Other transcripts

Transcripts

December 29, 2004

Host: Michael Grant
Topics:
· Dolan Ellis, Arizona's official state balladeer
In-Studio Guests:
· Dolan Ellis, Arizona's official state balladeer

>>> Michael Grant:
Tonight on "Horizon," he is the state's official balladeer, Dolan Ellis joins us to talk, sing and tell "Stories of Arizona" folk history and to tell bus protecting and maintaining Arizona's unique legends and traditions at the Arizona folklore preserve. That's next on this special edition of "Horizon."

>> Michael Grant:
Good evening, I'm Michael Grant. Welcome to this special edition of "Horizon." We are breaking out of our usual format, as you can see, to bring you a unique opportunity, a visit with an Arizona ICON, Dolan Ellis has served as Arizona's official balladeer for nearly 40 years but who's counting. In that capacity he collects, presents and preserves the songs, legends, myths, stories and western poetry of Arizona, and an original member of the 1960s folk group the new Christie Minstrels, Dolan Ellis has performed his music for millions and travel the world representing Arizona. Joining me is Dolan Ellis. Good to see you.

>> Dolan Ellis:
Thanks for having me.

>> Michael Grant: This is cool for a variety of reasons. I think for the first time in 19 years I'm not wearing a suit coat. Number two, can I get out from behind that stupid desk.

>> Dolan Ellis:
It's great to be here. I appreciate you breaking your format because I was afraid you would ask me about Proposition 200 or something. I just make music.

>> Michael Grant:
Actually, I do want to get your views on the Iraq war.

>> Dolan Ellis:
Right. We were chatting --

>> They would be as good as some I've heard, I tell you.

>> Michael Grant:
You would be right up there. We were chatting before we went on the air; both of us are originally from Kansas.

>> Dolan Ellis:
Uh-huh, eastern Kansas.

>> Michael Grant:
Born and raised in Kansas, worked at a television station --

>> Dolan Ellis:
I worked at WRW when I was in college, went to Kansas university, and was in there at William Allan White School of Journalism, and got out of that and when I got out of KU, I had an early morning class that I had to walk to in those Kansas blizzards up in the KU hill. I said when I'm out of institution I'm going to go where my feet are never going to be cold again, and I headed straight to Arizona.

>> Michael Grant:
It's cold down in Hutchinson, Wichita area where I came from. I think I threw papers in about 17 degrees below 0. Always joke Kansas is a nice place to be from.

>> Dolan Ellis:
And freeze before they hit the porch.

>> Michael Grant:
The population of this state turns over every 15 minutes or so. How did you become Arizona's official balladeer?

>> Dolan Ellis:
It was in 1966. I had returned home from my stint with the new Christie Minstrels and Phoenix was much smaller in those days and when I got back, we -- I was making a lot of noise around town and governor Sam Goddard sent a representative to me and said --

>> Michael Grant:
Terry's father?

>> Dolan Ellis:
Terry's father. Came to me and said, how would you like to be the official balladeer of Arizona. I wasn't even quite sure what a balladeer was. But it sounded really good and it was the governor that was requesting it. So I said yes, and now that I've been that for about 38 years, it's a very meaningful title and whenever my name is said, I'm used to hearing that title immediately following it.

>> Michael Grant:
Well, and you know the half million that we pay you a year for that, they still bury that in the budget. Nobody talks about -- we avoid that in the April and May shows.

>> Dolan Ellis:
Yes.

>> Michael Grant:
I understand you got a little tune on what being a balladeer is.

>> Dolan Ellis:
Well, a lot of people don't know what a balladeer is, and so I wrote a little song about it to explain to people. To 'SPLAIN what it is.

>> Michael Grant:
Give us an example.

>> Dolan Ellis:
Okay. Well, you ain't never heard these songs before I wrote them down from tales and lore while traveling around this land from shore to shore they talk of the times that used to be they're rhythms and rhymes are the recipe of the vintage wine in the vines of you and me I write the songs but not for fame my songs belong to the sun and rain forget my face and forget my name call me the balladeer hmm, hmm, hmm Anyway, it goes on and on and on. That kind of talks about being a balladeer a little bit.

>> Michael Grant:
I like it. What was the New Christy Minstrels like?

>> Dolan Ellis:
That was -- Michael, that was incredible. I was 20 something when that happened, and I'd been working the folk clubs all over western United States and all the -- you know, back in the '60s, those were the venues of young people, and I was traveling, I was on the road 211 days the year before the New Christy Minstrels, and so there was kind of a family of folk entertainers that got together and we all knew each other and traveled around. Randy Sparks came up with a new idea of having this big folk group of -- in the beginning 10 and then we cut it to eight, wild and crazy folksingers on stage. We went over to his place in Tarzana, California, and prepared for the first album. It was released and, boom, that thing took off.

