Rick Huff, Western Music & Working Cowboys, Part 2

You're listening to part two with Radio Personality.

Rick Huff.

I.

Am loving hearing the voice, my dear friend Rick Huff, known as the VOICEMALE

that's MALE, has captivated audiences for over 40 years with his distinctive

voice across radio, television, live performances, cartoons and beyond.

He's produced countless radio and TV commercials, hosted television

shows, and worked as a dj.

His catchy jingles are unforgettable, and that is for sure absolutely

unforgettable, and his cartoon voices are simply delightful.

He is known as the principal western music reviewer in the United States.

He has immersed in Western music for a very long time.

Mm-hmm.

He partnered with Western Music Hall of Famer Hi Busse, to create the

radio featurette song and story.

He later released two albums featuring Hi Busse and The Frontiers Men's Work.

And co-produce CDs for Sons of the Rio Grande and Jim Jones.

Oh my gosh, it is remarkable.

established Frontiersmen 2 to co-produce their radio show, the Best of The West

Review, along with its publication.

launched a double Western music cd.

Well, I absolutely cherish my friendship with Rick and I've enjoyed

celebrating his successes through the years, but I am so thrilled.

And really, Rick, I am so honored that you introduce this podcast, your positive

imprint, showcasing your incredible voice.

Finally, welcome to the show, Rick.

Thank you very much.

My goodness.

No, it was an honor for you to ask me to do that.

It was great fun to think how to represent the spirit of

your show, of your enterprise.

And I am so gratified to know that it worked and that, , you are received

the way you are received worldwide.

On the wonderful web, that's one of the w stands for Wonderful.

You know?

Absolutely.

That's positively.

But, uh, it's a great fun.

It's, , it's been great fun to be a part of it.

Oh, thank you.

. All right.

And now I want to, , kind of step backwards a little bit to

when you were first introduced to Western Music and Cowboying

when I met you, you were in cowboy boots and a cowboy hat,

and I can see you clear as day.

Were you ever on ranches with the cattle and the calves?

I did not do the work.

And I'm very quick to, make people aware of the fact that

I am not a working cowboy.

And there is a strong distinction between, , the people who really do

that, and , there's a song, , written by, , Ed Bruce and Donnie Blanc

called, you just can't see 'em from the road, and the the lyric line goes,

he's still out there mending fences.

And then he's doing the work , he's out there, but you

just can't see him from the road.

You know, he's down in the gulley, is chasing the dogies or whatever.

And there are still a lot of, a lot of guys, a lot of ladies too who

make their livings, , tending to the cattle and every big cattle operation.

Now.

That's something that we can bring up.

Every big cattle operation has to have cowboys.

And the women who do it are also called cowboys.

And don't say, are you a cowgirl?

Mm-hmm.

They are cowboys and that is the job they do, they cowboy, and that is

a verb as well as a noun, you know?

But, uh, I'm very proud of that fact.

Uh, there are 600 working ranches in the state of New Mexico.

Think about how many cowboys are working those ranches, that's

just in New Mexico, Montana, and, uh, Idaho and Nevada.

They've all got strong cowboy contingent.

And when Mike and I and the dogs, when we would be out hiking

in the mountains, during that time, between winter and summer, summer and

winter, we would see a lot of working cowboys out there as they're gathering

up the cattle to get them onto the

, trucks to move them to pasture warmer pasture.

Mm-hmm.

Because where we see them is way up in the mountains where the

snows are too heavy and the, the animals, wild animals even migrate.

So anyways, just a remarkable job that still continues today.

Occasionally there are some modern, , modern things

you find, you, you find some herding being done by helicopter,

I mean, on some of the ranches.

, but there still have to be a certain number of cowboys on the

horses with the full tack and with the rope, with the lariat.

And the pig and straine to tie it up and doing everything

that you've seen in rodeos.

There's, , a particular class of rodeo.

That's a, that's very interesting to watch for people who are really into finding

out more about the life of the cowboys.

And it's called a working ranch rodeo.

And when you see those being offered, that's where they really do it.

