Sons of the Pioneers

Click here to see some Sons of the Pioneers memorabilia (from my personal collection).

Click here to see a timeline of Sons of the Pioneers members from 1934 to Present.

Growing up around horses, cattle and cowboys, when I was little Dad would often reminisce about his cowboy heroes, cowboy superstars Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. Little did I know that a famous Western singing group that Roy Rogers founded would have a huge impact on me at a young age. When I was in grade school that Western singing group at the time had been in the business 51 years and began making appearances here in Branson, Missouri. My association with the legendary Sons of the Pioneers started like this.

In the fall of 1985, the Sons of the Pioneers were in Branson for the 3rd year in a row, performing the entire summer season. Granny had met one of the Pioneers at a local shoe store where she worked and in no time had made arrangements for all of us to see their show one Friday evening. I'll never forget coming home from school that day, going to Granny and Grandpa's house next door and hearing Granny say that "tonight we're all going to see the Sons of the Pioneers." "The who," I asked? Sounded like I would be going whether I wanted to or not.

Granny was a true Sons of the Pioneers fan as she recalled listening to them quite frequently on the radio when she, her two sisters and brother were growing up. They were the best in the business, those trademark 3-part harmony vocals and superb instrumentation that the group was noted for caused her and the sisters and brother to start learning and performing their songs when they were teenagers.

I still remember that Friday evening when we went to the Lowe's Country Music Show and saw the Sons of the Pioneers. The Lowe's came out and did the first hour. The Pioneers did the second. I left the theater that night with a greater understanding for Cowboy and Western music in general. I had witnessed a display of smooth harmonies and tight instrumentation. I witnessed a musical legacy and I couldn't get it out of my system.

Granny was just nuts over the whole experience. It brought back memories of her childhood. Granny bought two Sons of the Pioneers group photos, had them signed and she picked up one of their LP's, a record entitled "Cool Water." Over the weeks and months that followed I listened very closely to the sounds on that album over and over. I began memorizing the lyrics and wanted to learn more.

I remember being snowed in one day and while spending some time next door at Granny and Grandpa's house, I commented that I was having difficulty with the lyrics to some of the songs. Granny rushes off to the bedroom, looks in the closet and pulls out a decent size box, opens it up, and here before my eyes is a huge stack of sheet music, song books and vintage magazines, all dealing with Cowboy and Western music. There were song books by Gene Autry, Patsy Montana, Tex Ritter, Roy Rogers, Bob Wills and several dozen pieces of sheet music and cowboy music magazines. There in the stack was an old wore out song book, covers missing, pages torn, but mostly intact from 1945. In it were the words to "Tumbling Tumbleweeds," "Twilight On The Trail" and others. All of this had been collected by Granny, her sisters and brother. I then knew that this was what I wanted to do in life. I wanted to be a Singing Cowboy.

And every year thereafter we would attend the Pioneers show, the group had permanently relocated here and Branson was now their home base. Each time we'd go to the show, we'd pick up the usual, a signed 8x10 and a cassette or record, and the little collection started to grow. When I was 10, and you know most kids that age are into sports, action heroes and video games, my heroes were the Sons of the Pioneers. So Mom signed me up to the Sons of the Pioneers fan club, based out of Jackson, TN. I was ready to learn more on their history and background and wanted to collect more recordings. The fan club was ran by Pioneers fan and historian Gene Davenport. He would publish a Pioneers newsletter 4 times a year. It would include the goings on of the current group and showcase bios on former and current members and feature a record review of an old Pioneers LP.

The musical side of things began about the fifth grade when I joined the grade school band and learned the clarinet. But while that was going on, I picked up the piano and guitar and started teaching myself how to play both. During the sixth grade I picked up the mandolin for a couple of months, but didn't touch it again until after high school. Focusing on instrumentation, I didn't really begin collecting the Sons of the Pioneers recordings until my sophomore year of high school. I would later learn that if I wanted to have every Sons of the Pioneers commercially released recording for my personal collection, I would be collecting close to 500 songs. With the help of those fan club newsletters, I found a few addresses of record stores across the country that had vintage Sons of the Pioneers albums for sale and started writing them to see what was available. Here in town we had the Ernest Tubb Record Shop. They were wonderful in helping me find cassettes of reissued LP's from the 1960's thru the early 1980's. But finding the songs that were no longer in print would be the real challenge.

In the fall of 1993 two great things occurred that really began the research side of the Sons of the Pioneers' history and they both happened on the same day! While at the Earnest Tubb Record shop in Branson one Saturday morning, I was looking thru some LP's they were trying to get rid of. These records were various country artists, they were still sealed, completely new. Looking thru some LP's in the "S" section, there was a Sons of the Pioneers collection that I had no idea ever existed. It was entitled "Lucky U Ranch 1951-1953" and it happened to be a two record set. Price tag said $3.98 (still sealed by the way) so I headed for the check out and knew I had a rare treasure. When I got home I went to the mailbox and inside was a package from Ken Griffis. A few weeks earlier I had gotten in touch with Ken, back in 1974 he released a book on the complete history of the Sons of the Pioneers. Talk about a massive project, Ken began his Sons of the Pioneers research in the late 1960's, interviewing every member and anyone else who had a connection with the group, the finished project being his book Hear My Song, The Story of the Celebrated Sons of the Pioneers.

