Cody Bearpaw

Cody Bearpaw was a Cree country singer, songwriter, rodeo competitor and Hollywood stunt performer from Fort Chipewyan, Alberta. Known as the “All Around Indian Cowboy,” he built an unusual career that moved between rodeo arenas, country stages, recording studios and film sets. He left northern Alberta as a child, living in Montana and Wyoming before spending his teenage years in Las Vegas, where he competed in rodeos and began finding work as a stuntman.

While competing at a high level in the dangerous world of professional rodeo, Bearpaw broke his neck in an accident. The injury forced him to reconsider his future, but after recovering he completed high school, attended Davis University to study veterinary medicine and resumed both his rodeo and entertainment careers.

By the late 1960s, Bearpaw was pursuing country music professionally in the United States. He fronted a group called The Fugitives and appeared with performers including Marty Robbins, Johnny Paycheck, Nat Stuckey and Mel Tillis. In June 1969, he married country singer Debra Berry, best known for her Musictown Records single “The Cold Wind” backed with “All-American Sport.” The couple subsequently toured together, performing at clubs and concert venues across the United States.

Bearpaw’s early recording career included several singles for Dot Records. His original composition “Happy People” was released in 1969 and became the song most closely associated with this period of his career. It was followed by “Old Man Willis” backed with “Straight Man” and “Wait Till I Get My Hands on You” backed with “Playboy.” He later recorded for First American Records, which issued his composition “Winter Love.”

His film career developed alongside his music. While appearing in Las Vegas, Bearpaw reportedly attracted the attention of actor and songwriter Audie Murphy, who encouraged him to pursue motion-picture work in Hollywood. Bearpaw became a highly regarded stunt performer and was named Stunt Man of the Year in 1972.

His film and television work included productions such as Little Big Man, True Grit, Oklahoma Crude, High Plains Drifter, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, Smokey and the Bandit and The Towering Inferno, as well as television series including Gunsmoke, Bonanza, The Streets of San Francisco, Starsky & Hutch and Emergency!. His spectacular fire fall in The Towering Inferno became one of his best-known stunt performances. He also appeared as an actor in the 1973 films The Devil and Leroy Bassett and Camper John.

Bearpaw was also an active songwriter whose work reached beyond his own recordings. His compositions included “Twelve Long Stemmed Roses,” recorded by Mel Tillis, and “Tall, Good Looking and Bullet Proof,” recorded by Warner Mack. He also wrote “Angry Mountain,” associated with the Fess Parker and Stella Stevens film Climb an Angry Mountain. His songs drew upon western life, romance, rodeo culture and his experiences as an Indigenous performer travelling throughout Canada and the United States.

In 1977, Bearpaw recorded “Indian Country Cowboy” and “Ten More Miles to Carway” with The Navajo Sundowners for the Alta Vista label. These recordings led into his first full-length album, produced by Huey P. Meaux and released in 1978. It appeared in the United States on Canyon Records as All Around Indian Cowboy and in Canada on Broadland Records as Cody Bearpaw.

The Canadian album included three Bearpaw compositions, “Let It Shine,” “All Around Indian Cowboy” and “Winter Love,” alongside material written by Jerry Abbott, Bobby Ray Spears, Harlan Howard, Marvin Hooper, Leon Malphrus and Henry Briggs. Broadland also issued “The Choking Kind” backed with “All Around Indian Cowboy” as a Canadian single.

The album presented Bearpaw as a performer whose life already embodied much of the mythology associated with country music. Its liner notes traced his journey from Fort Chipewyan through rodeo, Hollywood and country music while emphasizing his continuing connection to Alberta and his commitment to helping Indigenous communities through special projects.

Bearpaw followed the album with Angry Mountain, issued on cassette by Diné Records in 1980. Released through a label based in Kayenta, Arizona, the album included “Let the Fair Winds Blow,” “Angry Mountain,” “Ten More Miles to Carway,” “Pick the Wildwood Flower,” “Rain Dance,” “Women I Never Had,” “Diggy Liggy Li,” “Coca Cola Cowboy,” “Beautiful Body” and “Playboy.” The cassette combined contemporary country songs with western and Indigenous-themed material, continuing the musical identity Bearpaw had developed as the “All Around Indian Cowboy.”

After a lengthy absence from the screen, Bearpaw returned to television in 1993, playing Webb in the “Poisoned Harvest” episode of the action series Raven. He later returned to Alberta and died in Edmonton in 2001. His surviving recordings document a Cree performer from northern Alberta who carried his identity through country music, professional rodeo and a remarkable career in Hollywood stunt work.

-Robert Williston