POP MUSIC REVIEW : Leading the Cowboy Way : At the Crazy Horse, the Riders in the Sky demonstrate anew their 16-year secret--a saddlebag full of fun and an equal share of respect.

It’s official: Cowboy music is having a renaissance. Whoa, did I say “renaissance”? Make that “comeback”--real cowpokes would have plugged anyone using a 50-cent word to describe the simple, honest songs that often provided their only company on the lone prairie.

Michael Martin Murphey is building a cottage industry singing Western songs. Warner Bros. has devoted a specialty label to cowboy music. Last year, the resurgence was validated by the release of a collection of Western songs by bona fide country superstar Randy Travis, and a TV movie to boot (“Wind in the Wire”).

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Riders in the Sky continue to ride the path they’ve been on for 16 years--paying homage to the music of the Sons of the Pioneers, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers and all the other Hollywood Singing Cowboys--and doing it better than all the competition.

On Monday night at the Crazy Horse Steak House, the three Riders demonstrated anew their secret: While they have loads of fun in the process, they maintain a genuine respect for this facet of American culture.

Their natural showmanship in concert should come as no surprise to anyone who has heard their ongoing radio show, or saw their CBS-TV series a few years back. To be sure, they’ve got their parts down pat: Guitarist “Ranger Doug” Green is the handsome focal point with the strapping baritone voice; fiddler “Woody Paul” Chrisman is the slightly slow comic foil; and upright bassist Fred “Too Slim” LaBour is the quick-witted, wisecracking sidekick.

Less obvious, perhaps, is the threesome’s stop-on-a-dime instrumental virtuosity.

After one of LaBour’s corny jokes (“A horse walks into a bar. The bartender looks at him and says ‘Hey--why the long face?’ ”), Green will turn around and, in a song like “Varmint Dancing,” spin off breakneck chord changes to LaBour’s stopwatch-precise bass lines and Chrisman’s compact, exploratory fiddle solo.

And the Riders were as effective with neither pyrotechnics nor shtick, during a breathtaking, three-part harmony ballad such as Green’s “Blue Montana Skies.”

Riding alone under blue Montana skies

Not caring where my pony carries me,

Feelin’ at home under blue Montana skies

Where nature sings her song in harmony . . .

Don’t know where I’ll roam under blue Montana skies.

I’ll be riding till I meet my destiny. In such numbers, the purity of Green’s yodeling after the verses echoed the longing that went hand-in-hand with the cowboy’s coveted freedom, just as Green the songwriter nicely evoked the extremes of experience that have made the cowboy such an enduring archetype in American folklore. (Did I say “an enduring archetype in American folklore”? Make that “We like cowboys.”)

The 17-song set spanned the group’s career, from a pair of numbers off its debut album (“Three on the Trail” from 1980) through a couple of new songs slated for an album due this year.

During a comic question-and-answer session midway through the 80-minute performance, a member of the audience asked the Riders to define “The Cowboy Way,” a phrase they’ve used as a running gag for years. In his best, booming matinee-idol voice, Green replied:

“Whenever you are faced with a moral dilemma, just think to yourself, ‘What would Gene or Roy or Ranger Doug do?’ And that would be ‘The Cowboy Way.’ ”

He wasn’t boasting by including himself in the cowboy pantheon--that’s definitely not the Cowboy Way. Sheer talent and unflagging affection for the music have earned Riders in the Sky a bunk alongside the legends of the past.