Garth Brooks Once Offered To Donate Part Of His Liver To Chris LeDoux When He Was In Need Of A Transplant

God bless Chris LeDoux.

The rodeo cowboy turned country star sadly passed away back on March 9, 2005 from cancer after being diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma, or bile duct cancer, a few months earlier.

LeDoux, who was born in Biloxi, Mississippi, first started riding horses when he would visit his grandparents in Wyoming as a child, participating in his first rodeo at the age of 13 before his family eventually moved to Cheyenne, Wyoming while he was in high school.

During his high school career, LeDoux was a two-time winner of the Wyoming State Rodeo Championship bareback riding title, and while in college at Eastern New Mexico University he won the Intercollegiate National bareback riding championship.

By 1970, LeDoux had become a professional rider on the national rodeo circuit, and began writing songs to help pay for his rodeo career. He began selling tapes out of the back of his truck at rodeos, and after winning the world bareback riding championship at the 1976 National Finals Rodeo, audiences quickly began to realize that the cowboy songs he was singing were authentic lyrics built from his own experiences.

LeDoux retired from the rodeo in 1980, instead choosing to lean into his music career by releasing 22 albums over the next decade. He also began performing sold-out shows, and despite not having a record label or a recording contract, he managed to shoot to national prominence in 1989 when Garth Brooks mentioned “a worn out tape of Chris LeDoux” in his hit song “Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old).”

With the newfound attention, LeDoux eventually signed a deal with Liberty Records and released his first national album, Western Underground. And in 1992, he dropped the biggest album of his career with Whatcha Gonna Do With A Cowboy, dropping the debut single with Garth Brooks and scoring his first top-10 hit of his career.

He followed it up with “Cadillac Ranch,” his second top-20 hit, while releasing over a dozen singles in the ’90s.

But in August 2000, LeDoux was diagnosed with primary sclerosing cholangitis, a chronic disease of the liver and gallbladder characterized by inflammation of the bile ducts that prevent them from draining from the gallbladder.

The disease left LeDoux in need of a liver transplant – and one of his close friends offered to step up to help him out.

Garth Brooks offered to donate part of his liver to LeDoux to help save his life:

“Chris needs something, and I owe everything I have to Chris LeDoux. I’m your man.”

Garth had long credited LeDoux with his career, once even saying that he “stole his whole act” from Chris. And despite the fact that he was one of the biggest country stars in the world, he was still willing to step up and donate part of his liver to help his friend and one of his heroes.

Unfortunately, Garth’s liver was incompatible so he wasn’t able to donate. But LeDoux soon did find a suitable donor and received the liver transplant in October 2000, and he was able to recover enough to release two more albums in the following years.

Despite the fact that Garth wasn’t able to donate his liver, in 2001 LeDoux still called the “Friends In Low Places” singer his guardian angel:

“And here he comes along and mentions the worn-out tapes in his song. To me, Garth, he’s kind of like my guardian angel. It’s like every time I need some help, he’s there.”

After his death in 2005, LeDoux was honored by being inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame, as well as being awarded the Cliffie Stone Pioneer Award by the ACM Awards, which was accepted by Garth Brooks on behalf of his family.

Though Garth had announced his retirement in 2000 to raise his children, he briefly decided to head back into the studio in 2005 to record “Good Ride Cowboy” – a tribute to his late friend.The post Garth Brooks Once Offered To Donate Part Of His Liver To Chris LeDoux When He Was In Need Of A Transplant first appeared on Whiskey Riff.