There's a core of strength that defines Chris LeDoux and his music. In Horsepower, his 36th album, it's clearly spelled out in "One Less Tornado," about the passing of a rodeo champ, and in "The Ride," about a young boy's life lesson from his first ride on a horse. But it runs through even the toe-tapping fun songs about love, like "Smack Dab In the Middle," and "All Wound Up."

"As much as anyone, Chris LeDoux is the same man as a singer as he is a man," says Mac McAnally, co-producer with Alan Schulman of LeDoux's last three albums. "What you hear is a straight outgrowth of the life he lives." That's true of both the songs he writes himself, and of the ones he chooses to record. " I have to hear a song that just hits home in some way or another," LeDoux says. "It feels like something that I believe in or I can relate. We were able to find some great cowboy songs for the album. It's hard to find those true western type songs or songs about rodeo that ring true. We seemed to be lucky this time."