Will james bassist
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Writer and Artist Will James: The Cowboy’s Cowboy
By Sue Hancock Jones
Before he became famous, Will James was an authentic working cowboy.
Nearly every library in America and parts of Canada has books by Will James, but the summer he spent in a New Mexico cow camp may have been the turning point that took him from hard times, lean times and even jail time to legend status as a Western author and artist.
James wrote and illustrated 24 books, five of which were made into feature films. Each book captured the spirit and experience of the working cowboy so well that in cow country some folks hold James to an esteem comparable to the likes of Western artist Charlie Russell and movie star John Wayne.
Before he could rise that high, James had to hit lows that would give him plenty of time to think. He was arrested in 1914 for cattle rustling and spent 18 months in the Nevada State Penitentiary. This first extended period of thinking helped encourage his concentration on drawing.
James used his art in connection with his parole application by making a sketch entitled “A Turn
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Who is Will James?
1892-1942
Born in a remote village of the Province of Quebec, Will James is a French Canadian whose birth name was Joseph Ernest Nephtali Dufault. As a youth he longed to become a cowboy. In 1907, at the age of 15, he left home to live his dream in Western Canada. Even way back then James was always drawing his favorite subject, cowboys and horses anywhere there was something to draw on. After working on farms and ranches in Saskatchewan and Alberta until about 1910, he appears to have become involved in a dispute with the law. The then Ernest Dufault changed his name to William Roderick James and drifted permanently to the United States. He began to capture wild horses for profit and work as a hand for cattle outfits in Montana, Idaho and Nevada. Arrested for cattle rustling, he served 18 months in Nevada State prison from 1914 to 1916.
While in prison he had time to work on his drawings, he was admired for his work and was urged to become an artist.
Several months after his release, while breaking wild horses for a ranch company south of Carson City, Nevad
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Will James (artist)
Canadian-American artist and writer (1892–1942)
William Roderick James (June 6, 1892 – September 3, 1942)[1] was a Canadian-American artist and writer of the American West. He is known for writing Smoky the Cowhorse, for which he won the 1927 Newbery Medal,[2] and numerous "cowboy" stories for adults and children. His artwork, which predominantly involved cowboy and rodeo scenes, followed "in the tradition of Charles Russell",[3] and much of it was used to illustrate his books. In 1992, he was inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.[4]
Early life
James was born Joseph Ernest Nephtali Dufault, in 1892 in Saint-Nazaire-d'Acton, Quebec, Canada,[1] although later, when he began mythologizing his life and in his autobiography, he claimed he was born in Montana.[5] He accounted for his francophone accent by claiming that after his mother died when he was one (from influenza) and his father when he was four (having been gored by a stee
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