American songwriter (1914-1963). Born and raised in
Douglas, Arizona, he grew up surrounded by the
stereotypes of the
Wild West--
cattle herds,
cowboys,
desert vistas, and the whole lot. As a boy, he was known as a
talented teller of
ghost stories, easily capable of
frightening his schoolmates with
tales of
spooks,
horrors, and
things that go bump in the night. But one of the more
significant episodes of his life stemmed from
him getting
scared by a
ghost story. When he was 12, he went riding with an old cowboy to check over his spread. As an
ominous thunderhead loomed on the horizon, the cowboy warned Stan to watch out for the
spectral horsemen of the
storm, chasing
eternally after a
stampeding herd of
phantom cattle. He warned Stan that if he wasn't careful, he'd end up riding alongside the
ghostly cattlemen forever, trying to round up the
devil's herd.
Terrified, Stan took off for the relative safety of his home...
Jones moved to
California to go to
college. From there, he traveled all over the
West, working in a
copper mine in
Jerome, Arizona, as a
snowplow driver,
logger, and
firefighter in the
Pacific Northwest, and as a field director for the
American Red Cross in
Bend, Oregon, during
World War II. After he joined the
National Park Service, he and his wife Olive got transferred to
Death Valley, where their only
entertainments consisted of enjoying the desert
scenery and, for Stan, writing
songs. One of them, recalling the story that had terrified him when he was a boy, was the
mournful,
haunting "
Ghost Riders in the Sky".
Stan was made the Park Service's
representative for
film crews making
Westerns in Death Valley, and he enjoyed
entertaining the crews after filming was over for the day with songs and stories. The
Hollywood crews encouraged him to get a
publisher for his
music in
Los Angeles. "Ghost Riders" was originally recorded by
Burl Ives, but a singer named
Vaughn Monroe recorded another version and released it before Ives' version. The song became one of Monroe's biggest
hits, and many other versions of the song were recorded.
Jones was introduced to director
John Ford, who asked Jones to write the
scores for films like "
Wagonmaster", "
Rio Grande", and "
The Searchers". As more film work came in, Jones quit his job with the Park Service and moved back to California. He did lots of work for
Disney, including writing the music and singing some of the songs for the "
Spin and Marty" series. He also helped create the "
Sheriff of Cochise" series, which he also co-wrote and co-starred in. And of course, he kept writing songs, including "
Saddle Up", "
Lilies Grow High", "
Cowpoke", "
Song of the Trail", and the
theme song for "
Cheyenne".
Jones is buried in Douglas, Arizona, where he was born. Whether he's got a place on that
eternal roundup, racing the
storm and the
stampede, I don't know...
Research from www.westernmusic.org/fame/stanjones.html and www.allmusic.com