Fred Goodwin

   The Sons of the Pioneers have a great many die-hard fans, but there is surely none that has been more dedicated than Fred Goodwin. Furthermore, he has been one who has actually made a significant contribution to furthering their career. As a young man living in the Southeast, Fred went to great lengths to establish contact with his musical heroes, the Sons of the Pioneers. He managed visits with them on numerous occasions, and close friendships developed.
     But by 1973, the Pioneers' contract with RCA had ended and they were no longer drawing the crowds they were accustomed to. Fred was a DJ in Murfreesboro, Tennessee at the time, and because of his knowledge of the Pioneers' recordings and friendship with some of their members, he had something in common with Marty Robbins. Occasionally, Marty was a guest on Fred's radio show, and they enjoyed telling Sons of the Pioneers stories. So Marty helped Fred set up the Pioneers' appearance on the Grand Ole Opry in Feb. of that year. The clear channel radio appearance on WSM before an enthusiastic "live" audience, seemed to give the Pioneers' career the boost it needed at the time.
     Later that year,  Fred Goodwin produced a 2 LP set of Pioneers music, Riders in the Sky (yes, the same LP set from which Ranger Doug, Woody Paul, Too Slim & Joey "the Cowpolka King" took their popular group's name). That LP set also brought back from obscurity, some of Western music's greatest recordings.
    And there were more re-issues on the way. The success of that LP set led RCA Victor to entrust Goodwin with the production of another LP of old Sons of the Pioneers recordings, Let's Go West Again,  released in 1981. For it, Fred wisely chose many songs that had been "lost," i.e. not re-issued on any other LPs since they initially appeared as 78 rpm "singles." This LP remains a treasure for collectors everywhere. From there, he managed to convince executives at Columbia to issue an LP of recordings from 1937 titled Sons of the Pioneers: Columbia Historic Edition, which was to become the first in a successful series of albums for that label.
   When he learned that the Western Music Association had been formed, he began to make regular trips to the annual festivals from his base in Nashville to help support the organization, eventually serving, for a time, on its Board of Directors. As an adjunct to his love for Western music, Goodwin collects and sells B-Western movie memorabilia and is a frequent participant in Western film fairs and music festivals throughout the country.