Ken Griffis
(1925 - 2008)
The late Ken Griffis, officer of the John Edwards Memorial Foundation, contributor to its publication and official biographer of the Sons of the Pioneers, recorded hours of interviews in preparation for his history of the group, Hear My Song – The Story of the Celebrated Sons of the Pioneers . Unfortunately, the majority of these interviews are on reel-to-reel tape in fragile condition and unavailable to the public. Most of the following comments from Mr. Griffis are taken from previously published work for the JEMF, the Sons of the Pioneers Historical Society Journal or radio interviews. The transcript of one of his taped interviews of Bob Nolan is reproduced in toto here.
Mr. Griffis passed away on July 10, 2008, as a result of cancer. He will always be remembered as the original Sons of the Pioneers historian. He was 83 years old.
Ken chose the music for his page - Lie Low, Little Dogies, performed by the Sons of the Pioneers. The song was written by Tim Spencer, featuring a solo by Lloyd Perryman and a recitation by Bob Nolan. Mr. Griffis said it was his favorite Sons of the Pioneers song.
On Bob Nolan's songwriting habits:
Since his retirement, most of his time from snow-thaw to snowfall is spent up in the mountains of California. His wife, Clara, who he married in Las Vegas in 1941, realizes the importance of Bob’s getting away from it all, and patiently accepts his summer hiatus.
Music continues to play an important part in his life. Every morning he wakes at 5:00, props himself up in bed and writes for two or three hours. At any one time he may have several tunes going and writes songs of all types, few being western in content.
Nolan states that he enjoys writing and sings now only for his own satisfaction. When the songs are completed they are filed away to “await the time when conditions are right for them to be released.” Nolan is a soft spoken, thoughtful individual with a fine sense of humor who feels he has had a fully satisfying career.
On religion:
Just returned from a very pleasant three-hour visit with Bob Nolan. His initial comments centered around his concern with his relationship with Christianity. He has a strong distaste for established religious tenets. He feels the accepted Church teaching is so much foolish talk. He does feel there is some power that established the universe. He remarked that his religious songs were a sellout – not his real concept of God. He reads Spinoza and believes that is closer to his belief.
He then indicated he is burned-out with his song writing. He stated he just can’t be productive because his music isn’t accepted anymore. I discussed this at length. I indicated that perhaps he just wasn’t willing to accept the fact that songs of the past were his forte. He indicated perhaps that was so – but he wasn’t too eager to acknowledge that fact or even spend much time discussing it.
He ended our visit with a beautiful reading of a composition concerning his death - about the desert being his mistress as a young boy. He went on to describe the desert as his mistress and ended with telling the pilot to scatter his ashes over the desert. Very moving. (February 23, 1980)
On the subject of casts:
This affair began to unfold one Saturday morning when I received a call from Bob Nolan, asking if I had a saber saw. I replied in the affirmative. He asked if I had the time to come over with the saw. I had the time. Upon my arrival, Nolan asked that I drop the saw in an out-of-sight location in his back yard.
As we were engaging in small talk, I noted P-Nuts leaving through their ivy-covered gate. Bob stated, “P-Nuts [his wife] will be back within the hour. Get your saw and cut this damn thing off.” He was referring to an ankle to mid-calf cast, protecting a fractured ankle. I protested that I was not proficient in the least at such work. He replied that one of us was going to do it, so I 'volunteered'.
Some forty minutes later, as Nolan and I were admiring our handiwork, P-Nuts reappeared. As she walked toward the house, she noted the discarded cast. She gave Bob a disapproving look then turned to stare at me. Some ten seconds later, she proceeded on into the house. As I cleared my throat I remarked, “Robert, I think I’d better be going along.” Nolan replied, “Not a bad idea, Ken."
Calin Coburn Collections
On hearing of Bob's death:
Late in the afternoon on Monday, June 16th, I answered the telephone and heard the familiar voice of Buddie Perryman, widow of Pioneer great, Lloyd Perryman.
“Ken, I have some very bad news. I just received a call from Clara [Mrs. Bob Nolan]. Bob has suffered a fatal heart attack.”
There was no response from my end of the line. Buddie, sensing the reaction, remarked that she would call back later and hung up.
The thought that first came to mind was, “This is indeed the end of a fantastic musical group, the likes of which will never come again. Karl, Pat, Tim, Lloyd, Hugh, and now Bob.” In a short passage of time we saw an organization whose music is and will be heard around the world, bloom, blossom and fade into the pages of history.
