Mythbusting

[Undertoad]

Cowboys didn't play guitars very often.

The general itinerant nature of the cowboy life itself meant one had to travel lightly. Consequently, it would have been much more common for a musically inclined cowboy to employ smaller, more compact instruments such as a fiddle or violin, Jew's harp, harmonica, or a squeezebox, easily movable from one working gig to the next.