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Bob Nolan
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Bob Nolan (April 13, 1908 - June 16, 1980) was a Canadian-born singer, songwriter, and actor. He was a founding member of the Sons of the Pioneers musical group and the composer of numerous Country music songs including the standards Cool Water and Tumbling Tumbleweeds. As an actor and singer he appeared in scores of Western films.
Clarence Robert Nobles on April 13, 1908 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, at the age of thirteen he moved to live with his father, Harry, in Tucson, Arizona.
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Encyclopedia
Bob Nolan (April 13, 1908 - June 16, 1980) was a Canadian-born singer, songwriter, and actor. He was a founding member of the Sons of the Pioneers musical group and the composer of numerous Country music songs including the standards Cool Water and Tumbling Tumbleweeds. As an actor and singer he appeared in scores of Western films.
Biography
Born Clarence Robert Nobles on April 13, 1908 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, at the age of thirteen he moved to live with his father, Harry, in Tucson, Arizona. Harry had changed his name to Nolan and it was as Bob Nolan that Clarence began a career as a singer on the Chautauqua tent-show circuit cum lifeguard at Santa Monica.
In 1933, with Leonard Slye (Roy Rogers) and Tim Spencer, he co-founded the Sons of the Pioneers. The singing group became very popular and recorded dozens of albums for Columbia, Decca and RCA Victor. The group was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1980.
Bob was the singing voice for Ken Maynard in the 1934 film, In Old Santa Fe and appeared in at least 88 low-budget Western films, first for Columbia Pictures and later with cowboy stars Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. With the Sons of the Pioneers, he made guest appearances in high-budget A-movies like Hollywood Canteen, with Bing Crosby in Rhythm on the Range and in the Walt Disney short, Melody Time.
He retired from show business in 1949 to begin a semi-secluded life as a songwriter. Bob Nolan was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1971. At the age of 72, he recorded his last LP album, Bob Nolan: The Sound of a Pioneer.
Nolan had a daughter, Roberta Irene Nolan, with his first wife, Pearl Fields. He was married again in 1942 to Clara "P-Nuts" Brown. He died of a heart attack in 1980 in Newport Beach, California and at his request, his ashes were scattered across the Nevada desert. Bob Nolan is survived by his grandchildren, Calin, Cayleen, Miles and Connor Coburn.
In 1986, for his 1941 song "Cool Water", the Sons of the Pioneers were given a Grammy Award. In 1995, Nolan was inducted posthumously into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
He was inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame in 1993 and into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2005.
His home of forty years in Studio City, California, a block away from what was once Republic Studios, was later owned by comedian Ellen DeGeneres. It is currently owned by actor Jim Beaver.
External links
- Bob Nolan 1908-1980 (website created by Nolan's only grandson, Calin Coburn, Elizabeth Drake McDonald. The site features at least one recording of each of Nolan's songs.)
- , in the Southern Historical Collection, UNC-Chapel Hill
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