Sitting in stunned silence, my mind rapidly retraced many pleasant encounters I had with Bob Nolan during the last ten years. The memory of my first meeting with this thoroughly unusual man was still vivid.
In 1970, as work slowly progressed on a book relating to the history of the Sons of the Pioneers, I was struggling with a difficult problem. How could I get an interview with Bob Nolan? From remarks made by Pat Brady, Hugh Farr, and Tim Spencer, it was evident such an interview would not come easily.
In desperation, I made a plea to Lloyd Perryman, Bob’s closest friend. Lloyd indicated that he would ask Nolan about the interview, but offered little encouragement. A few days later, he informed me that Nolan had suggested that Lloyd himself supply the needed information. While I appreciated his offer of help, it was, nevertheless, a keen disappointment.
At this point I sought the help of Nolan’s fellow composer, Stuart Hamblen , an individual who I hoped Nolan would not, or could not, refuse. Stuart and Bob had been closely associated since their radio days in the mid-thirties, and each greatly admired the other. Hamblen responded to my request with, “Stand by. I’ll have ol’ Bob up here within the hour.” In shock I hastily remarked that this was too soon; I would need a few days to prepare for such a momentous meeting. Hamblen suggested that I return the next day. True to his word, when I arrived Bob Nolan was there as were Tim Spencer and Lloyd Perryman. That meeting made an impression that lasts to this day.
It was extremely gratifying, in this initial contact with the legendary Bob Nolan, to find him a friendly, modest and unassuming individual, with a fine sense of humor. He was very easy to interview, his responses polite and to the point. This and the many visits that were to follow dispelled the “loner” myth to a large extent.
Due to certain unpleasant events in his career, it was my personal observation that he was leery of people and preferred to accept them on his terms. It is my firm belief that Nolan never took advantage of another over his long career. He was not afforded this same consideration by a few “friends.” To a large degree, it simply boiled down to a preference for privacy over public performances. It may come as a surprise to many of his fans to learn that, as his career developed, it became increasingly difficult for him to work in the movies and make public appearances. At one point, a studio offered him the opportunity to star in a western series, only to have Nolan turn it down flat.
From the first meeting with Nolan, I developed a deep respect for the man himself. He loved a good joke and could laugh at himself as easily as with others. He readily responded to the problems of others without qualification. Neither selfishness nor self pity played a part in his life.
His great disappointment, which he revealed to only a very few, was that he did not think he would live to see the acceptance of the music he had been writing over the past thirty years. He took a good deal of pride in this music but he found it difficult to push the industry or recording artists to consider it. In this regard he possibly did himself and others a disservice. But that was his way. Unquestionably, at some future point in time, this music and much of what he wrote in the past will be “discovered” and given proper acclaim
Although Bob Nolan took few people into his affection, he greatly enjoyed receiving letters from his many fans and admirers. When he received a letter, he would immediately put on his glasses and read it intently. He would remark, “I should answer that.” But he rarely did.
Some general observations: (from a radio interview by KLAC, A Tribute to Bob Nolan – the Quiet Man, 1980.
Bob was, by choice, very close with his personal thoughts and I felt it best to let it go at that. I always felt that was one of the reasons he accepted me as a friend. I never spent time asking about certain things unless he chose to bring it up. I got on the bad side of him a time or two by asking questions he had no interest in discussing and he made no bones about letting me know he was not interested in talking about it. He could get his point across in no uncertain fashion.
Bob Nolan really was a quiet person. He was a person who really did not like to mix with the public. As a result of that, people said he was a hermit, a recluse – that he did not like people. Possibly a little bit of that is true but Bob, by and large, had been in the public eye for so long and, through certain things that had occurred in his life, felt that he wanted to be by himself. He did allow people to visit him. He was very personable. He was a very friendly individual but he did not like the public eye. He did not like to go out in public.
He said that in his early days that he wrote for the school newspaper and he wrote poetry. Of course, I like to think of all his songs as poetry. I don’t really know if Bob wrote much of what we would call “music”. He wrote poetry and then he put music to it. I think Bob got his stimulation from his early days in the desert and he wrote poems about it and then later on this became music.
