Nov 9, 2015 2 min read

NEW YORK (AP) – Producer, songwriter and musician T Bone Burnett has donned a white hat and jumped in to rescue the score to a musical about American icons Roy Rogers and his wife, Dale Evans.

Burnett, known for keeping alive forms of American roots music, replaces the previously announced songwriting team of Alan Menken and Glenn Slater, who were unable to continue on “Happy Trails” due to a scheduling conflict.

The composer, who grew up in Fort Worth, Texas, seeing the musicals “Showboat,” “Oklahoma!” “The Pajama Game” and “Guys and Dolls,” said this week that he’s never had a chance to flex his musical theater chops.

“I have to say it’s frightening and exciting to come into a world that I think I can never live up to,” Burnett said. “I’m glad I’ve waited this long to even to begin to approach it.”

Rogers was a star of television, radio and movies, turning out country music songs, 87 Westerns and a 1950s TV series. From 1943 to 1954, the singing cowboy was the No. 1 Western star at the box office in a poll of theater operators.

With his trusty horse Trigger, Rogers played the straight-shooting good guy who always fought fair – instead of killing the bad guys, he would shoot the gun out of their hands – and always lived to sing about it. Rogers died in 1998 at age 86; Evans died in 2001 at 88.

Burnett said the musical will have entirely new music that will be influenced by the 1930s, one of his favorite decades. “There will be some show tunes, and there will be some blues tunes. There will be country tunes, and there will be folk tunes. There will be all that, and there will be other things, too.”

The new musical will feature a story by Academy Award-winner Marshall Brickman (“Annie Hall,” “Manhattan,” “The Addams Family”) and direction by two-time Tony Award-winner Des McAnuff (“Jersey Boys,” “Tommy”). The lead producer is Larry G. Spangler.

Burnett is best known for the Grammy-winning Robert Plant-Alison Krauss CD “Raising Sand” and “O Brother Where Art Thou” soundtrack.