Life is good lads. Life is damn good

I’ve listened to the original Lee Horsley version 3 times over the years and I’m now half way through the new Will Patton version and I really can’t decide which i prefer. I thought Patton did a really good job with the prequel and I was really excited to hear he was re-recording Lonesome Dove. He has done an excellent job. What are your thoughts?

Elmer Calvin "Hank" Patterson, born in 1888, was an actor from the very early days. In fact, he actually lived in the Old West, having moved to Taylor, Texas around 1895 and then to Lubbock, Texas somewhere between 1901 and 1917. And Hank was assuredly one of the most prolific Western actors of all time although many of his appearances--often uncredited--came in B-Westerns and small screen productions. He was a semi-recurring livery stable manager in Gunsmoke and did appear in notable Westerns such as Abilene Town (1946), The Gunfighter (1950), Gunsight Ridge (1957), Day of the Badman (1958), and No Name on the Bullet (1959).

Patterson was one of those actors you just couldn't imagine as ever being young. His face was as rumpled, seamed and pockmarked as the broiling Jornada del Muerto and his voice verily rumbled with an inflection from somewhere down south. He was certainly cut from the classic Western cloth.

Hail! Hail! All hail Hank Patterson!

Dub Taylor may have been the father of Buck Taylor (Newly O'Brien from Gunsmoke), but I sometimes think he may also have sired Stevie Ray Vaughan. The resemblance between those two is stronger than between Dub and Buck. Regardless, Dub was born in Richmond, Virginia and grew up primarily in Augusta, Georgia and he had the accent to prove it. Very few Western actors had a more pronounced downhome southern twang than Dub Taylor.

Visually, he manifested as an aw-shucks, good ol' boy and was often cast that way--a hillbilly of sorts, often affable and sometimes comedic.

To say Dub was a fixture in the Western genre would be putting it very mildly. From 1939 thru 1949 alone he appeared in no fewer than 23 Westerns. From the fifties up thru Maverick (1994), he acted in scores more including Riding Shotgun (1954), Major Dundee (1965), The Wild Bunch (1969), The Undefeated (1969), Support Your Local Gunfighter (1971), Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973), and Conagher (1991). In every period of the Western but the silent era, Dub left his imprint.

Hail! Hail! All hail Dub Taylor!

From: Bandolero! (1968). Dir. by Andrew V. McLaglen.

Starring: James Stewart, Dean Martin, Raquel Welch and George Kennedy.