Sons of the Pioneers

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The Sons of the Pioneers was an American cowboy singing group founded in 1933 by Leonard Slye (better known by his later screen name Roy Rogers), with Tim Spencer and Bob Nolan. They were soon joined by others including Karl Farr, Hugh Farr, Lloyd Perryman,and Pat Brady. The group remained popular into the 1950s. Though all of the above members have passed away, the group continues on today (2007), led by Dale Warren (a member since 1953 replacing Ken Curtis), and gives occasional concerts in Branson, Missouri and other spots. Ken Curtis was best known as an actor (primarily as "Festus" on Gunsmoke), but was a member of the Sons from 1949 until 1953.

The Sons of the Pioneers did several songs for the John Ford movies Wagon Master (in 1949) and Rio Grande in (1950).

The six members who made the Sons of the Pioneers famous in the late 1930s with their close-harmonied western style music were elected into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1980. In 1995, they were inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

In 1977, the Smithsonian designated the Sons of the Pioneers as "national treasures". That same year, their album A Country-Western Songbook hit #50 on the US Country charts.^[1]

In 2001, the Bill O'Neal, an author based in Carthage, Texas, published with Fred Goodwin an historical account of the singers entitled The Sons of the Pioneers.

Some of their best known hits included (alphabetically):