Village People’s original cowboy Randy Jones rides into Oklahoma

Randy Jones, the original Cowboy, and a founding member of The Village People, is an actor, author, American Music Award winner and multi-platinum recording artist. He is coming to Oklahoma Saturday, August 20 for a gig at The State Theatre in Harrah, just 25 minutes from Oklahoma City.

In his career spanning four decades before, with and since Village People, he has sold 100 million units. Perhaps best known for his hits with the group, like Macho Man, In the Navy, and Y.M.C.A, he has earned 65 Gold and Platinum record certificates, toured worldwide, starred in the camp classic film, Can't Stop the Music, made the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine and in 2008, garnered a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.

Continuing a career as an actor, singer and dancer, Jones has released solo CDs, performs internationally in his own solo concerts and has appeared onstage in musicals and plays in New York City and elsewhere. His stage credentials include "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Music Man, Chicago, The Madonna Whore: Confessions of a Dirty Mind, Applause, Barefoot in the Park, Camelot, and 42nd Street, among many others.

In addition to Can’t Stop the Music he has appeared in several other movies.

Jones, who is 63, grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. He got a degree from UNC-Chapel Hill in Theatre, Film/TV and Communications. He the earned a degree at UNC’s School of the Arts, where he studied dance and choreography.

Before joining The Village People, he performed with several dance companies, as well as doing a lot of runway and photo modeling. “It seemed that quite a few designers from the period liked how I looked,” he told Punk Globe columnist Ginger Coyote in an interview.

According to the New York Daily News, “Jones was a founding member of the Village People and performed the hits Macho Man and Y.M.C.A. with the instantly recognizable group from 1977 to 1979 and then on and off through the 1980s.”

About his career, Jones told Coyote, “I even have to stand back and take a moment to just catch my breath.” He describes to her the whirlwind of his decades in show business: “I mean, when you start to stack it all up, it gets impressive. In my career before, with and since Village People, Rolling Stone cover, American Music Award, multi-Platinum status (100 million units!!!), Royal Command performances, Presidential Inaugural performance, countless television appearances worldwide, films, NYC and touring shows like Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Chicago, etc.”

Jones and his partner of 20 years, Will Grega, exchanged marriage vows in 2004, before same-sex marriage was legal in New York. In 2013, after marriage became legal in New York, he and Grega were legally married.

Randy Jones plays at The State Theater, 1961 N. Church Ave. in Harrah, on August 20. Tickets are $35 and are available by calling (405) 309-6166. Harrah is just 25 minutes from downtown Oklahoma City.

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