It's milking and it's a lot of different things that you don't see in the,

in the big slam dash fiery rodeos.

, the, the bull riding mm-hmm that, you see that, um.

Ty Murray is popularized now, but that stuff is not the real cowboy work

that you see that is cowboy sport.

, many of those guys who do the riding have been working cowboys, but that sort

of thing, the bull riding and the , now bulldogging is something that's done

on, out on the prairie, , where you slip off the horse and you have to

have to possibly bring the, bring the the, the animal down, you know, so it

can be roped and tied or branded or whatever, or led, led out of danger or

whatever the situation happens to be.

, the cowboys have to do a lot of doctoring out on the mm-hmm out on the range.

They are the vets.

There's not, somebody rolling along in little truck, you know, saying,

okay, they've gotta be really handy.

They've gotta have a lot of practical knowledge in a lot of areas

Problem solving, critical thinking skills.

That's all interesting not just American history, but Australian history.

Mm-hmm.

They have a vast network , down there, the ranches are called

stations and the cowboys are stockman and, , so there's different

terminology but they definitely have

the cowboy culture and one of the fellows who I am proud to have posed for

inclusion into the Western Music Hall of Fame, , wrote hundreds of these stockman

songs and cowboy songs from Australia.

His name was Slim Dusty, and that's somebody you can look

up and you can find the music.

He recorded well over a hundred albums and, , , his music

is fascinating to listen to.

His songs are great.

It's great fun, but, uh, look up slim, dusty.

And that I will do, speaking of music, you also partnered with Hi Busse.

He's the reason I got into the Western music.

Ah,

okay.

You mentioned that.

So let's get into Hi Busse.

Hi Busse was the founder of, at the time he was, he was alive.

It was the longest

longest live, is that the way you would say it?

, Western Band in existence that still had a founding member.

And, he started it to accompany a young fellow named Leonard Sly,

who had been tapped by Herbert j Yates of Republic Studios to become

King of the Cowboys Roy Rogers.

And, um, that all happened because of a contract dispute that, , Herbert

j Yates and, gene Autry were having at the time, and he, they had a

disagreement and Herbert said, okay, I can make another cowboy star.

So he, the first movie that Roy Rogers len Sly ever made.

He was Bill King of the Cowboys, just as a little slap, slap, slip, smack to, , gene.

But, then they made nice with each other everybody and everybody made

money off of the b westerns back there.

But, , Hi had known.

Len Sly when he was, uh, just getting started, knew him when he

was an aspiring dental student.

Oh, wow.

And

they were at the same radio station up in the northwest.

If memory serves, it was in Oregon.

And were part of a thing called the Midnight Frolics, and both of

them got a little bit of airtime to sing and do their thing.

Hi was part of a group that a trio of, of accordion players

called The Sons of Italy.

None of them being from Italy, But Hi remembered when, , Roy got the

call or Lynn got the call to go down and, hear, these, uh, these guys

who were, now I'm trying to remember the name of the group I blanked

temporarily and it's something like the Western Mountaineers or something.

But anyway, there was a radio group that was, , that he was invited to join

and become part of a trio contingent.

And that

trio Core is what wound up launching the Sons of the Pioneers,

uh, with him and Bob Nolan.

And Tim Spencer being the original trio.

, there were some other people that were involved.

Slumber Nichols and a couple of other people.

But, , anyway, Hi getting back to Hi Busse , he became part of the very first writers

of the Purple Sage group in, , California, and had a radio show out there.

He went to other groups.

Roy went to other groups.

But when Roy got the opportunity to get into the movies.

, they launched him on a singing tour to promote his first, , film, which

was called Under Western Stars, and he didn't know who was going to be backing

him or anything else when he went to, , the Capital Theater in Dallas in 19

37 to promote this film.

And he was so elated to find it was gonna be Hi and a group of

players that high put together.

So that's, that was the origin of the Frontiersman, uh, how

I got involved in all of it.

, Hi, had a lot of adventures and he was in films Now during the years, in the

forties, now going up in the fifties.

He backtracks Allen Sr. And a lot of others.

