Biography
Rudy Sooter maintained a steady presence across country and western music while also participating in numerous western films, forging connections with successive generations of screen cowboys. Early in his career he shared the screen with Tex Ritter during the initial wave of singing-cowboy pictures and later joined the veteran ensemble cast of the television series Gunsmoke.
As a bandleader Sooter demonstrated a consistent talent for spotting and shaping new performers; both Bob Nolan and the leading cowboy figure Roy Rogers passed through his groups before establishing the Sons of the Pioneers. The widespread success of that ensemble in turn generated a host of similar western acts, many of which employed Sooter as a supporting musician, including the Radio Buckaroos.
Rudy Sooter’s Ranchmen supplied instrumental backing for Jimmie Davis on Decca sessions that included the classic “You Are My Sunshine” and “Nobody’s Darling But Mine.” On screen he again worked with Ritter in the 1936 feature Headin’ for the Rio Grande and the following year in Moonlight on the Range; he also delivered a memorable cameo in the Roy Rogers vehicle Billy the Kid Returns.
In 1947 Sooter joined the band of the controversial leader Spade Cooley, contributing both performances and songwriting credits on “It’s Dark Outside,” “Down at the Cuckoo House,” and “Who Dug the Hole I Am In?” The song “Dear Oakie” became a major success for Doye O’Dell, who later asserted co-authorship on the grounds that Sooter had not completed the lyric by the scheduled recording date.
Working under his own name, Sooter experimented with string-band arrangements and Western-swing material alike. Several collections of his 1940s recordings have since appeared on the Cattle label. Between 1967 and 1975 he returned to the Gunsmoke set in the recurring role of rancher Halligan.
As a bandleader Sooter demonstrated a consistent talent for spotting and shaping new performers; both Bob Nolan and the leading cowboy figure Roy Rogers passed through his groups before establishing the Sons of the Pioneers. The widespread success of that ensemble in turn generated a host of similar western acts, many of which employed Sooter as a supporting musician, including the Radio Buckaroos.
Rudy Sooter’s Ranchmen supplied instrumental backing for Jimmie Davis on Decca sessions that included the classic “You Are My Sunshine” and “Nobody’s Darling But Mine.” On screen he again worked with Ritter in the 1936 feature Headin’ for the Rio Grande and the following year in Moonlight on the Range; he also delivered a memorable cameo in the Roy Rogers vehicle Billy the Kid Returns.
In 1947 Sooter joined the band of the controversial leader Spade Cooley, contributing both performances and songwriting credits on “It’s Dark Outside,” “Down at the Cuckoo House,” and “Who Dug the Hole I Am In?” The song “Dear Oakie” became a major success for Doye O’Dell, who later asserted co-authorship on the grounds that Sooter had not completed the lyric by the scheduled recording date.
Working under his own name, Sooter experimented with string-band arrangements and Western-swing material alike. Several collections of his 1940s recordings have since appeared on the Cattle label. Between 1967 and 1975 he returned to the Gunsmoke set in the recurring role of rancher Halligan.