RoyRogers

In 1943 Republic Studios declared Roy Rogers to be the "King of the Cowboys".

The cowboy superstar from Duck Run, Ohio, fit the silver-saddle throne like no man before or since. As a sagebrush movie hero, he was the best: he shot the straightest, rode the fastest, yodeled and strummed his guitar and when it came to fisticuffs, he could outbox any villian. He was fabulously well-dressed in fringe, and his partner was just about the prettiest cowgirl there ever was - Dale Evans, "Queen of the West". Roy and Dale were simply the most popular cowboy and cowgirl the world has ever known.

Leonard Slye aka Roy Rogers was born on November 5, 1911 in Cincinnati and grew up as a farm boy in Duck Run, Ohio. Leonard learned to love music from his parents at an early age, his father played the guitar and he got his voice from his mother who was an accomplished singer. He spent his childhood on a farm where he developed his love of animals and his naturally athletic abilities. Due to hard times he was forced to drop out of high school after two years, and to go to work in a shoe factory beside his father, to help bolster the family income. In 1931 he moved to California with his father where they worked as fruit pickers.

Leonard loved music and as a way to make extra income he soon joined a band called the Rocky Mountaineers, where he made an acquaintance of Bob Nolan. Later he was in a band with Jack LeFevre and his Texas Outlaws. Then in 1933, he, Tim Spencer and Bob Nolan started a band called "The Pioneer Trio". They developed a unique style of close harmony with a distinctive cowboy sound and soon became very popular on the radio and in concerts in Southern California. They later added Hugh Farr on the fiddle and changed their name to "The Sons of The Pioneers" at the suggestion of a radio announcer who thought they looked too young to be Pioneers.