And, , he came into my production studio one day.

You mentioned some stuff from Huff.

That was the name of my, , recording business, commercial recording business.

And one morning in through the door comes this lanky elderly, very

elegantly dressed Western gentleman, Stetson Western trim cut suit.

And , he came in with a little briefcase and he was looking for

help in promoting Western music.

Now I had grown up as a, a little kid, pretty small kid watching a fellow on

local television here named Dick Bills, who was actually Glen Campbell's uncle,

and Glen Campbell played in his band.

The , Sandia Mountain Boys.

I think was the name anyway.

, but that's how he got his start.

, but my only connection with Western Music was seeing Dick Bills do some Western and

yodel a bit on his show and running the old Gene Autrey and Roy Rogers movies.

I was one of the kids, of course, who got up to get a Coke outta the refrigerator.

When the singing started, I wanted to see the bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.

I wanna see that.

, so I didn't really have a strong foundation in it.

And in talking with Hi and learning more about what he had to offer in

history and his knowledge of songs and how everything came about behind

the scenes, I started researching

western music myself because we put together this feature that you mentioned

called Song and Story with Hi Bussy.

It was kind, if you remember Paul Harvey's rest of the story

I do.

He would tell the story and build it and build it and

build it and then pop what the who it was actually about at the end.

That's what we did with Western songs.

We would tell the story and, but I would do it in current time.

So and so goes to see so and so and you'd hear the footsteps or

the car starting, you know, and we mended it dramatically that way.

Hi narrated it, and we'd say, and that's how.

The gambler with Kenny Rogers came to be or whatever it happened to be,

the gambler being a Western song.

'cause it's about poker.

, but we started producing that and I wound up releasing old recordings

of Hi's to show where he was in the history because one thing that he

didn't care about was self-promotion.

E even to the point where he let studios change the name of his group.

He would appear in a film with the Frontiersman, they'd be the

Sunrise Serenade or something.

And it made trying to track his history.

Hell,

oh, you

know, trying to dig through this.

Okay.

Was that him?

, so.

And when his wife passed away, I suddenly realized I was the only

one left who remembered his history.

And so I put out an album of his recordings called Hi Partner that had

exactly what these recordings were and what he had done and where he had been

at a particular time and able to, to enable certain things to happen, uh,

important parts of Western music history.

But that's how I got into it.

And I swore to him before he passed away that I would continue every way

I could to promote Western music.

To make people aware of what it is, what the difference is, what

the history and the culture is, and I have held to that promise.

And I'm still doing it.

Well, and those are amazing, positive imprints of yours because you do

it with dignity and you do it with grace.

Yes.

Gra Grace is a partner in it too.

She's, she's a lot of fun.

Yeah.

And I appreciate what you do.

You have received accolades from people, but also from organizations.

You've been recognized, again, the lifetime achievement award for

New Mexico advertising, but you also mentioned the Addy Awards.

Well, the Addy Award is the specific, , award that is given

to a campaign or an ad or something.

Um, now it has changed, but back in the time when radio was more of a, , viable

advertising medium I was winning Addy Awards for Production and Radio.

But the Addy Awards were an annual event , where they

would present, , um, nationally.

I won two National Silver Microphone awards, which, uh, that was in competition

with people all over the country.

And we did, did one from nun's.

Remember Nunzio's Pizza before Gios it was nuns.

We won one of those awards was for that and another one, I

forget what the other client was.

Anyway,

do you have a favorite ad that you've done?

Oh, gee.

Well, I have to say the ones that went national, uh, you know, that,

uh, took, were, were pretty high.

, that I remember that were fun to do campaigns that were fun to do.

For more than 40 years here locally, but the father and

son ads for Lieber's luggage.

That was one that I did for more than 40 years, and I played

both parts and wrote the ads, you know, and said, dad,

welcome to lieber's luggage.

And said, son, what are you doing in the parking lot?

Have you lost your lease?

You know, and it was like he was always needling the sun, says your prices are

too low, you're gonna go outta business.

And, you know, that was the running gag.

