Jon Tuska, January 15, 2007
Not having met Bob Nolan when he was alive, there is little I can tell you about him that you surely do not already know, except what others had to say about him. I am certain that you know he was a regular at the tavern at the bottom of the drive leading to Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch and that Gene would regularly stop in there in the mornings for an eye-opener. Some days he would find Bob Nolan jovial and friendly, and interested in writing a new song for him. Other days he was sullen, kept to himself, and hostile to everybody. Gene Autry said that he never knew quite what to make of Bob Nolan, while conceding that he did compose some extraordinary songs, especially “Cool Water” and “Tumbling Tumbleweeds”. I would concur with that impression, and it seems to have been generally the same impression Bob Nolan made on people who worked with him. I do not particularly like Country & Western music, but those two Nolan songs are sufficiently attractive for me to have recordings of them.
JON TUSKA and VICKI PIEKARSKI are co-founders of the Golden West Literary Agency as well as authors or editors of numerous works on the American West, including the "Encyclopedia of Frontier and Western Fiction", "Westward the Women" (1988), and "Billy the Kid" (1994). Jon is also the respected author of "The Filming of the West" (1976), the illustrated authoritative history of Western movies. He is currently revising and enlarging this massive work.
