Bob Nolan

Bob Nolan was born Clarence Robert Nobles in Winnipeg in 1908. His parents separated about seven years later – after shuttling across Canada in search of work – and Clarence ended up with his father’s parents on their New Brunswick homestead. His father disappeared for a time, joining the U.S. Army under the name Harry Nolan, and later settling in Arizona. He asked his sister to bring his two sons to Boston. At that point, Clarence Robert Nobles became Bob Nolan.

Shortly after, he moved to Tucson to be with his father and fell in love with the desert of the southwest. He rode the rails for adventure and struggled for jobs in the Depression. His crossings of America on freight trains led to a song, Way out There, which carries the rhythm of a train. He married and fathered a daughter but seldom saw the child – a regret he later wrote into one of his songs.

In 1932, the would-be songwriter answered an ad for a yodeler and was hired by Leonard Slye (Roy Rogers) to sing in a group called The Rocky Mountaineers. It was about this time, he composed a song called Tumbling Leaves, which later became known as Tumbling Tumbleweeds.

Slye persuaded Nolan, who had left the Mountaineers, to join a new group. They picked up radio dates and later their own program. By 1934, with new members, they became The Sons of the Pioneers and recorded for Decca Records and made hundreds of Standard Radio Transcriptions. Nolan’s songs began to achieve national prominence. Even so, money was tight. They received $600 each for the Standard Transcriptions but no royalties.

The movies flickered with the prospect of new income. The Sons of the Pioneers appeared with Autry and later with Starrett. Nolan, a handsome man, fell into acting but never did like his stage work. He considered his movie songs of lesser quality. Nolan stayed with Rogers and the Pioneers until 1949. Then, he disappeared from the limelight for almost three decades. For much of the time, he lived in relative isolation, up at Big Bear Lake. He had remarried and met his daughter but his personal life was financially soured when his agent absconded with much of his savings.
In 1979, he made his last LP, almost a retrospective, with new and old songs. A year later, he died of a heart attack. His ashes were scattered in the southwest desert he loved so much. His name and his music, however, had been honoured in several places. He won entry into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and the 1941 recording of Cool Water by the Sons of the Pioneers, took a Grammy Award in 1986. The Sons of the Pioneers have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.