Dale Warren was still Jimmy Dale Warren when he met the members of the Sons of the Pioneers.
”I started out singin` with my dad (Uncle Henry Warren) when I was 6 at this little `ol radio station in Lexington, Ky.,” Warren recalled in a telephone interview.
”We eventually wound up at the `Suppertime Frolic` radio show on WJJD in Chicago (in 1941). It just so happened that the Sons of the Pioneers were doing the `Uncle Ezra Show` on WLS in Chicago at the same time.
”We used to work in clubs around the area in the evening and every once in a while the Pioneers would come out and visit us. When I met `em I was just a kid, maybe 17 or 18. That really shows how the circle goes around, because I had no idea I would be a member one day. It was a dream.”
The dream has been true for 33 years. Warren has lent his voice and bass playing to the legendary western band since 1952.
”Since 1977, the band has been building momentum,” Warren said. ”Last year, we were all over the place. We probably spent a couple of hundred days on the road. The Sons of the Pioneers are getting more work now than they ever had.
”And we`re gaining new fans, youngsters, a lot of them who have never really known western music in the first place.”
Which is not to imply that the Pioneers don`t already have an extensive following.
”We still sell quite a few records. `Tumbleweed Trail,` a recent album, just got me a nice little royalty check. It sold 85,000 copies overseas,”
Warren said.
”We`ve been in Asia and Europe, Vietnam with Martha Raye. We were the first western group to play Carnegie Hall. We`ve played just about everywhere in the world.”
The world travel is a far cry from the `Suppertime Frolic` days, when recording was rare and touring was unusual.
”The main deal then was doing radio shows, which made you popular in the transmitting area,” he said. That way, after the shows you could make bookings for clubs around there. And when you were on something like WLS, which was a 50,000-watt, clear-channel station, you could reach a lot of people. Kind of like cable TV today.”
Warren, who lives in Colorado, married in 1949 and set out with his own group, the Jimmy Dale Quartet, to play the Midwest. But his wife, Kate, became pregnant, and another band member departed; so Warren disbanded the group and moved to California.
”That`s when I stopped using Jimmy,” Warren said. ”I just didn`t use it after that.”
Warren got a job working in a Chevrolet factory and also sang on the radio, which landed him a spot on the ”All American Jubilee” TV show with Merle Travis. His wife eventually spent nine years on Tex Ritter`s TV show,
”Town Hall Party.” He joined the Pioneers in 1952 after former Pioneer Pat Brady heard him sing.
”I sang two songs for them over at Lloyd Perryman`s (the Pioneers`
leader at the time) house, and then they went out in the yard and debated about me while I sat inside on the sofa nervous as heck. But when they came back in they asked me if I wanted to join, and I`ve been with them 33 years.” Warren, who has been with the band longer than any other member, said that 21 players have come and gone since the band`s inception. Much of the group`s success is a result of its insistence on sticking with the Pioneers`
classic harmony-oriented style and hit-strewn song list, which includes ”Cool Water,” ”Tumbling Tumbleweeds” and ”Roomful of Roses.”
The original Pioneers–Bob Nolan, Tim Spencer and Leonard Slye, who later changed his name to Roy Rogers–started the western sound, Warren said. ”We have stepped out and done a lot of country songs, but the formula has been so good I hate to spoil it.”
To hear Warren tell it, the music is perennially popular.
”The funny thing about the Sons is that the lean times for the group were when Roy and Tim and them got started in 1933 during the Depression. Pictures were no big deal then. They were getting maybe $10 for a song they wrote for a movie. But they eventually blazed the trail–we made 88 movies with Roy alone–and it just kept building. So we`ve never really had any lean years.”
Just to make sure things do not get too settled, the group has added to its live repertoire.
”This is the most versatile group we`ve had,” Warren said. ”We have the same basic sound, but with the addition of Sunny Spencer, who can play 14 instruments, we have added spots with Dixieland and also the swing sound of Glenn Miller to our shows. It has opened up a whole dimension for us and the audience loves it.”
![A 17-month-old African lion cub at the Lincoln Park Zoo, known for his sweet and laid-back personality that captured the hearts of thousands in Chicago and on social media, has died following a slow recovery from a spinal surgery. The cub, named Lomelok, was born with a spinal defect that’s caused mobility challenges since he was a few weeks old, zoo officials said. He had an operation in March — the first of its kind in a lion cub — to reduce his pain and treat a herniated disc. Lomelok’s recovery from the surgery was “slow and steady,” officials said, […]](https://www.chicagotribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/ctc-zoo-rain14_176019365.jpg?w=524 "A 17-month-old African lion cub at the Lincoln Park Zoo, known for his sweet and laid-back personality that captured the hearts of thousands in Chicago and on social media, has died following a slow recovery from a spinal surgery. The cub, named Lomelok, was born with a spinal defect that’s caused mobility challenges since he was a few weeks old, zoo officials said. He had an operation in March — the first of its kind in a lion cub — to reduce his pain and treat a herniated disc. Lomelok’s recovery from the surgery was “slow and steady,” officials said, […]")
