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CHAPTER 3 Waxing the West The Recording Careers of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans In 1995 Roy Rogers and Dale Evans released Say Yes to Tomorrow (KTY-9514), an album of sacred music that came nearly sixty-five years after Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers cut their first recordings with Decca Records and Standard Radio Transcriptions and fifty-six years after Evans made her initial commercial recording with the Abe Lyman Orchestra on the RCA Bluebird label. l Between 1934 and the late 1990s, Rogers recorded alone, with the Pioneers, with other groups, and with Dale Evans nearly 700 songs with at least eight different recording companies. While not as extensive as Rogers's work, Evans recorded more than 150 songs on at least a dozen labels. She also taped 176 spoken word recordings with spiritual or Christian themes. The Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS) copied many of the couple's recordings for distribution to American military forces around the world. Since both were musicians and vocalists, it was natural that they put their voices on wax, vinyl, tape, and recently, laser compact disc. The products of both performers comprise an impressive array of material ranging from western and popular music to spirituals, religious, and country. The two also recorded numerous children's songs, especially for RCA and Golden Records, and in the 1940s and ]950s AFRS recorded many of their radio appearances. At least two recordings have been made from sound track material of Rogers's movies. Combined with their radio, screen, television, and public performances, the recordings of Rogers and Evans reinforced their western image and their relationship in the minds of the American people. Moreover, it was one area of the couple's performance where Evans did not have to worry about competition from Trigger. Rogers began recording long before either Evans or Trigger entered his life, even before he became Roy Rogers. Within a year after he, Bob Nolan, and Tim Spencer organized the Sons of the Pioneers, the group signed a contract with the newly established American Decca Recording Companyl and with Jerry King, founder of the recently organized Standard Radio Transcriptions.1 It is uncertain which of these two companies first recorded the Pioneers. Larry Zwisohn, an authority on Roy Rogers recorded music, is certain that the Pioneers started with Standard Radio Transcriptions, while Ken Griffis, historian of the Sons of the Pioneers, maintains that the singing group first recorded with Decca. The confusion arises from the fact that existing sources do not precisely 45 Copyrighted Material 46 King of (he Cowboys, Queen of (he West document the recording dates the Pioneers had with Standard Transcriptions. It is true, however, that the Pioneers, on August 8, 1934, cut their first four commercial recordings for Decca, "Way Out There," "Tumbling Tumbleweeds," "Moonlight on the Prairie," and "Ridin' Home." Between that date and 1936, the Pioneers recorded thirty tunes for Decca, usually going into the studio for two- or three-day work sessions. Perhaps before, but certainly in the months following the release of these first commercial recordings, the Pioneers began to put their whole repertoire of songs on transcriptions for distribution to radio stations around the country. Jerry King of radio station KFWB, where the Pioneers worked, suggested the move, and the group quickly signed a contract with King to make transcriptions for his company.4 Of the Pioneers' stock of hundreds of tunes, the transcriptions eventually totaled 272 songs and instrumentals .') According to Zwisohn, the Sons of the Pioneers made these transcriptions in Hollywood between August 1934 and January 1936, a task that required the delicate balancin~ of a busy schedule that included public and radio performances as well as Decca recording sessions. Bob Nolan told Ken Griffis that it took the trio six months to record the transcriptions, but Zwisohn's research indicates the project required more than a year of work.(' As noted above, Zwisohn is certain that the Pioneers' Standard Transcription recording sessions began "prior to their first commercial recordings for Decca" and were completed by the time the Pioneers went to the Texas Centennial in 1936.1 The Pioneers competed for studio time with other KFWB performers who recorded for Jerry King. Nolan indicated that the Pioneers would enter the studio and cut six or eight tunes at a time. According to their agreement with King, the Pioneers were to get 20 percent of the profits from the sale of the transcriptions to radio stations, but after a...

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