Cowboy Chords...

I was listening to a YouTube video from a studio/session guitarist who was explaining about absolute perfection in playing. If you are a professional, you must play the part.
Twanging a few wrong notes or messed up a timing is costly to the rest of the recording session if the engineer stops the recording take and makes everyone start again. Retakes get to be expensive. Some studio engineers will allow the song to continue and only retake the guitar part and not involve the rest of the session players.

Let's say you flubbed a solo note... one stinkin' note.
Years ago, everything was done on analog tape. They play the song again and the guitarist plays along repeating the part. At the very second where the mistake occurred, they 'punch-in' the new part to over write the mistake. It's only a second and not re-recording the entire solo.

Session players who aren't the best don't get called back for more work.

Now, nearly every studio is digital. No tapes. Everything goes directly to a computer.
The leading software workstation specially designed for recording studios is Pro Tools.
The beauty of that is doing a recording session in New York and sending the raw data to a studio in California to add vocals or other instruments.

Cowboy Chords are the most basic chords played in the first position, usually with a steel string acoustic guitar. Reminiscent of the early days of Western and Swing music, Cowboy Chords have lots of sustain due to the open strings. Guitars are tuned to E. If the song needs to be in a different pitch... let's say in the key of G, The guitarist would need to transpose and lose the sound of the Cowboy Chords.

Enter the capo. A capo is a device that straps around the guitar neck and placed in different locations to easily transpose music. The guitarist can still play like he was in E and strap a capo getting Cowboy Chords starting in the key of G.

For all the years of playing and listening to music, Cowboy Chords is a new term for me