by: JAMES D. WATTS JR. World Scene Writer
9/28/2007
Riders in the Sky celebrates 100 years of Gene Autry
The man known as Ranger Doug, the “Idol of American Youth” and front man of Riders in the Sky, can’t remember a time when Gene Autry wasn’t on his mind.
“I suppose that dates me as much as anything,” Ranger Doug said, chuckling. “But Gene Autry was very much a part of the fabric of my growing up.
“I saw his movies when they came out,” he said. “I watched his TV show. And everybody’s heard (Autry’s song) ‘Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer.’ People my age just know Gene Autry.”
From the late 1920s, when a chance meeting with Will Rogers set him on a performing career, until his death in 1998, a lot of people got to know Gene Autry.
He first made his name on radio as “Oklahoma’s Yodeling Cowboy” (though born in Texas, Autry claimed Oklahoma as his home), and soon was a popular recording artist, with hit songs such as “That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine” and “Back in the Saddle Again.”
That latter tune would quickly become Autry’s theme song once he made the move to films in 1934. He made 45 Western films that established him as the prototype of the “singing cowboy,” a title later taken up by performers such as Roy Rogers and taken to sometimes comic extremes by Riders in the Sky.
As devotees of “The Cowboy Way,” Riders in the Sky – singer-guitarist Ranger Doug (Douglas Green), fiddler Woody Paul (Paul Woodrow Crisman), bassist Too Slim (Fred LaBour) and Joey the Cow Polka King (Joey Miskulin) on accordion – has been performing original and classic Western music for more than three decades.
This year is the 100th anniversary of Autry’s birth, and Riders in the Sky have spent much of the year celebrating that fact.
The group has re-released its 1996 Autry tribute album, “Public Cowboy No. 1,” with four additional tracks. They also participated in an all-star tribute recording, “Boots Too Big to Fill,” and are in the midst of an international tour that features the Riders performing a number of Autry’s best-known songs.
The tour brings them to Oklahoma this weekend for a series of performances throughout the state. These include appearing as part of the Broadway on Bartlesville series, and as part of the Gene Autry Film and Music Festival, to be held on Autry’s birthday in the Oklahoma town that now bears his name.
“Where else would we be on Sept. 29, except in Gene Autry, Oklahoma, celebrating Gene Autry’s 100th birthday?” Ranger Doug asked rhetorically.
The shows the Riders will do at these dates will be a mix of Autry tunes with other cowboy songs.
“It’s not that there’s any kind of dearth of material – Gene recorded something like 500 songs,” Ranger Doug said.
“And only a portion of those were in the genre we do. Gene did a lot of straight country songs, a lot of blues, a lot of holiday and novelty songs.”
Some may have thought Riders in the Sky was something of a novelty, too, when the group (originally a trio) took the stage at a Nashville nightspot in 1977.
But the Riders’ mix of sharp music and even sharper wit – disseminated through thousands of concerts, hundreds of TV appearances and dozens of recordings – has helped the group endure.
“Humor has been our stock in trade,” so quoth Ranger Doug. “By making everyone from kids to grandparents laugh, we’ve been able to keep something we think is a valuable part of our culture alive. I doubt there’s any way we would have lasted 30 years if we’d taken ourselves seriously.”
RIDERS IN THE SKY
Centennial Salute to Gene Autry
FRIDAY
7:30 p.m. – Poncan Theater, Ponca City.
Tickets: $21.55, $28.03, $33.43 and $38.83 (prices include sales tax). To order, call (580) 765-0943.
SATURDAY
Part of the Gene Autry Oklahoma Museum Music and Film Festival in Gene Autry, Oklahoma.
2 p.m. – Matinee show.
4:30 p.m. – Reception with Riders in the Sky.
8:30 p.m. – Evening concert.
Tickets: $20 for matinee show only; $35 for matinee show and reception; $25 and $35 for evening concert. To order, call (580) 294-3047.
SUNDAY
2 p.m. – Bartlesville Community Center, Adams Boulevard and Cherokee Avenue.
Tickets: $15-$43 adults, $5-$20 students. To order, call (800) 618-2787.
OCT. 2
7:30 p.m. – Herod Hall Auditorium, Northwestern Oklahoma State University, Alva.
Tickets: $10 adults, $5 students. To order, call (580) 327-8590.
Associate Images: Is this the address of the birthday party? Riders in the Sky is Joey the Cow Polka King (left), Too Slim, Woody Paul and Ranger Doug. |
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