And uh, that was a lot of fun to do.

, particular fun.

, but there have been a lot of 'em along my life.

Yeah.

Well, Lieber's luggage, well we go there.

I don't think he owns it anymore, but

And Rick, you've done Peter and The Wolf, which would've been amazing.

You've written operettas

oh, and she says, done.

That's narrate the , that was with the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra.

Yeah.

With Roger Malone.

Yeah.

That was live and it's always incredible when, when it's

live with an orchestra, it just makes it so, absolutely entertaining,

In the classical music end of things, , I've, I've worked in so

many different genres of music mm-hmm.

And, and styles.

, I also worked with a fellow named Danny Crafts here, Daniel Steven

Krafts, , in founding the, uh, a little company, it's called Gonzo Opera.

And the idea of Gonzo opera is beautiful voices singing outrageous things.

So they're, uh, they're very, uh, uh, they're a lot of fun, uh, especially for

people who understand opera jokes and even those who just think opera can be funny.

, opera can be hilarious.

As a matter of fact.

And I've been fortunate to have had four librettos performed.

Um, here had one, uh, that was done for children commissioned by Opera

Southwest back in the day, and it was called, , The H2Opus., and uh,

she asked me if I could do one on air, I did it and it was called gasp.

About this, uh, mogul who was trying to capture all of the air so he could

bottle it and sell it back to the public.

And, uh, he had a product called Air Apparent, but you could

actually see the air you breathe.

Oh my gosh.

It's like floating

yellow clouds there, you know.

And it was, it was very goofy and it was a lot of fun to do.

, , had another one, uh, called the Medicine Show.

Uh, the parenthetical sub, title was down on the pharma, and we

certainly were down on pharma.

And that one.

Uh, pharmaceuticals.

Pharmaceuticals, yes.

, uh.

P-H-A-R-M-A.

And so, um, uh,

oh, down.

Uh, I got it.

You

get it down.

Took me a little bit.

Yeah.

I'm moving too fast for you child.

Oh dear.

The old man is moving.

Trying to use your creativity in ways that, that are art positive,

as positive as possible in a time when it's very hard to be positive.

Uh, I think will win the day in the end.

I think people seek positivity.

Like your program, your podcast,

I agree.

Your

endeavors here, that's it.

Makes a difference.

Thank you.

Thank you.

You created New Mexico's first Soul, funk and Jazz radio station.

Well,

I said I worked in a lot of different types of music.

Yeah, you did.

Well, remember, is that

station still real?

No, it's the frequency that 94 Rock.

Oh, I was here currently, but it wasn't 94 Rock.

Uh, that was that student station that we were talking about earlier.

I, when the last time I became student manager, I decided

to try to make some inroads.

And something that wasn't being offered since we did not sell commercials, we

weren't a commercial frequency at all.

We didn't have to worry about sponsorship and specific ratings and everything.

And I turned it Soul, soul and Jazz.

And, uh, we played some of the funkiest stuff out there, , Maceo and the Max,

. What , and then the station downtown looked at us, said, what are you doing?

And I actually had one of their high and mighty programmers down there

say, Albuquerque is only 2% black.

Who is going to listen to Soul?

Who like Motown was only bought and listened to by African American people?

My gosh, you know of, of all the narrow cast thing.

soul and jazz format in the Southwest.

It was the, I didn't realize it was, but um, looking back, yep.

I beat the next one by about 10 years, but it, it lasted for, uh, quite a few years.

That's incredible.

, like I say, the history of Rick Huff and your voice and

all of your positive imprints.

Legacy, legacy, legacy, , for everything that you're doing and continuing

to do, including this podcast.

Rick, I have heard your voices, your different voices throughout the years.

I have been privy to that.

So what are your favorite voices that you like to do?

Oh, well, and do that well now what I should say.

One of the ways I made a lot of money, uh, early on, and I'll admit to it,

is doing, , cartoon voices that were familiar and, , like, uh, most of the

cast, if not the entire cast of Sesame Street, the muppets, there used to be

able to get away with some of that stuff and using it in commercial, uh, ways.

