Stan Paregien, Editor
The Prairie Twins
The Prairie Twins are a couple of Oklahoma teenagers named Kalea and Kalani Moniz-Bray. And they are already seasoned entertainers.
They started out singing together and both playing guitars. Only, in the beginning, they were performing Bradway type music -- and winning awards in the process.
However, one day someone introduced them to Western music. And after listening to people like Riders in the Sky and the legendary Patsy Montana ("I Want to Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart"), they became converts and true believers.
In 2003 they diversified, with one of them now playing the fiddle. And in many of their Western shows they feature a third Oklahoma teen, Shane Keener, who plays some pretty doggone good licks on the bass fiddle.
The Prairie Twins recorded their first album, "Our First Trail Ride," in 2001. And in 2002 it was nominated for the Traditional Western Album of the Year by the Western Music Association. They thus became the youngest performers to be nominated for that WMA award.
In May of 2003 The Prairie Twins recorded their second album titled, "Welcome to the West". That album featured two songs with super star Woody Paul (Paul Chrisman) of The Riders in the Sky. The album was also nominated for the 2003 Traditional Western Album of the Year.
This dynamic duo have performed at such events as the Western Music Association Festival in Las Vegas in 2002 and in Wichita, Kansas in 2003; the National Cowboy Symposium and Celebration in Lubbock, Texas; the Cheyenne Cowboy Symposium and Celebration in Cheyenne, WY; the Cedar Kansas Festival in Cedar, KS; and the Gene Autry Music and Film Festival in Gene Autry, OK.
CLICK HERE to visit the official Prairie Twins web site.
Gil Prather
Gilbert D. Prather was born in Abilene, Texas in 1940 and graduated from high school in 1959. He attened Sul Ross State University while also involved in his family ranching interests in the Big Bend country of Texas.
From 1967 to 1974, Gil Prather worked as a singer/guitarist/songwriter in the country and Western field. He travels across the nation entertaining large crowds, often as part of the outrageous "Jose Brothers" act with fellow cowboy poet Clay Lindley.
John Prescott
(Deceased)
John Prescott was born in Menominee, Mich., on July 29, 1919. He received his B.A. from Sawrence College, then spent four years with the 8th Heavy Bombardment Group during World War II. He worked for an advertising agency for 1 1/2 years. Then he began selling short stories about the war to pulp magazines. He sold a juvenile novel in 1948, then sold his first Western, The Renegade, to Random House in 1950. He moved to Phoenix in 1951. (See his photo & bio in the Jan., 1955 issue of The Roundup.)
Elvis Presley
(Deceased)
Elvis Aron Presley, actor and singer, was born on Jan. 8, 1935 in Tupelo, Miss. His identical-twin brother, Jesse Garon Presley, died at birth. He grew up singing in the choir at the local Assembly of God, and later performed at revivals and camp meetings.At the age of ten, Elvis took second prize for his rendition of "Old Shep" in a talent contest sponsored by radio station WELO at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show. Pleased that their son had discovered a respectable hobby, his proud parents bought him an acoustic guitar for his next birthday. Elvis taught himself to strum chords by listening to blues tunes and old spirituals.
The family moved to Memphis, Tennessee, in 1949, just before Elvis entered high school. Following graduation, he found work driving a truck for the Crown Electric Company for $1.25 an hour.
However, destiny had other things in store. He dropped by the recording studio at Sun Records, where he coughed up four dollars to cut a two-song disc containing covers of the Ink Spots ballads "My Happiness" and "That's When Your Heartaches Begin." Sun president Sam Phillips liked what he heard and a star was born.
Andreas van Kuijk, an illegal Dutch immigrant, called himself "Colonel" Thomas A. Parker. And he became Presley's manager and second father, as it were. In 1955, Parker orchestrated for his promising young client a $35,000 recording contract with RCA Victor, which set about the business of making regional sensation Elvis Presley a star at the national level. A string of television appearances--in which he was photographed from the waist up to keep his undulating hips from polluting the minds of impressionable young viewers--culminated in a performance of "Heartbreak Hotel" on The Milton Berle Show that ignited a nationwide Elvis craze.
For the next seven years, Elvis simultaneously ruled the pop-music charts and the box office. In 1956 alone, he scored five No. 1 hits that spent a combined thirty-six weeks at the top of the chart. His energetic singing, combined with his brazenly rebellious gyrating, sold millions of records; his runaway success helped establish rock and roll as a wildly lucrative musical genre and paved the way for an entire generation of recording artists.
In 1957, at the height of his newfound success, Uncle Sam gave Elvis a new job: serving as a jeep and truck driver in the 3rd Armored Division, stationed in Germany. While overseas, he met and briefly wooed--with the permission of her father--fourteen-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu, who would later become his wife.
