Wesley and Marilyn Tuttle phone interview about Bob Nolan

July 13, 1999

From a telephone interview with Elizabeth Drake McDonald, transcribed with Mrs. Tuttle's permission.

MCDONALD: How did you meet Bob, Wesley?

WESLEY: How could I say that I met him? It was strictly as a fan. In those days I was working with two other radio programs – one was Jack LeFevre, brother of Jimmy LeFevre. Did you ever hear of him?

MCDONALD: Yes. Texas Outlaws?

WESLEY: Yes. I was with both of them. I was a kid but I was in – how do I say it without sounding like a...? You know, I could do it all so I wasn’t having any problems. And then Bob came into it, of course.

MCDONALD: How did you get into radio?

WESLEY: Well, I was a fan [of the Sons of the Pioneers.] I was still in high school and junior high school, and we always listened to Stuart Hamblen. So I got my mother to take me in to a radio program on a Saturday morning and I met them. You know, it's a long story and there's a lot of things. It would take an hour to begin to tell. I met Stuart on the thing and he put me right on the program and had me sing a song and that type of thing.

MCDONALD: And you were playing guitar by then.

WESLEY: M-hmm. I've got lots of stories about that.

MCDONALD: Have you written them down?

WESLEY: Yes, I have and they have been scattered around quite a bit.

MARILYN: We have a gentleman right now who is doing a book on Wesley. I remember one thing that Bob Nolan told us. We went to several things. Ray Whitley died. There was a Ray Whitley Memorial service and I can’t remember who else it was but we went to several things right in a row there and got a few nice pictures of Bob in later years. If you are interested, they are available. It was at the Sportsman’s Lodge. There was another at Jimmy and Inez’ 40th wedding anniversary. Wesley and I were there and there’s a picture of Wesley and Bob Nolan. At this memorial service we were talking to Bob and we were asking if he was still doing any writing. He said, “I write every day. All the songs that I write are in the garage and nobody ever sees them.” So I’m thinking that Bobbie.... She’s the one person in the world that has it. 

MCDONALD: Were they close?

MARILYN: I don’t know. I would think so. As close as anybody was to him.

MCDONALD: Do you know how Bob met P-Nuts?

WESLEY: She was a waitress in a nightclub somewhere. I know that. I think that’s how he met her because back then they were going out and playing in these bars and things like that. This is before they became big and popular, you know. 

Bob was very strange. He didn’t want people to like him where they wanted to be around him. He was real strange like that. But when he took to anybody he took to them, and he did take to me. I don’t know why. I don't know why - if it was because I played a guitar left-handed and only had 2 fingers or what it was. It might have attracted him. But also he found out that I could do anything he could do as far as singing and knowing harmonies and all that. That kind of gave us something in common. And he found out I wasn’t trying to shaft him for anything and we became friends.

MCDONALD: I know you recorded a couple of songs with him because I have them. What was it like to record with him?

MARILYN: Well, we just went in and did it. The trio on those 3 songs was Lou Dinning of the Dinning Sisters, Rose Lee Maphis and me. Lou was the one that sang lead with the Dinning Sisters. I don’t know why they didn’t use all of them but they used Rose Lee Maphis and me and Lou on the Bob Nolan records. I have no idea who did the arranging. Most of those things, we just went in and they said, “OK, the trio sings here and here and here.” All of us know how to do all the parts so there was no problem. 

MCDONALD: What did you think of Bob in those three songs?

MARILYN: He sang very softly. The thing that was interesting to me is that we were standing right next to him and I could hardly hear him. He was very soft. And I always thought he had this robust voice and I think he did use a more robust voice with the Pioneers but in this particular session, his voice was very soft. He was very subdued. 

MCDONALD: Joking, he may have been overwhelmed with all the ladies around him.

MARILYN: (Laughing.) I don’t think so. He wasn’t the type to get overwhelmed about much of anything.

WESLEY: He was a loner. Somebody’d say, “Give me your address.” “I don’t want to give you my address.” “I want to come…” He'd say, “I don’t want you to come to see me.” He’d do that to people. He had a cabin up in the mountains somewhere. “Hey! Where are you?” “I don’t want you to know.” He’d just flat out tell them. 

You asked me earlier how he come to take to me. Because, first of all, I was handy. I was doing a radio program about 2 blocks down from his apartment and I could go right up to his house. He had just bought the first home recording machine. I’d go up there and he could sing with me and we’d sing and make these wax records, you know. Later on I even brought some other guys up there and we did some things with him and it sounded just like the Pioneers. A good friend of mine (Carl) could play the fiddle; could play pretty much like Hugh Farr. Another boy could play like Karl Farr. His name was Panhandle Slim. You see, we worked together with a group called Jimmy LeFevre and His Saddle Pals. 

And so I’d take these guys up with me and we’d sit there and we’d make these things. I wish I had the copies that were as clean like they were when we did them but they were paper records that you recorded on these first home machines. I kept them all. I’ve got them all. And I did try to put them off and put them onto a reel-to-reel thing I was putting together several years ago. It’s interesting but it’s not great. 

I’d take my friend, Carl, who played fiddle—he played quite a bit like Hugh Farr. And the other one called Panhandle Slim—he played guitar just like Karl Farr. Had a guitar just like him, in fact. A special Martin guitar that he had with a thinner neck than most guitars. And then this other friend of mine, Carl Pitty, that played fiddle, we’d go up there and sound like the Sons of the Pioneers.

MCDONALD: Did you ever know anything about the books he had in his house?

MARILYN: Wesley and I talked about that and I said I’m not sure if I ever heard him mention Robert Service or not but I think that would have been something he would have had. But Bobbie is the one who could answer these questions. She lived with him. Les “Carrot Top” Anderson in Keremeos. He worked in real estate in Smithers. He was with us on Town Hall Party. He’s from Arkansas. I don’t know how he wound up up there after he left down here. 

WESLEY: He stayed warm to us right up to when he died. He was just not, you know…. A bit strange.

MCDONALD: He had good friends.

WESLEY: And I was lucky to be one of them.  We had such a good time at the Wakely anniversary, singing. Why, he wouldn’t do that for anyone any more. He didn’t want to sing.

MCDONALD: Larry Hopper says he has a tape taken from your going-away party for Ray Whitley.

MARILYN: Yeah, I think they did tape that. We were talking today about the fact that Doye O'Dell was there. 

MCDONALD: He's had a stroke, we hear.

MARILYN: Yes. He's not doing well at all so he's pretty much out of it.