INTERVIEW: Remembering Cowboy Jack and Nature Boy (A Talk with Larry Boutillette)

Larry “Chief” Boutillette owns Sunset Ranch in upstate New York. It was formerly owned by Cowboy Jack Patton—performer, Western radio personality and long-time friend of Eden Ahbez. Patton took credit for many of the good things that happened to Ahbez with “Nature Boy,” though it’s been hard to verify all of his claims as yet.…

INTERVIEW: The Truth About “Riders in the Sky” (Catching Up with Stan Jones’ Biographer Michael Ward)

In 1948, Eden Ahbez—fresh off his success with “Nature Boy”—met songwriter Stan Jones. The latter had a tune he’d written—”Ghost Riders in the Sky”—which, in time, became as much a standard in country and rock music as “Nature Boy” was to jazz and pop. Ahbez, with collaborator Cowboy Jack Patton, helped Jones place “Riders,” first with…