I was over to see him the Sunday before he passed away. (I was privileged to see Bob every three or four weeks and spend some pleasant hours with him.) We were trying to put together an album of the early Decca XE "Decca" recordings and I wanted to get his clarification on the song Tumbling Tumbleweeds XE "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" because it originally was written as Tumbling Leaves XE "Tumbling Leaves" . I was fortunate to get it on tape. I guess it was the last thing that he recorded.
Bob says he wrote Cool Water from his days in the desert, his inspiration from the desert. And now the one thing that Bob mentioned many times is that he was so surprised that people think of Cool Water as a song about water. Really, it’s not a song about water, it’s the absence of water. He was trying to convey that there was no water. It’s all an illusion.
Bob was a very deep individual and he did not like to share his thoughts with too many people. I guess the closest friend that he had was Stuart Hamblen. Others were friends but Stuart and Bob shared an awful lot of background over the years.
I can just give you an interpretation of Bob Nolan as I knew him. Bob Nolan did not like notoriety. He did not like to appear before the public. I think that was one of the reasons that he left the group is because it got to be increasingly difficult for him to go out onto that stage and face the crowd. That may sound strange but I believe that was his big problem in the latter years with the group. He just did not like to go out on that stage and he had his own problems with meeting people – I mean as far as wondering what their motives may be and so forth. I think he felt that he should associate only with those people that he felt he had something in common with. And I believe he just liked to be by himself but, of course, that was not unique to this period. I know many of the Pioneers remarked that in the early days in the movie industry, they’d look around for Bob and he’d be setting on a rock somewhere off to himself, gazing off into the distance, writing a song in his mind. I just think he felt more comfortable by himself and why he felt that way, I really don’t know.
He was definitely a dreamer. Bob Nolan had some very deep thoughts. And he liked to pretend that he was as hard as nails on the outside but inside, Bob was just a very tender, respectful person. He had a great love of his country and I think he believed in The American Dream but he was certainly never gonna be found on the corner waving a flag. That was not Bob Nolan.
I believe one thing that did disturb him over the last few years was the fact that the music had changed so much and he felt he had a great contribution – he had some beautiful songs but this was jut not the era for the Nolan-type songs which was very unfortunate. But he accepted it. He was never happy about it but I think he accepted it and he was never one to complain. He never had a complaint or a bad word to say about anybody. He just took things one day at a time.
September 24, 2006
During a visit with Nolan, an unusual and hard to understand event occurred. We were discussing past Pioneer recordings that the group had made and I mentioned a Tim Spencer composition that was one of my favorites, "Lie Low, Little Doggies". I remarked that Nolan, Lloyd Perryman and Ken Curtis did a fine job on the recording. Bob commented that he couldn't recall the song and suggested that I put it on tape and bring it along for the next visit.
A couple of weeks later, during our visit, I played the song for him. He listened intently then remarked, "Ken I hate to disagree with the "expert", but that's not me in the trio, it's Tommy Doss. I asked Bob to stop kidding and give me his opinion of the Pioneer effort. Nolan said he wasn't kidding and that I had the two voices mixed up. After repeated playing of the song he was still unconvinced. I made the concluding remark that it might possibly be understandable if he was unable to recognize his own vocalizing but certainly not his speaking voice. (Bob did a short recitation on the recording.) He apologized for disagreeing but held firmly to his opinion. How strange!
For a year or so, during each visit with Bob Nolan, as he permitted, I would bring up the subject of his allowing someone to listen to the music he had been writing since his retirement. From an initial "Not interested, forget it" to "I'll think about it" to "Well, perhaps," he was finally convinced of the importance of the suggestion. I knew the battle had been won when he stated he would consider the suggestion if he could be convinced that some knowledgeable individual would be interested.
Marty Robbins was the agreed choice, but Bob said he had no way of contacting him. I countered with the statement that Marty knew me, somewhat, and there should be no difficulty in getting him to agree to a visit. I went on to tell Bob that very likely Marty was even in town now.
Bidding Nolan goodbye and with my hand on the doorknob there came a knock at the door. I asked Bob if he was expecting a visitor to which he replied "no." Opening the door, to my great surprise, there stood Marty Robbins and his West Coast manager, Bob Hinkle. Turning to look at Bob, the shocked look on my face was sufficient to convince Nolan that this was not a "put-up" job. Embarrassed, I left as quickly as possible. Nolan later informed me that he and Marty had a most mutually rewarding two-hour visit. Their first!