>> Michael Grant:
It was giant.

>> Dolan Ellis:
Oh, yeah, we sold; I think it was 400,000 copies the first six weeks or something. And we were the top singing group of the nation in '66, got Grammy awards and gold records and Carnegie Hall, and 39 weeks on the Andy Williams show. Just, I mean -- it was incredible.

>> Michael Grant:
As a young guy, that turned your head a little bit?

>> Dolan Ellis:
Oh, yeah. It's impossible. It's impossible -- it's like hitting the lottery. It's impossible. You can't comprehend where you are and what you're doing, and at 20 something it's even more difficult.

>> Michael Grant:
You know, there were a couple of television shows, network shows, on at that point. Hoot-n-anny is the one that comes to mind. The limelighters were on, and that was Glen Yarbrough. It was a funny progression through that time. You, of course, had -- you had middle of the road and then you moved to Elvis Presley in '56, and you got the British invasion in '64-65, and the whole folk music of hoot-n-anny thing was sandwiched in between.

>> Dolan Ellis:
It was. It was hot, good, it was great it was part of the whole civil rights movement, and then, like you say, along came the Beatles and that was the end of the folk music as a commercial vehicle when the Beatles hit.

>> Michael Grant:
Now, I understand there's going to be a reunion of the Minstrels?

>> Dolan Ellis:
We get together every once in a while. In '97 we got together with the Kingston trio and did -- I believe it was, I think -- I think it was 10 concerts up and down the west coast, the two groups together, and had a great time. But got a call from Randy Sparks, who is the founder of the folklore -- excuse me, of the new Christy Minstrels, got a call from him about a week ago, and we're going to do a gig out at the Queen Creek Performing Arts Center on April 2nd, and we won't all be original. There will be some of the second and third generation Christy's there, but there will be a lot of the Old Christy Minstrels there, too.

>> Michael Grant:
All you guys sitting up and taking liquids?

>> Dolan Ellis:
Yeah, we're all doing it.

>> Michael Grant:
Sounds -- all right. You decide -- why did you decide to leave the Christy Minstrels? We mentioned the music phenomena already. But why not ride it a while long center.

>> Dolan Ellis:
Well, I had a lot of reasons, but I guess probably the main reason is that I just really missed Arizona. Hollywood and I did not go well together. It wasn't what I was looking for in life. And I've always had this unexplainable calling to Arizona and to its land and its people --

>> Michael Grant:
Why do you think?

>> Dolan Ellis:
I have no idea.

>> Michael Grant:
You just said it's unexplainable.

>> Dolan Ellis:
I don't know, but I do, and I always have. I think maybe when I was a Kansas farm kid and I was reading National Geographic magazines and I saw the Saguaros and that may have imprinted me, you know -- I don't know. And also I think probably Roy Rogers and Gene Autry, riding the horses through the Saguaro cactus and all that, they were my heroes when I was a kid, and that's why I believe so strongly in folklore and heroes and that sort of thing, because those childhood memories still are very vivid within me and they still drive me. I think it's important that we have heroes that cause us to want to do better things with our lives.

>> Michael Grant:
Absolutely. Well, you leave the Minstrels, you head for Arizona, and you write "Going Home To Springerville"?

>> Dolan Ellis:
Wrote, "Going Home To Springerville." Want to hear a little of. ? See if I remember that. Goes like this. -- You got to remember, this was a tough decision. We were on top of the heap. I said, I think I'm going home.

>> Michael Grant :
Tough break. Going home... To Springerville I DUN tried my hand at that city land, got overran by every man I know I done paid my dues on them high-heeled shoes and I feel the blues from being used too long going back to being me done spent my cash on that city trash and I miss hash and SUCCOTAS H-back home got my pack strapped back on my back, walking down that lonely track well, it's a long, and it's a lonesome road

>> Michael Grant:
Smooth.

>> Dolan Ellis:
Anyway, it goes on and on and on, it's too long for TV.

>> Michael Grant:
Where did you get your training? What sort of formal music training have you got?

>> Dolan Ellis:
Well, I was lucky, music -- we weren't a professional family, but to sing was always very much a part of my family, in the car and -- we were just sang all the time. And then the church I went to had -- I was born in the Episcopal Church, and we went to like the cathedral, which was like high church, and I was in the boys choir and all of that. So I got a lot of really good vocal training as a kid.

>> Michael Grant:
This sounds like some really typical Kansas stuff. I can still --

>> Dolan Ellis:
Oh, yeah. And then the high school I went to happened to have really a good CHORAL director and I was involved with that, and so I've always sung. I wrote my first song when I was about third grade, something like that.

