Saturday, July 13, 2002

RITS

Riders In The Sky are probably the preeminent yodeling cowboy group of the modern era. The group has been together since 1977, done more than 4,000 live shows, performed music in Pixar's Toy Story 2 and the short For the Birds, appeared in the film Sweet Dreams, and even had their own Saturday morning television program on CBS. But I'll bet you didn't know that the three original members of the group (Douglas "Ranger Doug" Green, Fred "Too Slim" LaBour, and "Paul "Woody Paul" Chrisman) all have postgraduate degrees: Ranger Doug in literature, Too Slim in wildlife management, and Woody Paul in plasma physics. And you probably wouldn't have heard the "Paul is dead" rumor without Fred LaBour's October 14, 1969 article in the Michigan Daily.