Johnny Bond, the great composer and vocalist, suffered a stroke that left him, at times, unable to complete his thoughts. I called Nolan and asked if he would care to pay Johnny a visit. He was most agreeable to the suggestion. During the visit with Johnny and his lovely, gracious wife, Dorothy, it became apparent that Nolan was paying close attention to Bond's inability to complete all of his thoughts. At times, it appeared that Bob was attempting to aid Johnny in the conclusion of a remark. I was impressed.
Not too long after our visit,
this dear friend passed away. As we sat in the overflowing crowd, Nolan leaned
over and whispered, "It would have pleased Johnny no end to know that in his
final appearance he 'played' to a packed house."
__________________________
Note: We strongly urge to you read, "Hear My Song – the Story of the Celebrated Sons of the Pioneers" by Ken Griffis to learn more about each of the members of the group. The book is full of detailed information and anecdotes.
Summer 1979
Went over last Saturday and spent a couple of hours with
Bob Nolan. Any visit with Bob is an experience. He has a very active mind and is
in apparent excellent health. Bob enjoys talking about the present more than the
past. While he fully appreciates his years with the Pioneers, he spends very
little time reliving those years. As he says, "Let it lie."
When he does choose to speak of the past, it's usually to recall some funny
incident and hardly ever about his contribution. To hear him talk, one would
come away feeling that his part in the group was marginal to say the least. That
of course will come as a big surprise to the Pioneer-Nolan fans. Most of his
words of compliment are directed to the contribution Lloyd Perryman made in his
long years with the Pioneers. One might say that Nolan was and is a Lloyd
Perryman fan.
Bob seems to be fairly well pleased with his new album. Whether or not it makes
money is of little importance apparently. He just hopes that the fans enjoy it.
If it does well, I feel he can be talked into doing another.
As I was leaving, Bob had to show me his new pickup truck. He seemed very
pleased with it. He will put it to a good test as he leaves to spend September
and October up in the mountains.
Yes, Bob Nolan is quite an individual. (Ken Griffis, The Pioneers, Vol. 3, No.
3, Summer, 1979.)
GRIFFIS: So, Bob, if I could begin the interview, I’d like to ask your complete and honest name.
NOLAN: Well, my name is Robert Clarence Nobles. [His birth name was Clarence Robert Nobles.] That is an English name. And, I don’t know, after I got out of school, I just automatically changed it to my father’s name. He, in the meantime, had changed his name from Nobles to Nolan so I took that, too.
GRIFFIS: How did you spell it? N-O-B…?
NOLAN: N-O-B-L-E-S Nobles.
GRIFFIS: That’s an English name.
NOLAN: Yes.
GRIFFIS: Where were you born, Bob?
NOLAN: Now this I can’t tell you for sure, for certain. I’m not certain about the city. I know I was born in either Vancouver or Winnipeg, Canada. [He was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba.]
GRIFFIS: And what would have been the date?
NOLAN: 1908. Yes, April 1, 1908[1]…. The day. Let’s see, I had figured it out according to a table that someone gave me. I was born on a Thursday.
GRIFFIS: And what was your father’s name?
NOLAN: Harry Byron Nobles. And then he changed it to Nolan. He didn’t like Nobles for some reason or other[2]. I had nothing against it.
GRIFFIS: Where do you think he picked up the name Nolan?
NOLAN: I don’t know. He was very fond of the Irish people. He liked the Irish people. He picked out an Irish name.
GRIFFIS: Was he an American citizen or did he come from England?
NOLAN: No, he was a Canadian. And up until World War I first broke out - and he was in the United States at the time so he just joined the United States Army instead of going back to Canada and that automatically made him a citizen….
GRIFFIS: What was your mother’s maiden name?
NOLAN: I don’t know for sure[3]. I don’t remember my mother at all.
GRIFFIS: What was her first name?
NOLAN: Flo. Flora.
GRIFFIS: Do you recall whether your father had an interest in music……..?
NOLAN: No. But there was four boys and five girls in my father’s family. That is, 5 sisters and 4 brothers, and all the girls were musical and the boys [laughs] couldn’t carry a note in a basket.
GRIFFIS: I might also ask, Bob, whether or not you had any brothers or sisters.
NOLAN: Yes, I had one brother.
GRIFFIS: What was his name?
NOLAN: Earl. And he changed his name later on in life to “Michael” because it went better with the name “Nolan” than “Earl” did.
GRIFFIS: What profession or what did he do when he decided on a career?
