Cowboy music goes with Pioneer Day like cold drinks go in a cooler full of ice.
Voices harmonize, cowfolk yodel and instruments are played with folksy beauty by people dressed in high cowboy style.
The Riders in the Sky, who play their annual show Saturday at Kenley Centennial Amphitheater in Layton, have won stalwart fans with these yearly shows. They also won many fans with their clever work on the "Toy Story" movies and TV series.
"It is always great for us to come back there," said "Ranger" Doug Green, baritone vocalist, guitarist and one of the songwriters of Riders in the Sky, speaking just outside the studio in Nashville, Tenn., where the band is recording an album of inspirational songs.
"I think that the Utah holiday, being a celebration of the West, makes this event work so well. We love this audience," said Green.
Terri Taylor, yodeler and singer for the West Haven-based duo Stampede, notes that cowboy singers working today all owe a nod to Riders in the Sky.
"They are absolutely 100-percent influential as a group," she said. "They are the epitome of classy cowboy entertainment. They practice what they preach. They don't go out and do a show and then live different lives. No, they are good, clean family entertainment -- they live the cowboy code."
History of the music
Green is known as a music historian as well as a performer. He's the host of "Ranger Doug's Classic Cowboy Corral," a show on XM American satellite radio that features both the beloved and the obscure in cowboy music.
Green also wrote a book, published by Vanderbilt Press in 2002, called "Singing in the Saddle." In that book, he traces the origins of today's smooth-harmony cowboy combo as being born of the advent of talkies in the 1930s.
"That's when this really started as a genre," Green said. "Those old movie cowboys were great. It is fun to delve into those song by people like ... the Sons of the Pioneers. It's an amazing thing to be able to work out the incredible harmony they had."
That's the secret to the style, said Green -- the peas-in-a-pod close harmonies.
"That is the hidden magic," Green noted. "The trick is to make that sound like it is easy to sing that way -- when it is really not."
Kurt Argyle, aka Snoose, is of the Ogden-based band Saddlestrings. The group will perform at Ogden's Pioneer Days Rodeo today, and at Kenley Centennial Amphitheater on Sunday.
"Learning to sing that close is tough, but it is fun." Argyle said of those cowboy harmonies. "And I think of this as a lifestyle music that appeals to people in its mood. It's not just the harmonies, it is also that people are hungry for these types of stories and music. They are soothed by it. And most definitely, it is family fun. In the fast-paced world we live in, that is kind of refreshing."
Riders influence
Taylor, who has been performing in the cowboy music world for about 15 years, says she was inspired by a TV show her brother nudged her to watch. It was the 1991 "Riders in the Sky" TV series, starring the band, that hooked her.
"I always loved yodeling, even before watching that show," said Taylor. "So I thought, 'Why can't I do that?' I took a tape of the Riders and drove to work with it, listening and singing along."
Taylor taught herself to yodel following Green's example. As they met at various performances throughout the West, Taylor said the group took her under its wing.
"Doug gave me the nickname 'The Epiglottis Goddess.' It happened at a spur-of-the-moment yodeling contest, when they were playing (at Kenley) with the symphony." Taylor laughed. "I won the yodeling contest, and the nickname."
Taylor was also said to inspire some of the lyrics the Riders in the Sky wrote and sang about Jessie, the singing cowgirl character from the "Toy Story" films.
Cowboy future
The question is whether a music so quaint in its own way can make the transition into the 21st century. Taylor, Argyle and Green all think so.
"It's true we play a lot of senior centers," said Taylor. "The music was popular with those people. But we do see a lot of kids at the shows, and many of them are excited about it, especially after seeing it performed live."
Said Argyle: "This music was really popular when I was growing up in Randolph -- Marty Robbins and artists like that. But then it kind of went out of style. But groups like Riders in the Sky have endured through the fashions, through those lean years. And now it's had a big resurgence, thanks to a group of this caliber keeping this traditional music alive."
Adds Green: "I like to say that we have had a subversive mission all along -- to have a good time and be entertaining and have a career that allows us to put the kids through college and stuff like that, too -- but it really is all about keeping this style alive. So far, that has worked."
Argyle sees this music as representing a very special region of the American frontier. But really, the cowboy and his culture belongs to all Americans.
"Sometimes we get an idea that we have a patent on this cowboy lifestyle out here," said Argyle. "But in Virginia and other places back east, there are big farms out there -- and they live that life, and enjoy the music.
"But we do have people from elsewhere at the performances, saying that this is the kind of thing they hope to see and hear when they come West."
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