In the early 1930’s, a young man from Duck Run, Ohio, by the name of Leonard Slye, had accompanied his family as they relocated to southern California. An ambitious sort, this young fellow not only loved music, but had a drive to make music a focal part of his life, and his life’s work. He had developed some unique musical qualities of his own, including an exceptional ability to yodel in a style that would later be classified as a personal trademark. At that time in American music history, radio was the hot medium, and the Los Angeles area of California was certainly no exception. There were a number of groups formed for the sole purpose of establishing an identity and career in musical radio, and young Leonard Slye pursued his niche in the burgeoning market.
It was while singing with one such group, the Rocky Mountaineers, in 1931, that Slye felt the group, and his own shy nature, would be best served by adding a second voice to the musical mix, and an ad was placed in the L.A. Examiner for a yodeler, preferably a tenor singer, to sing in an "old time act." After failing to find a suitable man to fill the need, a handsome, broad-shouldered lifeguard appeared at the door, with ill-fitting new shoes in hand, which had been purchased specifically for this audition. Explaining that he had been on a long walk from the bus line, and unaccustomed to shoes in his avocation as a lifeguard, young Bob Nolan, originally from tall-timber backwoods of New Brunswick, Canada, had spent his early youth being educated in Boston with his aunts, and later moved to Tucson, Arizona as a fourteen year-old boy, joining his Dad who suffered lung damage in a World War I gas attack. In Tucson, Nolan finished his education, later enrolling in the University of Arizona, and it was here that he discovered a new passion both for the desert and the American West. All of these life experiences, in addition to a love of the great poets and a period of "riding the rails" back and forth across America, would come together to ultimately make him the greatest Western song writer of all time. Leonard Slye had no way to know who was standing barefoot in front of him that day, but Nolan’s yodeling and singing skills quickly made and impression of their own, and the beginning of a lifelong friendship and musical association of such an enormous historical significance neither could have possibly comprehended, began that day.
By August of 1932, things with the Mountaineers were not progressing at a satisfactory pace of Nolan, and he decided he needed to break with the group, so another ad was placed for a yodeler, this time preferably a baritone, who played a stringed instrument. A young tenor singer, who had no idea he could yodel until the tryout, came to audition, and the young man who hailed from Webb City, Missouri, was named Tim Spencer. As a boy, Spencer had learned to love music, and to share that love with others at the Webb City Methodist Church, as well as seeing his father play the fiddle at dances, social events, and with the Webb City Symphony. At the age of five, the family moved to the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of New Mexico, where they established a homestead, and several years later they moved again to Pitcher, Oklahoma. Along the way, Tim’s love and penchant for music grew, and following a mining accident that left him unable to fulfill the grueling duties of the mine, he began performing in a local night spot, and in 1931 moved to southern California with his brother, to pursue his passion for music. After finding a job at the local Safeway warehouse, he responded to this ad, and was welcomed by the eager Leonard Slye. One unique and ironic intersection of destiny and coincidence is exhibited in the fact that Slye first ran an ad for a tenor yodeler, and filled the position with arguably one of the greatest Western baritones of all time in Bob Nolan, and later ran an ad for a yodeling baritone, and filled the position with one of the great Western tenors of all time, Tim Spencer! Of course, this duo of Nolan and Spencer would soon become the unquestioned and unrivaled greatest Western music songwriting team of all time! And, history had reserved a twist of unparalleled fame for the young Leonard Slye that would be realized a few years later, as well!
Slye and Spencer, along with another singer by the name of Bill Nichols, spent some time with a group called the O-Bar-O Cowboys, which ended in a disbanded disaster, but undaunted, Slye prevailed on Nolan and Spencer to make a true commitment to the music business, and by late 1933, they had booked themselves as the Pioneer Trio, on Hollywood radio station, KFWB. Living together in a Hollywood boarding house, the trio would spend ten to twelve hours a day rehearsing the minutest details of breathing, phrasing, harmony, and dynamics, until one or more voices literally gave out, but the work and dedication clearly showed. As their exposure on KFWB expanded, the strain on their voices increased, so the trio looked to add a fiddle player, and soon determined that the well-sought after Hugh Farr, a regular on the Los Angeles music circuit, would be ideal. Farr’s demand actually afforded him the right to audition the trio, in a twist of normalcy from what would have customarily been an audition for him with the trio! He decided the fit would be good, and soon his unique, trademark fiddle style was a perfect fit for the harmonies and stylistic musical repertoire of the trio. Then, the defining moment of destiny for this determined group arrived!