So the ice was broken and I would spend the next 4 years memorizing Ken's book, learning all about the group and its members, collect any Roy Rogers films featuring the Pioneers (they did 45 movies with Roy) that were on video (I'm missing just a few as of now), purchase out of print Pioneers LP's from used record stores, learn the harmonies, chord structure and instrumentation to all the songs. In addition to that I still would visit the current Pioneers frequently, talk to Dale Warren and drive him crazy with questions, and by my junior year of high school felt ready to sing Sons of the Pioneers songs and accompany myself on rhythm guitar.

A friend from church by the name of Jerry Fowler was interested in the helping of starting a harmony trio with me, and during my senior year we got off the ground as the Stars of the West, we had taken the name from 2 Sons of the Pioneers songs, one written by Stan Jones, the other by Tim Spencer. For a while we followed in the Pioneers tradition of Cowboy and Western songs with three part harmony vocals. But in late 1996 following the death of the Father of Bluegrass, Bill Monroe, I took on another project, Bluegrass! But that's a who other story covered here on the website also.

My junior year I entered the Branson High School talent show and did the Stan Jones classic, "Ghost Riders in the Sky." Didn't place but that was my first stage experience in front of a huge crowd with sound, lighting and so on. After that experience I rehearsed the Sons of the Pioneers material daily and during my senior year picked the early Roy Rogers tune "Cowboy's Night Herd Song" and entered the talent show again the following year. That experience resulted in a standing ovation, two encores and I walked away with first place! My career as a Singing Cowboy was on its way and continues in a fast pace today as I perform the Sons of the Pioneers material and Western music in general at every show.

The collecting of Sons of the Pioneers memorabilia such as publicity photos, movie stills, lobby cards, songbooks etc. began around 1998. There were companies out there that reprinted photos of Roy and Dale, the Pioneers and these could be found in gift shops, flea markets and antique stores. I grabbed all of those and my photo collection was on its way. For a few years my collection had gotten to the point that I decided to show it off to the neighborhood as well as family and friends. In 1992 we moved from Branson to a little town a few miles to the east known as Kirbyville. We ended up on a 276 acre working cattle ranch, Dad wanting to expand with keeping horses and raising beef cattle. So yes, the cowboy way of life for me fit like a glove as I remained in the music too. So at Grandma and Grandpa's house (quite a bit larger than the old one in Branson) they let me store all my Sons of the Pioneers stuff in a spare bedroom where I set it all up on display like a museum. This continued until late 1998 when I began running out of space. I had two rooms filled with 65 years of memorabilia, all Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers! The highlight of this whole experience was getting to spend an afternoon with Ken Griffis and his wife Nora and they got to view my Pioneers collection and meet Grandma and Grandpa in October of 1998.

With the collection of memorabilia still growing and running out of space I decided to scrap book it all and take it on a few road trips that I was doing with my group. Over 100 photos took up three scrap books covering the years of the group from 1934 when they were founded to a few years before their arrival in Branson. Beginning in early 2001, a local Branson resort hired me to do a weekly singing cowboy act for their guests and in the fall of that year was hired by Springfield based Bluegrass band Waterloo Boy. Two completely different musical genres, but since 1997 had been playing Bluegrass mandolin and learning the Lester Flatt style of Bluegrass guitar, and playing with a few area bands when needed, so word had gotten around that I was available as a Bluegrasser as well, so Waterloo Boy brought me on and I worked with them full time for the next three years. Playing weekly at a resort as a Singing Cowboy turned into a couple of more resorts and by late 2003 was performing 4 nights a week, I then went to part-time Bluegrass and full-time Singing Cowboy if there's a way that works!

In 2001 I got hooked on eBay on the internet, the online auction place where you can buy anything! Since then I've been getting most of my Sons of the Pioneers memorabilia from there, finding rare photos, the photo count is well over 150 now, movies, a missing LP or two, even belongings that had been collected by members of the Pioneers, some of which you see in the Sons of the Pioneers memorabilia section.

In July 2002, I got to hang out with Western group Riders in the Sky as they came to Branson and did a few weeks of shows. A great experience, I shared some Pioneers collectibles with Ranger Doug and the next thing I know, he's asking me for assistance on a book he's been writing covering the complete history of the Singing Cowboy. Released later that year Singing In The Saddle covers it all. Ranger Doug had spent over 30 years researching this and I can't express enough of what a great job he did. Doug needed my help in the Sons of the Pioneers chapter as he designed a Pioneers timeline covering each year the group has been together, each member, what they did in the group and so on. You'll find my name along with Ken Griffis and Pioneer member Gary LeMaster in Doug's book on page 86. Between the four of us, we helped complete the Pioneers timeline. I might also mention a great honor took place with Riders in the Sky as I got to guest with them for several songs during a few of their Branson appearances! We didn't rehearse, it all fell together! And playing Ranger Doug's 1937 Martin D-28 onstage one night was way cool too!

On June 6, 2003 was another milestone for me. I did a guest spot, a couple of songs with the Pioneers at their Branson theater and also brought out over 225 items of the Sons of the Pioneers memorabilia for the week long area appreciation, where local folks got to attend the show for free. Once again no rehearsal, I enjoyed being in the trio with Dale Warren and Luther Nallie, a great experience!

For nearly 20 years now, I've been following my favorite Western singing group. It's been a great ride. Often folks ask if I ever plan on being in the Pioneers. I remember in an interview once when Dale Warren was asked how he felt when he was hired by the group in December 1952. He stated he had reached his goal in life. I know that if that day ever comes for me, I too, will have reached my goal in life.

Click here to see some Sons of the Pioneers memorabilia (from my personal collection).

Click here to see a timeline of Sons of the Pioneers members from 1934 to Present.