>> Michael Grant:
Do the tunes come easier or do the lyrics come easier?

>> Dolan Ellis:
They usually kind of come together because the lyric will bubble out and then the music has to match the mood of the lyric so that the tunes will come to match the lyrics, usually, but then again, one never knows.

>> Michael Grant:
Yeah, that's right.

>> Dolan Ellis:
I've written Christmas songs in July.

>> Michael Grant:
I got to raw gale you with a quick tale. Every Saturday night you went to the store and reloaded for the next week, and I always remember coming back in the car the grand Ole Opry would be on the radio and we would be singing to the grand Ole Opry on the radio. Me off key, but singing, nonetheless. You're a big photographer, too?

>> Dolan Ellis:
Well, I've -- I have probably 10 -- over 10,000 slides under catalog at home, and that's after I've thrown away the bad ones. I've been shooting film for a long time, and I use them in my shows with large-screen photography, and when I do -- when I do songs about -- especially about pieces of history, of Arizona, I will project it on the screens while I'm doing it. It's a very hand and glove kind of show I do.

>> Michael Grant:
Have you updated as you've gone along? Have you gone to the new digital stuff?

>> Dolan Ellis:
I'm beginning to a little bit. I've gone to the -- what do you call it, the laptop deal and done that PowerPoint on a couple of my songs, but mostly I still use slides. Both of my sons are in audio-visual and they tell me, dad, you're the only guy on the planet that's still using a slide projector. So to keep the respect of my sons, I'm updating.

>> Michael Grant:
I tell you what, though, for everybody who has ever done a PowerPoint presentation and had the equipment fail, sometimes the slide projectors are a lot better. You just -- you roam all over the state --

>> Dolan Ellis:
I do.

>> Michael Grant:
Four-wheel drive, taken all sorts of unusual routes --

>> Dolan Ellis:
I have over a million miles on four-wheel drive vehicles on this state, I'm now on my 14th Jeep, and I wear them out, and -- so it's been a great life, Michael. It's been a great career, it really has, and people want to know when I'm going to retire, and I say, to what? Why would I want to do that? You know, I'm just now beginning to get it right.

>> Michael Grant:
Any particular -- I mean, you've got a couple of favorite spots in the state? I'm sure you've seen a lot more of it than most of us have.

>> Dolan Ellis:
Kind of depends on the time of year, depends on my mood but just as far as intrinsic beauty, I think Havasu canyon is really hard to beat. It's almost impossible to take a bad photograph in Havasu canyon. But that's just a really beautiful spot. I don't know. I like the Grand Canyon. Everything.

>> Michael Grant:
Barry Goldwater remind me -- just took photos all over this state, and still has, I think, some of the best photos of the canyon ever taken.

>> Dolan Ellis:
He does. He does. I did a lot of luncheons with him. He would do the speaking and -- I've eaten a lot of chicken with Barry is what I'm trying to say.

>> Michael Grant:
One of the places that you have explored is the Old Crook Trail, which any of us who have taken I-17 have seen like 100 or better times --

>> Dolan Ellis:
General George Crook.

>> Michael Grant:
That's in the Verde Valley?

>> Dolan Ellis:
Up in the Verde Valley.

>> Michael Grant:
Who was --

>> Dolan Ellis:
General George Crook was at Camp Verde -- it was called fort Verde in the 1800s and he built a trail from fort Verde up the Mogollon Rim and right along the edge of the rim, and -- to get his men and equipment and everything out of the summer heat, and I've been that old trail, and the old rim road is on top of a lot of it now but a lot of it is still -- you can still see the wagon tracks. If you look up in those old seed trees, if you're lucky, you'll see the insulators of the one telegraph wire that went from fort Verde to Fort Apache, and I was up there twice this summer, and just kind of revisit my haunts up there.

>> Michael Grant:
You wrote a song about it?

>> Dolan Ellis:
I sure did.

>> Michael Grant:
Give us a couple --

>> Dolan Ellis:
It's a little long for TV but let me give you a little piece of it here.

>> Michael Grant:
That's okay.

>> Dolan Ellis:
Ride along the Old Crook Trail in a song relive that tale and belong to those days we hailed as we ride the Old Crook Trail in northeastern Arizona on the Mogollon Rim there's a crooked trail winding through the pines and the breezes and the needles seem to whisper in the wind why, General Crook, was here one time from the camp of old Fort Verde to Fort Apache he did ride 13 Mile Butte was a bugger, hard a trail from the Ponderosa timber blazed a trail just six feet wide why, General Crook, he was a man of pride ride along the Old Crook Trail in a song relive that tale and belong to the days we hailed as we ride the Old Crook Trail Anyway, there's more and more and more and more, but that's the old crook trail. It's a great trip, by the way. You can do in that a passenger car. I was up there this summer, and the forest -- national forest maintains those roads a lot better than they did 20 or 30 years ago.