Shortly after his return to the States in 1960, Elvis quit playing concerts and immersed himself almost entirely in making movies (he had had his film debut in Love Me Tender in 1956) and cutting soundtrack albums. His popularity remained at a fever pitch, although the Beatles, who were themselves Elvis fans, gradually displaced him as the biggest rock act in the world.
Barbara Eden and Elvis Presley in the 1960
film, "Flaming Star".
As the sixties wore on and the sound of rock and roll altered radically, Elvis remained largely adrift in a sea of soulful ballads and Hollywood pap, and frequently fleshed out his albums with songs recorded during his fifties heyday. In 1967, he married Priscilla, and following the birth of their daughter, Lisa Marie, the next year, he returned to touring, beginning with a critically acclaimed Christmas special broadcast on NBC that reunited Elvis with his original band. This brief career renaissance peaked in 1972 with the release of his last top-ten single, "Burning Love."
Following the breakup of his marriage the next year, Elvis began secluding himself for long periods at Graceland, the expansive Memphis estate he had originally commissioned to be built for his mother. He lived by night, as he had a paranoid, but probably justified, fear of being mobbed during daylight, and his heavy drug use left him in a narcotic haze much of the time. Elvis got stoned, got fat, got philosophical, and occasionally practiced karate, a hobby he also picked up during his stint in the military.
Elvis Presley appeared in these Western movies: "Love Me Tender" (1956), "Flaming Star" (1960) and "Charro" (1969).
On August 16, 1977, at 2:30 p.m., Elvis Presley was discovered passed-out on the seat of a Graceland toilet. He was pronounced dead an hour later at Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis. At the time of his death the King was dressed in blue pajamas and had been thumbing through a copy of The Scientific Search for the Face of Jesus. Autopsies performed on the body turned up traces of ten different "recreational pharmaceuticals" in his bloodstream.
CLICK HERE to see the complete filmography of Elvis Presley.
Marcia Preston
Marcia Preston is a former editor of Persimmon Hill, published by the National Cowboy Hall of Fame. She is the editor/publisher of Byline, a national magazine for writers. Her own articles have appeared in Southwest Art, Vistas West, Wildlife Art, Delta SKY, American West, Art of the West, Oklahoma Today, Cappers', and Outdoor Oklahoma.
Robert Preston
(Deceased)
Robert Preston was born as Robert Preston Meservey on b. June 8, 1918. He was a trained musician and played several instruments. But early on he decided he wanted to act. So he joined the Pasadena Community Playhouse, taking classes and appearing in scores of plays. His imposing stage presence and voice soon caught the attention of a talent scout. Paramount signed him to a contract and changed his name to Robert Preston.In 1946, after serving in England with the Army Air Corps, Preston married and went back to Hollywood. But he soon migrated to New York and appeared on Broadway in many different roles. And in 1957 he began a role as band director Harold Hill in the musical, "The Music Man". That catapulted him to fame and steady work in the movies. He received a Tony Award for that role on Broadway. Later, he would win another Tony for his role in "I Do, I Do."
Robert Preston received an Oscar nomination in 1982 for his role as a witty transvestite entertainer in the movie, "Victoria, Victoria".
Robert Preston and Barbara Stanwyck in 1948.Robert Preston's Western movie credits included Union Pacific (1939), North West Mounted Police (1940), The Lady from Cheyenne (1941), Whispering Smith (1948), Blood On the Moon (1948), Tulsa (1949), The Sundowners (1950), My Outlaw Brother (1951), Best of the Badmen (1951), Face to Face (1952), The Last Frontier (1955), How the West Was Won (1962), Junior Bonner (1972), and September Gun (TV, 1983). He also played the part of Hadley Chisholm in "The Chishoms" TV series during the 1979-80 season.
Robert Preston died of lung cancer on March 21, 1987. His remains are in a cemetery in Montecito, CA.
Ray Price
Ray Price, singer, once roomed with another would-be star named Hank Williams. Ray's band during the 1950's was called "The Cherokee Cowboys" and featured country-Western and Western swing music.
In 1957 Ray Price recorded "Crazy Arms," a song written Willie Nelson. It featured a "pops" approach to country. That song took off and hit Number One on both the Country chart and the Pop chart. But many people felt that Price had betrayed his country roots by using drums and other orchestral concepts, such as the invention of the 4/4 shuffle beat. That beat, often referred to as "the Ray Price beat," is now a standard feature in country music.
In the 1960's Ray Price took another step toward popdom when he shed his rinestone cowboy outfits in favor of business suits and ties...and even a bow tie with a tuxedo. He then scored another Number One hit, mingling strings and steel, with "For the Good Times" (written by Kris Kristofferson).
He continued to perform in 2000, touring with a mini-orchestra and peforming with philharmonic orchestras.
This listing is far from complete and may contain errors.
Therefore, all Western entertainers and/or their agents
are requested to submit recommended changes by
contacting Stan Paregien through his e-mail address.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes,
always perseveres.
--- Bible: I Corinthians 13:6-7
© 2003 by Stan Paregien, Sr.
