Soon the accolades, credits and, of course, fans around the world mounted up impressively: They were inducted into the Grand Ole Opry in 1982. “I am objectively one of the second-funniest guys in America,” Slim says, with a modest level of modesty. “And Too Slim is being modest about his comedy skills,” Doug notes. Slim: “So that’s how we got a couple songwriters, a producer and great players.” “Not for his fiddle.”ĭoug continues, “Then about 10 years later we saw a guy on the side of the road with a sign that said, ‘Will Squeeze for Food.’ That’s how Joey joined us.” “And he can also fix the bus when it breaks down,” says Slim. “Woody joined us, bringing more original songs, a great tenor voice and that great fiddle style,” Doug says. Accordion wizard Joey Miskulin started working with them in 1988, becoming a full-timer soon after, squaring out the quartet we know today. With Collins leaving after a year (and replacement Tumbleweed Tommy Goldsmith staying just a year himself), Western swing fiddler Woody Paul (Paul Chrisman) came on board in 1978.
It was from one of those cut-out Sons albums, happened across by Slim, that the group took its name, and there was no looking back. The Sons of the Pioneers had albums in the cut-out bins and no one was doing what we were doing, so different and weird and entertaining.” “It was so much fun, and it was music that had kind of gone from the landscape. “I famously called Ranger Doug a couple days after our first gig and said, ‘I don’t know what happened back there, but America will pay to see that,’” Slim says. Soon, with the addition of Windy Bill Collins, they dedicated themselves to the traditions of the singing cowboys - Gene Autry, Tex Ritter, Rogers of course - and the Western ideal. That, Slim says, was his introduction to the music of the Sons of the Pioneers, the Western swing-and-harmony group that featured Nolan and cowboy-star-to-be Roy Rogers. “He said, ‘Bob Nolan.’ I said, ‘Did he write any others?’ He said, ‘Yeah, about 1200.’” “I said, ‘Where’d that come from,” Slim says. “‘Song of the Prairie,’” Doug interjects. “He’d show up in a hat, play a Bob Nolan tune.” “He was just Deputy Doug then,” Slim recalls. Well, best - and most entertaining - to let them tell the tale. There’s also a tour, which will soon bring their total career concert count past a whopping 7,300! It’s a legacy they never dreamed of back on that day in 1977 when guitarist Ranger Doug (known to some as Doug Green) first sat in with a bluegrass band that featured upright bassist Slim (a.k.a.
#YOUTUBE MUSIC VIDEOS LIST ALL JUANITA BYNUM SONGS FULL#
They are currently celebrating that time span with a new album, 40 Years the Cowboy Way, their 35th full release, a survey of the wide range (pardon the expression, pardner) and extensive history of cowboy music, from paeans to the prairies and rivers, to campfire songs, to jigs and polkas, to gunfighter ballads. It’s a nutshell they’ve honed and inhabited over the course of four decades as the premiere (perhaps the only) purveyors of the form - not to mention the associated comedy schtick (one of those Old West terms) and embroidered, be-chapped and tall-hatted finery. Well, how else would you expect a conversation with the two founding members of Riders in the Sky to be framed? That’s the Riders in a nutshell right there, these troubadours being dedicated to both the preservation and continuation of the rich traditions of cowboy music and celebrating life on the range. It ended with Doug and compadre Too Slim harmonizing on “Happy Trails” and calling, “Head ‘em up! Move ‘em out! Hee-yaw!”
It started with Ranger Doug giving “A great big western howdy!”
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