NOLAN: Well, he didn’t have much of a career of any thing in those days. He was a firefighter, professional football player and then, in World War II, he was a professional soldier, I think, because he went in the army as a Sergeant and came out as a Lieut. Col. He won this all in the field so he was a pretty fair soldier, I guess.
GRIFFIS: Is he still alive[4]?
NOLAN: Yes. He’s the Assistant Fire Chief at Tucson, Arizona, now.
GRIFFIS: What do you recall about your earliest days in Canada, Bob? Do you recall a number of things that made an impression on you as far as the country or the music of the day and so forth?
NOLAN: Oh, yes. I mean, my aunts and uncles who were then living in Boston, Massachusetts…. See, this is when they left the old homestead, so to speak. This is where I was living, incidentally, with my grandparents. My aunts and uncles would come back and visit the old folks, see, and as I said before we started this recording, that all the girls, all my aunts – there was 5 of them - were all musical and they impressed me no end. I mean we had one of those old-fashioned pump organs, you know, away in the backwoods in Canada there….. and we would all gather round that and I think they all played it. I know at least 3 of them were just wonderful. I would just sit in awe when that music was rolling out of that old organ. [Laughs.] They could all sing and really impressed me very much. I liked to sing, too, after I got acquainted with them.
GRIFFIS: Do you recall their names?
NOLAN: Yes, there was Aunt Maud, Aunt Mabel, Aunt Matilda, Aunt Fannie [laughs] She was my favorite. Oh, she was a beautiful girl.
GRIFFIS: And they all played some type of instrument.
NOLAN: Yeah.
Bird: Yeah.
GRIFFIS: Yeah. [To bird] I was talking to Mr. Nolan, if you don’t mind. [Laughs] At what age would you have left Canada?
NOLAN: Well, let’s see. [Pauses.] Mmmm. I came to Boston first for a couple of trips during the school year to get some schooling, see. They didn’t have schools back there where I lived, see, in Canada[5]. We were just miles and miles from everything, way back in the backwoods. I left about when I was 14 and came to Boston with one of my aunts, and lived with her and went to school there for about 3 years. No, maybe it was only about 2. It seemed a long time to me. When you’re very young, you know, time just drags on you. And I stayed there… I would go back after the school period and go back to the old folks in Canada. And, finally, after the World War I was through – my Daddy was gassed in, I think it was the battle of Belleau Woods[6] where they used that mustard gas, the Germans. And they sent him to Tucson, Arizona, see, to recuperate and he sent for me. I was the oldest of the two boys, see. I was about 14, I think, when he finally sent for me in 1920[7].
GRIFFIS: He was living at that time in Tucson.
NOLAN: M-hmm.
GRIFFIS: Prior to this time, Bob, had you had any non-professional interest in music, prior to going to Tucson?
NOLAN: Yes. When I was in the backwoods of Canada, I used to look forward to the camp meetings, see. About once or twice a year they would send a minister up the St. John River to where we were and they had these camp meetings and they’d bring a bunch of hymnbooks and the folks would sing. And I just loved that.
GRIFFIS: Would the music that you were interested in at that time been mainly church music?
NOLAN: Yes, well, that’s all I had a chance to hear, you understand. That’s all anybody ever sang up there.
GRIFFIS: I see. Did they have a country or a folk music to any degree in Canada at that time? Were you aware of a….?
NOLAN: No. But as I look back on it now, my Aunts and the family, they would sing songs like… that you recall – you remember the songs the Beverly Hillbillies used to sing like Nita, Juanita, and, well, songs of that type. Those were the songs that they sang. And actually they were considered folk music.
GRIFFIS: Would that have been American songs come from America...?
NOLAN: Yes. Mmm.
GRIFFIS: Did you think at that time did you think that you had a fairly acceptable voice? You know your voice is distinctive and I wonder, at that time, did you figure that you had a voice that you could do well professionally?
NOLAN: No, I never thought in terms of professional music even after I came to California. I was 21 years old when I first came over here to California. I was 21 years old when I first came over here to California. No, I just had affection for music and I never thought of it as a profession. Even when I was going to school – I joined all the glee clubs and studied music in my first two years of college[8]. [laughs] My two and only years. I quit when I was a sophomore. But it was just my affection for music. As all I remember, I never even thought that I would finally pick it up as a profession.
GRIFFIS: Bob, if we could, let’s turn back to the Tucson days and that would have been about 1920?
