conigliaro, baseball: The Red Sox slugger recorded several 45s in the 1960s and appeared on "The Tonight Show" and "The Merv Griffin Show" after his baseball career was derailed by a beanball.

Ron Artest, basketball: When the former Pacers star got suspended by the league, he launched a rap career.

ESPN.com put together its Bottom 10 of athletes who have attempted music careers:

1. Deion Sanders, baseball and football: "Sanders is off-key, the music is out-of-tune and the lyrics are offensively bad. Talk about a triple threat."

2. Denny McLain, baseball: "'Denny McLain: Live In Las Vegas' ... has the feel of entering the hotel bar at any Ramada Inn."

3. Kobe Bryant, basketball: "Columbia Records actually put the nix on Kobe's debut effort simply because it was awful."

4. Allen Iverson, basketball: "('40 Bars') contains more curse words than a conversation with Dick Cheney."

5. Nikolai Volkoff, wrestling: "Russian wrestler singing a '60s love ballad ('Cara Mia') over a techno beat."

6. Barry Zito, baseball: "Michael Moore should consider a documentary on the propaganda surrounding Zito's music career."

7. John McEnroe, tennis: "Unfortunately, none of (wife Patty Smyth's) musical talent rubbed off on her husband."

8. The 1986 New York Mets, baseball: "Let's Go Mets" is "a lackluster flop."

9. Chris Webber, basketball: "C-Webb's most dubious achievement was singing this putrid song ('2 Much Drama') back in 1999."

10. The Rock, wrestling: "Dwayne Johnson teamed up with Wyclef Jean on his rap single 'It Doesn't Matter.' And while his role was limited to a few lines of rapping and a constant blurting of, "It doesn't matter," The Rock's contributions were regrettable enough to make this list."

On Saturday, Justin McBride, who spent a year ridin' and ropin' at UNLV before dropping out of school to become a world champion on the Professional Bull Riders tour - he'll be trying to nail down his second gold buckle at the Thomas & Mack Center through Sunday - introduced his country and western CD at the House of Blues at Mandalay Bay.

I was immediately disappointed - not because I had to talk my way past security even though I had an engraved invitation (OK, an e-mail from one of the 16 or so publicists involved in the project) but because there wasn't any chicken wire protecting the stage.

I must confess that I am not much of a country music fan. The only C&W vinyl s in my not-so-classic record collection are "El Paso" and "White Sport Coat," both by Marty Robbins, and the theme to "Rawhide" - the Blues Brothers' version, not Frankie Laine's.

Hence, the chicken wire reference.

This would have been the perfect setting to toss a few "dead soldiers," which is what the waitresses in the New Mexico cow town where I went to college called empty Coors bottles. Although it wasn't yet noon, there were multiple dead soldiers on every table in the place. And over the speakers they were playing both kinds of music - country and western, like the roadhouse owner told Jake and Elwood in the movies .

But nobody hurled a single beer bottle toward the stage, not even when "God's in Oklahoma Today" (too bad the Texas game was played in Dallas) came on.

That is one of the two songs on the CD that McBride co-wrote. The other is the title track, "Don't Let Go," words McBride swears by when the bull chute-in begins.

I was hoping he would bring his gee-tar or at least a karaoke microphone because how the heck could you tell if the voice coming over the speakers was McBride's or Memorex or just some Stetson-wearing Milli Vanilli wannabes with Texas accents?

But then "Good Saddles Ain't Cheap" was cued. The track begins with the lyric "Me and my son were in a tack shop today ... " - all the proof I needed to know the singer was the Real McCoy - er, McBride. Given Gene Autry and Roy Rogers are dead and Keith Urban is constantly explaining himself to Nicole Kidman, who else but an authentic cowboy would begin a song like that?

"I lived it, and Wynn wrote it down for me," McBride said after the music stopped and another round of dead soldiers was hauled away.

Wynn is Wynn Varble, the Nashville songwriter who wrote many of the songs for the project. The CD was produced by Tim Dubois, who has worked with Alan Jackson and Brooks & Dunn, of whom I have heard, and Cross Canadian Ragweed and Shooter Jennings, of whom I haven't.

McBride, who plans to take some time off from riding bulls to have surgery on one of the 18 or so parts of his body that require it, says he'll tour with the CD next year. He doesn't seem totally committed to making singing a second career as Chris LeDoux, the late world bareback champion, did when he hung up the spurs.

But given his popularity on the circuit and that his music, at least to my untrained ear, doesn't sound much different from the kind you hear when you're driving through the Oklahoma Panhandle late at night, he probably could.

Thanks to his friends in low places, McBride doesn't sound half-bad. It was sort of like listening to Billy Ray Cyrus without the mullet.

As far as jock jams go, it is way better than anything Joe Frazier and the Knockouts have put out recently.