In early 1934, while preparing for a performance on KFWB, announcer Harry Hall introduced the now quartet, as the Sons of the Pioneers! Angered by this unsolicited editorial revision, the group confronted Hall afterwards, who proclaimed that the boys simply looked too young to be Pioneers, so he dubbed them the Sons of the Pioneers! The rest, as they say is history! The first date that the name Sons of the Pioneers appears in print is March 3, 1934. By mid-1934, the group was signed to the Decca Record label, and was only the third west-coast act to record on that label, following in the storied footsteps of Stuart Hamblen and Bing Crosby. Their first recording included Nolan’s smash hit trio yodeling tune "Way Out There," which mirrored the train whistles Nolan had heard so many times as a youth riding the rails, plus Nolan’s "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" and "Ridin’ Home," and Nolan and Spencer collaboration, "Moonlight on the Prairie." By 1935, the group added the exceptional guitar skills of Hugh Farr’s brother Karl Farr, and their fame, popularity, and exposure continued to grow faster than any of them could have imagined. Karl’s outstanding guitar style simply added fuel to the fire of Hugh Farr’s fiddle, and the group had now hit a stride that would never fail them, and would serve as the foundation of both their longevity and status as the standard by which all other Western music groups have been measured since then, and icons in American music as a whole.
By mid-1937, the Pioneers had made appearances in several movies, particularly in some Columbia films with cowboy action star, Charles Starrett, and most notably to date, a 1936 Paramount Pictures production called Rhythm on the Range, with Bing Crosby. It was widely known that Republic Pictures was in the midst of a somewhat heated dispute with singing cowboy star, Gene Autry, whom the Pioneers had backed at the State Fair of Texas’ Centennial Celebration in Dallas, where Leonard Slye and the Pioneers would be heard by Slye’s future wife for the first time. After considerably effort, Slye made it onto the Republic lot, and was granted an audition. He was signed to a movie contract by Republic, on October 13, 1937, and shortly after that, Autry did in fact leave the studio, paving the way for Slye, now re-named Roy Rogers, to become the King of the Cowboys. Along with his golden palomino horse, Trigger – The Smartest Horse in the Movies, and his wife and co-star, who first heard him in Dallas, Roy Rogers, along with the Sons of the Pioneers, established himself as a true American legend and icon, in movies, television, countless sold-out personal appearances, and television specials, achieving the equivalent of today’s rock-star status!
Since their seemingly predestined beginning in 1934, many names in addition to Rogers, Nolan, and Spencer have become legendary as a permanent part of the Pioneers’ roll call, such as Lloyd Perryman, Tommy Doss, Pat Brady, Ken Curtis, Ken Carson, Shug Fisher, and current Trail Boss, and longest running member of the group, Dale Warren. A "Living Legend," the SONS OF THE PIONEERS have become American icons, known the world over for their trademark harmonies and haunting lyrics, simply called the "Pioneer Sound." In 2004 the Pioneers reached another historic landmark, as they celebrated seventy years of continuous entertainment! The Pioneers remain the longest continuous performing group of all time, and they have become the standard by which all other western groups are measured. The Pioneers have over three thousand compositions to their credit, have been inducted into the Western Music Association, National Cowboy, and Singing Cowboy Halls of Fame, their music has been inducted into the GRAMMY HALL OF FAME. They have been given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, appeared in 98 movies with such stars as John Wayne, Gene Autry, Bing Crosby, and 45 films with Roy Rogers, and have been designated as "National Treasures" by the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC, with two of their most requested songs, "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" and "Cool Water" having been placed into the National Archives.