Then something unfortunate happened.

They got not only a soundalike, but a lookalike on television.

I believe if memory serves, it was for Burger King, uh, of Woody Allen, and they

were doing, a bit of his, as part of the commercial and promoting the product.

He sued and he won, and he should have, , it was justified right on the heels

of that, , one of Bette Mad Midler's backup singers saying an imitation

of her in a jingle for Ford Motors.

She sued and won and she should have.

But what it did for us on the local level down here, little, little people

trying to make a living, , was mop that up and suddenly overnight there

was not a call for, , doing, um.

Kermit selling something or whatever.

, so I understand that, but it did carve in kinda deep.

But I tried to, uh, come up with other, other characters.

But I had a vocal demo that involved 65 voices in two and a half minutes.

Oh my gosh.

But, uh, but it was a lot of that, it was, um,

Kermit the Frog here, you know.

Miss Piggy, you know, the whole crew, , doing commercial

things, uh, which was wrong.

It, it was wrong.

And I, I'll admit it was, , and it needed to be mopped up.

You people have a right to their intellectual properties

and their specific properties.

And there you never know if a character voice could be really used

for something injurious to the image of that property, of that character.

And so I certainly understood, but.

Painful.

I couldn't do those impressions anymore.

I I used to have a lot of fun doing it.

Yeah.

Well, you sure have the talent and you've done a lot of

voices and you have the humor.

I appreciate your, your thoughts on that, but, uh,

no, I, I'm happy with , where it landed, you know, and I'll do.

Character, voice , and commercials.

One of the things, uh, I've specialized in dialects and all over the years,

you know, I did a little Irish a while ago for you and everything, but

that's something, you know, at St.

Patrick's Day, you can do the reun for people.

You know.

Every now and then a bakery wants to do something special.

Green cupcake, icing but, , one of the things in a market like Albuquerque and,

and in New Mexico, when you move off of, move your English, put an accent

over the top of it, French or something, people for whom English is a second

language, have problems understanding it.

, you've started to distort this sound that they're used to the words coming

and you can actually start to lose a percentage of your, intended audience.

So I certainly, again, understand, , the thinking behind, , not

going down certain avenues,

I always tried to write things for myself, uh, particularly when I wrote

a comedy spot involving a woman.

I would never, ever, ever make the woman the butt of the joke.

It was always humor on me.

And, I was the dunce or I was the one that didn't know and

she would have the information.

You have to be sensitive when you're using accents or, or dialects or something

like that in a commercial way that you're not, , promoting stereotypes.

Or doing something that somebody could find legitimately offensive.

And , so I always try to avoid it.

Yeah.

Positive imprint, you know,

, Catherine: again, that's not just marketing, but that is

also the dignity of the person.

So, I always like to end the show with your last inspiring words,

Rick, as you're thinking about it.

Thank you again for being here on the show.

Well, my, my great pleasure.

Okay.

Inspiring words to live by.

Um, I know we are in a particularly tough time right now.

There can be moments of desperation when you see things and hear things,

and, , worse yet, imagine things that may or may not come about.

But remember, it's a long curve.

, life is basically a pendulum and it swings to the right and it swings to the left,

and , it very seldom stops in the middle.

, if it did stop in the middle, we wouldn't be getting anywhere.

, take it all with a grain of salt.

, take it all with some patience, , and see where it goes.

I have some friends who read tarot cards.

Not that I'm highly into that, but they seem to feel relaxed at the moment.

They seem to feel that things are going to work out.

However that happens, we don't know yet.

Or maybe, you know, by the time you have found this podcast, but, find

peace, , in the knowledge that, um.

it's gone on a long time.

, life continues and life has its different rivulets and tributaries,

and you never know where new aspects of it are going to come from.

So give yourself a chance to enjoy it.

Rick Huff, thank you so much for being the voice for the introduction

here on your positive imprint.

I appreciate you so much.

Thank you ma'am.

You can learn more about Rick by going to iwesternmusic.org for

International Western Music and I have Rick here today, so he's going to do the.

Outro.

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