WESTERN WORDSLINGERS
RALPH COMPTON
Not many
writers stand six-foot-eight-inches tall without their boots. Neither have many
written twenty-three books in eight years, with several selling over a million
copies and hitting the USA Today Bestseller List. The only wordslinger to hit
the mark in both classifications is Western reader’s favorite, Ralph Compton.
Wearing his
boots and his cowboy hat, the late Compton’s wiry frame rose head and shoulders
above the crowd whenever he went. His most amazing accomplishment, however, was
not growing tall, but his prolific telling of Western tall tales. At
fifty-six-years-old, having little prior writing experience, he sat down and
began the opening chapter of his first his first Western—The Goodnight Trail.
In the next eight years, he wrote twenty-two more Westerns before cancer took
him home at age sixty-four.
His canon of
work became so popular, his publisher (Signet) used his legacy to build the
Ralph Compton Brand. There have since been eight-two Westerns—authored by some
of the best writers in the genre—published under the Ralph Compton banner.
On US 411,
near Odenville, Alabama, drivers pass a sign claiming Home of Ralph Compton. It
denotes the beginning of a six mile trek through the woods to the log cabin
with the dirt floor where Compton was born. In his autobiography, Compton
stated, “You walked three miles along the Seaboard Railroad track, climbed a
cut bank and trudged another three miles through the woods.” Born in 1937, at
the tail end of the Depression, Compton’s family struggled with the harsh
realities of poverty, “It seemed like we all started poor and went downhill
from there.”
His mother
had a sixth grade education; his father, fifth grade. “By the time FDR’s ‘team
of mules, seed and fertilizer’ stake got to us, there were no mules.” His
father settled for oxen instead of mules, along with seed and fertilizer.
Inexperienced at best when it came to planting a crop, Compton said of his
father, “In his best year, he made almost enough to repay what he owed the
government.”
Compton graduated
from St. Clair County High School in Odenville, a major accomplishment for a
young boy in worn out clothes and rarely a full meal. Compton states, “In those
days, welfare families were not looked on with favor. There were four of us,
and we received the staggering sum of thirty-nine dollars a month. I owe my
high school graduation to understanding teachers who provided odd jobs so I had
the bare necessities.”
He points to
his high school principal, Nancy Wilson (to whom he dedicated his first
Western, The Goodnight Trail), for his love of reading and his ability to read
with comprehension and retention. “Because I did read, she moved me ahead,
encouraging me to read literature and history more advanced than my grade
required. Before my graduation, I knew I wanted to write, although I wasn’t
sure what."
Compton
served in the Army during the Korean War. When he returned home, he was still
unsure of his career direction. He joined forces with his brother, Bill, a
skilled guitarist with a good voice. They formed a bluegrass group, and set out
to play the local circuit of legion halls, armories, and schools. They played
live on local radio stations, often racing from station to station to reach the
widest audience possible. Compton recalled, “Most little stations provided time
for free on Saturday afternoon, usually fifteen to thirty minutes for those
enthusiastic enough—or dumb enough—to donate their talent for the exposure.”
In 1960, Bill
moved on to play with Country Boy Eddie (Gordon Edwards Burns), a singer,
fiddler and guitarist who hosted the long-running Country Boy Eddie Show on
Alabama’s WBRC-TV station.
Ralph
traveled to Nashville where he struggled as a songwriter. He co-founded The
Rhinestone Rooster, a tabloid magazine, but quickly went broke. He borrowed
money to keep the magazine afloat, but quickly went broke again. Not willing to
give up, he turned The Rhinestone Rooster into a record label, but still did
not find enough success to make the venture worthwhile. Jobs as a radio
announcer, a newspaper columnist, and other odd jobs followed. In the summer of
1988 (“When I was pretty well fed up with the music business...”), the then
fifty-four-year-old Compton began writing a novel. He wrote what he knew, “...a
Southern novel, a hard times tale of growing up during the depression.”
Bob
Robertson, a literary agent who read the manuscript, felt Compton’s writing
showed promise. He didn’t, however, believe he could sell the novel to a
publisher as the market was saturated with similar coming of age tales.
Robertson was impressed enough with Compton’s writing to ask him a
straightforward question...”Can you write a western?” Compton’s reply would
ultimately change his life...“I don’t know. I like Westerns, but I’ve never
written one. Let me try.” Writing feverishly in every spare moment around his
forty-hour a week nighttime work schedule, he completed a shoot-‘em-up 185 page
manuscript. However, when he showed it to Robertson, the agent told him it was
good, but had nothing to distinguish it from hundreds of other Westerns.
The agent
then offered more sage advice, “Write the kind of Western you like. And plan on
writing at least three books, a minimum of three-hundred and fifty pages each.”
This seemed overwhelming to Compton, who felt he’d already done the best he
could. But Robertson continued to encourage him. The agent wanted a potential
series, something with a hook that had not been done before. Over the next
several weeks Compton and Robertson talked ideas. They wanted a concept
to embody all the exciting aspects of the Western, yet be unique in its
presentation. From their collaboration, the concept of the Trail Drive series
was created.
In January of
1990, after much sweat and research, Compton presented Robertson with a
detailed synopsis of the first three books in the series—The Goodnight Trail,
The Western Trail, and The Chisholm Trail. Robertson enthusiastically approved.
Eight months later, Compton finished writing The Goodnight Trail, a rip-roaring
western about the cattle drive which established a new route from Texas to
Colorado.
Compton
skillfully mixed fact with fiction as told the tale former Texas Rangers Benton
McCaleb, Will Elliot, and Brazos Gifford to ride the trail alongside the real
life Charles Goodnight. Compton’s characters were fresh and alive, jumping off
the page with the historical background accuracy that would become his
trademark. The rights to The Goodnight Trail sold quickly, establishing a
profitable long-term relationship with publishers St. Martin’s Press and
Signet. It sold more than 1 million copies and was chosen by the Western
Writers of America as a finalist for their Medicine Pipe Bearer Award—given to
the best debut Western of the year.
Compton had
read many of the great Western writers. While believing he had developed his
own style, he claimed, “I shamelessly adopted one element, which I admired most
in the work of Louis L’Amour. While there was romance in his books, there was
no graphic, shocking sex.”
Of his
writing, Compton also explained, “I depend solely on three elements: (1) a
powerful sense of time and place, (2) a strong, fast-paced story, with interesting
sub-plots, and (3) powerful, memorable characters.” His inspiration for the
strong characters and style of storytelling he brought to his own work was the
television series Gunsmoke. In a 1993 issue of The Roundup, a publication of
the Western Writers of America, Compton returned to the question that started
it all...“Can you write a western? I could, and thank God, I did. My one regret
is I lacked the confidence and courage to do it sooner.”
Ten more
Westerns in the Trail Series followed. Books in the Sundown Rider series and
the Border Empire series, along with a dozen other Westerns added to his
prolific, fast paced output. Like a man knowing he is running out of time,
Compton authored more than two dozen novels during the last decade of his life.
Six Guns and Double Eagles, The California Trail, and The Shawnee Trail were
all bestsellers in 1997. Compton passed away from cancer in Nashville,
Tennessee at age sixty-four. His journey from dirt floor beginnings to
bestselling author is one of hope and perseverance, as inspiring as any of his
Westerns.
In his own
words, “While the Old West lives only in the pages of history, I believe
there’s something within each of us that longs for those days when there was
yet another frontier to be conquered, another mountain to cross, and the thrill
of the unknown. I believe the Old West will live forever—perhaps not in
Hollywood, but in the hearts and minds of men and women who refuse to let it
die.”
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