NOLAN: Yes, just about there.
GRIFFIS: And you would have gone out there to be with your father. What was he doing there at the time?
NOLAN: He was a tailor.
GRIFFIS: And do you recall your first experience going through Arizona?
NOLAN: Yes, I first came across – I lived in the province of New Brunswick in Canada. I came across to Boston, Massachusetts and stayed a few years with my aunt - off and on for about 2 or 3 years. And then, from there, my Daddy got back from the war and was in the hospital for his lungs, and he sent for me about 2 years after he went to Tucson, Arizona. He had recuperated fine. His lungs were…. In fact, he’d had no repercussions of his lungs at all after about 2 years, see. They pronounced him well and he sent for me at that time. I had to make the trip all by myself and that was a long trip. I had the note stuck to my coat, you know, [laughs] which told the porters and everybody concerned where I was going, what to do when I changed trains. I was just in the hands of the railroad people. I didn’t know where I was going to end up. They got me to my destination. I was never so surprised in all my life when I got off the train - my dad was right there waiting at the door that I got out of the train. He wasn’t ten feet away from me when I got off the train.
GRIFFIS: You were glad to see him….
NOLAN: Merciful heavens, I should say!
GRIFFIS: What were your first impressions of Arizona country?
NOLAN: Well, this is awfully hard to say because I was so impressed coming from the backwoods of Canada out to this – what looked to me – nothing. This flat desert land. It was very big and, actually, after I’d been there about 6 months I fell in love with the place because of the beauty I couldn’t see when I first came. It was just wonderful. I mean I spent so many hours out there on the desert all by myself. I mean, I’d walk right out into it and just stay there all day if I didn’t have to come home, when I was a kid, you know.
GRIFFIS: I guess that was an indication of the great impact it had on you….
NOLAN: Yes, I do believe so. I’m glad I’m came while I was real young because it left an indelible impression that has lasted me all my life and will probably last until I kick the old bucket.
GRIFFIS: You know, if you go to the desert I would guess you see something or you see nothing.
NOLAN: That’s right. You have to look. And when you start seeing things on the desert, there’s so much to see. At first glance you see nothing. You’re right in that respect, but, oh boy, you start to looking closer and there’s things there you’ll never see any place else.
GRIFFIS: At this point, you start your schooling shortly after your arrival there?
NOLAN: Oh, yes. I’d already had - in Boston I’d started my schooling - and I think I picked up the equivalent of our 7th grade now. I was 14 or 15 years old.
GRIFFIS: At this time, your father was working in Tucson and you were living basically in the city?
NOLAN: Yes. We were out on the outskirts. The city was only 25,000 people so you could imagine it wasn’t much of a town as compared to what it is today. It’s a metropolis.
GRIFFIS: Yeah, you lose track of the fact that it’s grown so greatly in the past few years. What do you think occasioned you to start to write songs of the west and songs of the soil? Did you ever analyze what it is that caused you to start writing, other than the location – do you think it was the impact of the country on you alone that did this or could you have gone to New York City and wrote songs of New York City?
NOLAN: No, I don’t think so, Ken. I think it was the impact of the country that made me…. You see, during my schooling I had been very impressed by a few of our most prominent poets - I guess you would call the 19th C poets - modern poets - namely Keats and Shelley and Byron, Burns and those fellows. I even tried my hand at it – writing poetry – and, as I say and I believe, they were…. [pauses] I would try to write like Keats, say, but I would write about the desert and try to use his cadence and his rhyming. I copied. Let’s say it right out, I copied their style and wrote…. Although I was writing about a different topic, naturally – the desert – I think I was copying their styles.
GRIFFIS: Was Keats the one who made the greatest impact…?
NOLAN: Keats and Shelley. I liked both of them.
GRIFFIS: Would you have written your poetry before you started writing songs?
NOLAN: Oh, yes. Sure. M-hmm. Even up until and during the time I was going to college.
GRIFFIS: What was the name of it?
NOLAN: The University of Arizona in Tucson. I had a column in the school paper – the Arizona Wildcat[9] – called “Tumbleweed Trails”. And I wrote poems of the desert. Nothing but the desert. In later years, a lot of those poems ended up in some of my songs.
GRIFFIS: Do you have any copies of any of those things, those newspapers?
