Riders in the Sky: The Cowboy Way in Detroit Lakes

Those exemplars of cowboy ethics, Riders in the Sky, will be lighting up the stage at the Historic Holmes Theatre in Detroit Lakes on Saturday, March 29, with their honeyed harmonies and their family-friendly humor. The foursome has been bringing smiles to audiences for thirty years in every state in the union and in eleven countries. But Detroit Lakes is one stop that requires the band placing a brand new pin in the map. “After thirty years, there are still some new places for us,” says Ranger Doug, the lead vocalist and archtop guitar player.
[“An archtop guitar is a steel-stringed acoustic or semi-acoustic guitar with a full body and a distinctive arched top…The belly normally has two f-shaped holes…The arching of the top and the f-holes are similar to the violin family, on which they were originally based.” -Wikipedia]

Doug, like others in the band, didn’t set out to become cowboy music troubadours. “Growing up, I listened to classical. I listened to Broadway. I listened to folk and country and Western. And, of course, rock and roll,” says Ranger Doug. “I think we all did to a degree.” However, Ranger Doug’s early exposure playing archtop guitar at eleven prepared him for a love affair with acoustic music.

Then in the 70s in Nashville, Ranger Doug, Too Slim (upright bass), and Woody Paul (fiddle) found themselves across a mic together more than once. “Our community like most communities has an acoustic music underground. People who play acoustic music know each other and form little bands and come in and out of performance situations, sometimes for pay; sometimes not,” Ranger Doug explains. “We just knew each other. Woody gets a date on the fiddle and wants a rhythm guitar player and gives me a call. It was like that. We’d known each other casually.”

Then something happened that set them on a career course that none of them expected.  “It’s not like we made a conscious decision that this [cowboy music] was what we have to do. It was just that we loved it, and we had a chance to play it. Response was good. We felt like people wanted to hear this stuff again the same way we did. Obviously, it will never be in the cultural forefront like it was in the 1930s when Bing Crosby and everybody was doing Western music.  But it deserves a spot in the American musical spectrum the same way that Zydeco and polka and bluegrass and any other individual style does. We’ve been really lucky the way people have responded to the way we’ve tried to keep this stuff alive.”

Riders in the Sky then became a phenomenon. “Even after the first night, it just sort of took off. We just said, ‘We have something really special here.’” The trio had had a great time after that first gig and Too Slim’s famous remark was apt: “‘I know America will pay to see this.” And they did, but Ranger Doug never thought that he and his cowboy pals would become rock stars of Western music.  “We always thought that we were amusing ourselves and entertaining other people and keeping something very special, which in 1977 was about dead. We breathed new life into a tradition we are happy hasn’t died,” he remembers.
Though audiences eagerly ate up this positive music, its power has kept the band cohesive.  In thirty years, they haven’t changed band personnel. “We added Joey (accordion). That was it,” says Ranger Doug. “There was a little shuffling very early in the career, but once the first year was out, that was all shaken down. It was the three of us for ten years and Joey part time for ten years maybe, and Joey full time for the last ten at least.” And Ranger Doug adds, “None of us is as great on our own as we are together.”

Songs from old westerns like “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” “Tumbling Tumbleweeds,” and “Rawhide” are the band’s staples. These harmony-rich tunes evoke images of freedom and the rewards of the working life in the outdoors. As expected, most of the band’s performance dates are in the true West: Colorado, Texas, Nevada, and California. “But our second biggest pocket of interest,” admits Ranger Doug, “is in the Upper Midwest. I think up there in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Michigan, and Iowa, there is a tradition of acoustic music, of folk music. You don’t have to be a rancher or a cowman to appreciate people who play good acoustic music and play it with a traditional feel. While the ranching community is certainly part of our fan base, so is the middle aged, public radio crowd.”

Riders in the Sky also appeals to young people who enjoy the band’s cowboy getups and their stage shows that resemble live radio. It’s no surprise that these cowboy ambassadors have made several appearances on Prairie Home Companion and eagerly tout the Cowboy Way. Ranger Doug explains that as: “In this era of situation ethics and difficult moral choices, ask yourself what Gene or Roy or Tex or Ranger Doug would do? That’s the cowboy way.”

Ranger Doug does know a lot about that. He has a Masters in literature from Vanderbilt University and in 2002 published “Singing in the Saddle,” the first comprehensive documentation of the singing cowboy phenomenon of the 30s.

If You Go

WHAT: Riders in the Sky
WHERE:  Historic Holmes Theatre, Detroit Lakes
WHEN: Saturday, March 29, 7:30 pm
HOW MUCH: Adults $25, Students $12.50
INFO: 218-844-7469