Bob Nolan Biography

Introduction: The Myth and the Man

It’s no exaggeration to say that Bob Nolan had more to do with creating what we think of as western, or cowboy, music than anyone else, period. He wrote the two most iconic songs of the genre—”Cool Water” and “Tumbling Tumbleweeds”—along with hundreds of others, and as one of the founding members of the Sons of the Pioneers, he brought that sound to America and the world.

Elizabeth Drake McDonald spent years researching Bob Nolan’s life, from his birth in Winnipeg, Manitoba, through his life and career to his death in California. In 2000, McDonald met Calin Coburn, Nolan’s grandson, who opened family albums and his grandmother's personal letters. Over the years, their knowledge and collection of artifacts was supplemented by contributions from many people: Nolan’s family, friends, and co-workers, private collectors, lovers of western music, and more. Their work is preserved across this website, and this extensive biography of Bob is the heart and soul of it.

There’s a lot to explore here in these pages. Enjoy the journey.

Introduction

“Because Bob Nolan was a private person who preferred solitude to social life, he has become something of a mystery or legend. A natural disinclination to explain himself to anybody plus a propensity for spending long periods of time alone in the mountains or desert earned him the label of "recluse" in the minds of fellow entertainers. Historians picked up on the word because they could find so little personal information about him. More than 70 years after he left film and stage, Nolan remains a hero to his fans. Hero or recluse—which was he? Both.

His undeniable talent for painting the high prairie and desert in simple, powerful words and putting into verse emotions we all share set him apart from the average singing cowboy of his day. His good looks and good manners romanticized that image. His detractors were few.

While men liked and respected him and children and the ladies loved him, those who lived or worked with him longest felt they did not ever really know him. His personality baffled them. His second wife, Clara, was heard to say, "I lived with him for over 40 years, and I still don't know him." His grandson considered him an ordinary man with extraordinary talent. His daughter felt that he was always searching for something more—a key to life. Roy Rogers, even after 50 years, thought that he was unknowable: "Bob was Bob." On the other hand, Lloyd Perryman, who expected nothing of him and accepted him as he was, became his closest friend.

I came to know Bob Nolan through the memories of his friends and family, so I cannot state unequivocally that this mini biography is the real Bob Nolan. I can let his friends speak of him and I can tell you something about his background, but I arrived on the scene far too late to meet him face to face. I began to research his life in 1994, 14 years after his death. Perhaps this distance allows me to be objective. I have faithfully recorded the facts as we found them, and I will let the facts speak for themselves. You be the final judge.

People can be uneasy with those they cannot classify. Because they did not know just how to label Bob Nolan, they called him eccentric, an enigma, a hermit, knowing that none of those tags quite fit.

According to those who knew him (and each knew a slightly different side of Bob) he was friendly but basically shy, attractive, opinionated, courteous, kind, moody, modest, idealistic, reticent, and articulate. He had a fine sense of humour and of the ridiculous. All agreed that he was a physically strong man, even into old age. Without ever demanding it, he was given respect and loyalty. He was uncomfortable with praise or adulation. Bob Nolan hoped the public would think well of his songs, but he was indifferent to what they thought of him personally.

He was not at all interested in his past or in keeping records and admitted, "I don’t go back to the past too much. I sometimes go back to try to find out what happened at what time, but I don’t live in the past at all. It repulses me no end to have people come up to me and say, Hey! I knew you when... and take me back 30 or 40 years. It’s very repulsive to me to start or even begin to live in the past." As a result, he was not overly concerned with correct dates, times, or names on documents, and this created a challenge to Bob's grandson and I, who were attempting to chronicle his life. Aside from the well-publicized years he spent with the Sons of the Pioneers, the paper trail he left was faint indeed.

So the following pages are not an attempt to analyze the man or explain why he was who he was. Bob maintained his personal privacy to the end, even to this day when his personality is still the subject of controversy. In place of a full biography, this chronology is a simple list of the facts of his life as we discovered them, illustrated with as many photos as we could find. His friends and family were generous with their opinions while agreeing that they never really knew him. They all felt that there was something more behind that courteous, kindly façade that kept them from stating "I knew Bob Nolan." Perhaps the answer is, after all, found only in the words of his songs.”
— Elizabeth Drake McDonald

THE BEGINNING: 1908–1931 >