DURANGO, Colo. — Every summer night throughout the American West, hundreds of tourists and western music fans sit down to a meal and a show at a modern-day chuck wagon . At these venues, a throwback to the covered wagon kitchens that were part of cattle drives, audiences polish off plates loaded with meat, baked beans, a potato, applesauce, a biscuit and cake, and then watch a house band tell corny jokes and play cowboy songs popularized by people like Roy Rogers and Gene Autry in the 1930s and ’40s.

The bands are not just the entertainment; they are the main attraction of the chuck wagons, and carry the same names. The Circle B Ranch in Hill City, S.D, has the Circle B Cowboys, for example, and the Flying J Wranglers perform at the Flying J Ranch in Ruidoso, N.M. Each group typically includes the owner , some of his family members and performers who have played with the band for decades. They are informal affairs. Chuck wagons do not have green rooms; instead the performers spend their time before their shows helping to serve food and pour lemonade.

The chuck wagon season, which for most runs from Memorial Day weekend until about Labor Day, wraps up each year with a two-night jamboree. This year, on Sept. 3 and 4, six groups gathered at the Bar D in Durango, Colo., for the Chuckwagons of the West Association’s 43rd annual Chuckwagon Jamboree, and 700 of their fans came with them.