What Do a Singing Cowboy and a Singing Parrot Have in Common?

What do a singing cowboy and a singing parrot have in common? Why, music of course. Our Diva parrot and Greenwing macaw Roxanne supervises our weekend ritual of doing the laundry. Supervising the laundry gets Roxanne very animated. When Roxanne gets animated, she frequently starts singing. Roxanne knows two songs: Gene Autry's You Are My Sunshine. And, of course, Roxanne, by The Police. We are always delighted to hear Roxanne sing You Are My Sunshine. When she started singing the song this weekend we began reminiscing about earlier days listening to the same song.


Those of us who grew up watching the Autry/Rogers Ranch on the black and white television sets of our youth following school each and every day of the week have a special fondness for the late great singing cowboy Gene Autry. Roy Rogers too, but unfortunately Roxanne doesn't sing any Roy Rogers songs. So what a treat when we discovered that she actually knew how to sing one of Gene Autry's signature songs: You Are My Sunshine!

The Late Great Gene Autry

Our Diva Parrot and Greenwing Macaw Roxanne

So we paired Roxanne with Gene Autry for a little duet. You Are My Sunshine. Lyrics by Jimmie Davis. Music by Gene Autry, 1940.

Roxanne Sings Two Songs, Including Gene Autry's You Are My Sunshine

The_Zen_Parrot The Gene Autry Museum in LA loved our video of our Diva parrot Roxanne singing a duet with the late great Gene Autry: http://t.co/8N5YOqLZ11:13 PM Apr 21st from Tweet Button


We were astounded when the Gene Autry Museum in Los Angeles, The Autry, contacted us to tell us they loved the video! With his love of music and animals, we think Gene Autry would have approved as well.

Original 1940 Recording

The other song Roxanne knows is the song she's named for, The Police

Surprisingly, we're still waiting to hear from Sting if he likes Roxanne's version of his song.

Our Greenwing Macaw and Diva Parrot Roxanne's American Idol Audition Tape

Our Greenwing macaw and Diva parrot Roxanne has developed a terrific singing voice over time. Like most, at the beginning she couldn't sing a note for the life of her, but she's developed a melodious voice. The difficulty has been recording it, because once the camera comes out she tends to clam up.

We've discovered that Roxanne tends to be particularly motivated to vocalize as well as sing when the laundry is running. So we've developed a trick of hiding the camera when we're doing laundry. Roxanne has two favorite songs: Roxanne by The Police, of course! She was named after that song. And You Are My Sunshine. We've had the good fortune of capturing snippets of both songs with our video recorder. We were particularly fortunate with You Are My Sunshine, because we caught Roxanne singing it to the dryer, which is noticably quieter than the washer. Mostly, Roxanne sings when the washing machine is running.

So, we're pleased to present Roxanne's American Idol audition tape, featuring a duet with the late great Gene Autry:

We think it's particularly fortunate to pair Roxanne with Gene Autry because we were interested to discover that it was Gene Autry who popularized the old Jimmie Davis tune in 1940! Additionally, Gene Autry is one of our all time favorite singers, and we have fond memories of watching Gene Autry, along with Roy Rogers, on the old Autry/Rogers Ranch show following school every day way back when!