>> Michael Grant:
Now, you never written anything about Schnebly Hill Road, have you?

>> Dolan Ellis:
I couldn't find anything to rhyme with SCHNEBLY.

>> Michael Grant:
That's a little further north on I-17. Tell us about the Arizona Folklore Preserve. What is it?

>> Dolan Ellis:
The Arizona folklore preserve is a folklore center that I founded. I put a lot of work into this, Michael, and I started in about '86 on this, and I established it down in southeastern Arizona in Cochise County in the Huachuca Mountains in a beautiful canyon down there called Ramsey canyon. Some of your people may be familiar with that canyon. And it's a 501(C)(3) nonprofit. I put it on the lower four acres of my property down there, and the mission is to collect and to house and to present and to preserve the stories, legends, myths, cowboy poetry of the State of Arizona. I attracted the attention of the University of Arizona, their University of Arizona south campus down there, and their Dean, Dean Randy GROTH, caught the vision of what I was doing and brought the university into it, and they -- we cut a deal where they had some hoops that they had to jump through. One of them was they had to help find the funding to build this beautiful new folklore center. We had some of the money, and part of the money, and so they found that, and the building is all free and clear and everything, and now that four acres belongs to the State of Arizona. The folklore center belongs to the State of Arizona. And I am the art sun resident, and I appear down there -- at least a couple weekends a month, and people can look on my website to find out -- or they can look on the folklore center website, is where they ought to look, to find out what -- who is appearing there on the weekends. We've now had about 125 Arizona folk artists to be with us, performing artists, and it's really a beautiful place. We have --

>> Michael Grant:
A lot of people do not realize how pretty southeastern Arizona is, because a lot of -- particularly in Phoenix don't get down there.

>> Dolan Ellis:
It's absolutely gorgeous.

>> Michael Grant:
So how do you go about assembling the physical component, the artifacts and those kinds of things that you've got down there?

>> Dolan Ellis:
Well, people, like any museum, will donate those things. But we don't collect things as much as we do ideals and stories and myths and songs and such. We have a recording studio down there, and we can record, you know, our artists, and my dream is that one day the folklore center will have a recording label and we'll be able to help artists to get their things up and recorded.

>> Michael Grant:
And, in fact, there is a very famous song that was written about someone from southeast Arizona?

>> Dolan Ellis:
Yeah, there is. What did I do with that deal? Fact is, Stan Jones was a folk artist in Southern Arizona, and like most cowboys, he liked to pick guitar and sing and write little songs about his joy being a cowboy, and he wrote this one down right outside of Douglas. A cowpoke went riding out one dark and windy day up on a ridge he rested as he went along his way when all the once a mighty herd of red-eyed cows he saw a plowing through a ragged sky and up the cloudy draw their brands were still on fire and their hooves was made of steel their horns was black and shiny and their hot breath he could feel then a bolt of fear went through him as they thundered through the sky for as he saw the riders coming hard... and he heard their mournful cry YIP-I-YA-A YIP-I-YO ghost riders in the sky You know, local legend has it Stan Jones had climbed up his windmill and he was standing at that little platform at the top, tying the blades of the windmill down to protect it from an approaching blowing storm, and as he did that, he turned around and he looked out across those valleys of high desert grassland that they have down there in Cochise County, and he saw the clouds brooding over the mountaintops in the distance, and this song, without a doubt, one of the most famous songs ever written in the -- what -- the traditional western music genre, was inspired by southeastern Arizona and written by Arizona cowboy Stan Jones. Anyway, it goes on and on.

>> Michael Grant:
Ghost riders in the sky. Had absolutely no idea. Dolan Ellis, this has been a lot of fun.

>> Dolan Ellis:
Thank you. Thank you. It's been my pleasure to be here.

>> Michael Grant:
Outstanding.

>> Dolan Ellis:
I didn't dream I would ever get to be on the "Horizon" program.

>> Michael Grant:
Listen. Another time I still want to get your feelings on Proposition 200.

>> Dolan Ellis:
I'm sorry we didn't get around to doing that today.

>> Michael Grant:
Dolan, thanks a lot.

>> Dolan Ellis:
Thank you good to see you, Michael.

>> Michael Grant:
And you can link to the Arizona Folklore Preserve website from our website. That address is www.azpbs.org, click on "Horizon," you can follow the links. Our website also has transcripts of "Horizon" and information on upcoming shows. Thank you very much for joining us for this special edition of "Horizon." Have a great one. I'm Michael Grant. Good night.

Back to the top