NOLAN: The Arizona Wildcat? No. I wished to the devil…I don’t know why I never saved any of those things. I think I, well, I know why I didn’t because every time I left town it was on a freight train and [laughs] you can’t carry much on a freight train.
GRIFFIS: Well, it’s possible we might find record of those someplace.
NOLAN: Someone may have them, yes.
GRIFFIS: So, you would say, then, that the music of Bob Nolan had its basis in a love of the poets and their words and then you tried….
NOLAN: M-hmm. And applying their style to my styles, or to what I liked best which was the desert. [pause] It’s a funny thing. Most of my poems had nothing to do with cowboys. It was just the desert itself. It was years later before I started writing with the cowboy flavour.
GRIFFIS: Whenever you started with your writing of what you might call poems, what was the earliest time you thought in terms of turning those into a song?
NOLAN: Oh, not until 1928. I was here in California… no, it was 1929 because it was directly after the Stock Market crash. And everything just went haywire, see. I lost my job – I was a lifeguard at the time – and I lost my job and it was awfully hard to get a job at that time and the Chautauqua players were going round all over the country, I found out later, not only here in California, actors out of work, you know, so they just got tents and made their own work.
GRIFFIS: What had you done prior to, say, 1921 or ‘22 – there was a period of 6 or 7 years there? Did you spend all this time in Arizona, did you leave to go anywhere?
NOLAN: No, I… you mean before 1920?
GRIFFIS: Before you came to California.
NOLAN: Before I came to California. Well, I got all my schooling in Tucson, Arizona, see. I graduated from high school and went up to the U of A for about 2 years and then I decided things were moving too slow for me so I just quit and just took off myself.
GRIFFIS: You would have hopped a freight and come to California?
NOLAN: No, not right away. I just went wherever I…. I think the first train I caught I ended up in Maryland someplace. I just traveled back and forth. If I was tired of going west, I’d go east.
GRIFFIS: Do you feel that was a part of the Bob Nolan need to learn of people and places and so forth?
NOLAN: Yes, I really do, Ken. There was something just within me that I just couldn’t stay still or stay in one spot when I was real young. I had to go and find out things my own way.
GRIFFIS: So you would have ended up in California about what year?
NOLAN: I had been to California while I was going to school. My dad used to come over to California during school vacation time, see, and he brought me and by this time my younger brother was living with us in Tucson, Arizona, and he brought us over to California and I liked California real well because of the ocean. This is where they were…they did more swimming in the ocean than anyplace else that I’d ever seen. I used to go out to Revere Beach in Boston and people… they were sitting on the beach but they weren’t swimming like they did here in California.
GRIFFIS: So you had made trips over here before but you had not engaged in any kind of musical activity while you were here?
NOLAN: No, I didn’t until 1929 and that was purely by accident. Like I say, I couldn’t find a job and these people that were running these tent shows, you know, during intermission they’d have amateur shows and most of them sang so I just got myself a guitar and learned a couple of chords and started writing a few tunes of my own so I’d have something fresh and I started going in for these amateur contests and I won a few.
GRIFFIS: Now where were they held?
NOLAN: I was in Venice at the time and that was like an entertainment capitol, you know, out there - amusements of all kinds. This was the right place to throw your tent up and have a show. You could always get an audience.
GRIFFIS: You would end up there about 1929?
NOLAN: Yeah. M-hmm.
GRIFFIS: This would have been about the time that you would have taken up a temporary profession of lifeguard and would have met Slumber Nichols. Do you recall those days?
NOLAN: Oh, yes. Slumber was working in – he sold this ice milk, I think it was, that was very popular in those days. They would pour it out of a spigot, you know, and you could watch it being made. Slumber was working that concession. As fast as he would dish it out, boy, they were buying it. I’m telling you.
GRIFFIS: You remember meeting Slumber for the first time?
NOLAN: Oh, yes. The way I became acquainted with him…. er, he got acquainted with me because after dark I was moonlighting on the pier, see. You’ve seen this concession where the guy takes a great big wooden sledgehammer and he hits this doggone thing and he knocks it all the way up…. I was running that concession for a Japanese fellow on the pier and it was right across from the concession where Slumber was operating this ice cream stand. And, I don’t know, he was a beach bum during the daytime, see, because I could see him walking up and down in front of my guard stand. He came over one evening after work and he just introduced himself and we got acquainted.
GRIFFIS: Were either one of you doing anything musically at that time?
NOLAN: No. Heck, no. It was later on in the year… I forget what season of the year the Stock Market crashed in 1929….
GRIFFIS: I think it was in the Fall….
NOLAN: In the Fall? Yeah. I think so, too. It was after a full summer and things immediately got hard and I mean everybody lost their jobs and that was about the time that I, oh, it couldn’t have been over 2 or 3 months after I lost my job as lifeguard that – and, incidentally, Slumber lost his job, too, on the pier – that I saw this little advertisement in the paper, you know, that wanted a tenor singer. I’d already had about 2 or 3 Chautauqua dates [laughs] under my belt and I was a pro, as far as I was concerned, so I answered the ad[10] and, as you know, the boy that was responsible for the ad in the paper was Roy Rogers.
GRIFFIS: Now, prior to this time, you and Slumber – had you gotten together and done any informal singing, serenading…?
NOLAN: No, I happened to know that his mother – I’d gone to their home and his mother said that she had tried to get him to play the violin when he was a youngster and that he had taken lessons on it. So he got the fiddle out one time while I was at his house and, although he didn’t think he played real good, I thought he did, see? So I remembered that so probably one year later, when we had cause to have a new violin player, I… if I had guts enough to get into the business he did, too, I thought. So I called him up and he joined our group at that time, The Rocky Mountaineers.
GRIFFIS: So we can have it for this tape, would you like to recount your experience of going to see Roy Rogers? I think it is extremely interesting….
NOLAN: I think everybody has told this story about me having been a lifeguard and not wearing shoes, see. I hadn’t had a pair of shoes on, I don’t think, for 2 years when I was working on the beach. I was literally a beach bum. When I wasn’t working, I was on the beach. After I lost the job, I decided I’d better myself get a pair of shoes if I was going up into the big city of Los Angeles and hunt for a job, see, so I bought this pair of cheap shoes and I put them on but I never got to Roy’s with the shoes on. They were hurting too bad. Even my feet were bleeding. So, I just took them off and, after I got off the streetcar, I walked in my bare feet to Roy’s place or to the place where they were holding the auditions at that time. It was at….. I walked up on the porch and there was about eight guys there sitting out on the porch waiting to audition. On the inside, I could hear the music going on inside the house. When it come my turn….There was guys coming in all the time, see, waiting. So it come my turn and there was still some guys out on the porch. I did a few songs and I yodeled. This was the thing that put me over, I think. When Roy heard me yodel, he just stopped everything and he said, “Let’s go no further,” [laugh] because Roy yodeled, too, see.
GRIFFIS: Now where did this take place? Where was the location?
NOLAN: It was out in the 70s. 73rd Street or someplace along there.
GRIFFIS: In Los Angeles?
NOLAN: Los Angeles, yes. Oh, I had one heck of a time finding the place because I’d never been up in the middle of Los Angles. Every time I came to California I headed straight for the beach. [chuckles]
GRIFFIS: Were you impressed with Roy’s singing?
NOLAN: Oh, yes. I hadn’t heard Roy sing until later on that evening because I stayed with them and started rehearsing with them that very day, after they got rid of all the other fellows.
GRIFFIS: Now do you recall who was there at the time you made your first entrance into the Rocky Mountaineers? Now they were officially known then as…?
NOLAN: This was the original Rocky Mountaineers, yes. After I got in the personnel begin to change. They were all very old, it seemed like. They were all old men. The guitar player – Shorty Schwartz was his name – and he was…. Now you’ve got to remember, Roy, I don’t think was 20 yet. I think he was about 17 years old.[11] I was just gotten into my 21st or 22nd year. I forget. I’d have to go back and figure out how old I was[12]. And these fellows were all in their 60s, see. Old grey-haired men. There was a fellow played the 5-string banjo and his hair was snow white - Ebenezer Bowen. [laughs] He was the leader of the group. He was the youngest one outside of Roy. He was in his 40s. [Pause] Now you’re going to have to ask me another question. I’ve lost the train of what I….
GRIFFIS: Do you recall the other names there….?
NOLAN: Oh, yes. There was the fiddle player. I never knew him. Oh, I must have known his last name but
I’ve forgotten it now. We called him - Lefty. He played the violin on his knee. Left-handed. [pause]
GRIFFIS: Do I understand correctly that the Mountaineers, prior to the time that you and Roy joined the group, they’d been mainly just an instrumental group?
NOLAN: Yes. M-hmm.