Fred La Bour - Riders in The Sky

Riders in The Sky

LaBour plays double bass and sings lead and background vocals. Prior to joining the Riders, he played with country singer Dickey Lee's band. With the Riders, he is billed as "a Righteous Tater" or "The Man of a Thousand Hats"). LaBour is the central core of the Rider's comedy, with bits that include impressions of Gabby Hayes, carrying on conversations with a cow's skull, rolling tumbleweeds across the stage, and peddling a necktie in the form of a cactus, that he calls a cac-tie. A long-standing gag in the Rider's concerts is LaBour mishearing a request to play the theme from the television program Bonanza on the bass, and instead playing it by slapping his face. LaBour's repertoire of character voices include the evil Swinburne Slocum; Side Meat, a feisty chuck wagon cook whose secret biscuit ingredient is cement; Freddy La, the Surfin' Cowboy; and an assortment of frontier salesmen hawking to the cattle trade.

LaBour claims that his nickname originated when the band was touring in the late 1970s and his weight slipped to 120 pounds, and people would tell him, "You're slim. Too slim."

Labour has a Masters degree in Wildlife Management from the University of Michigan.

He provides commentary with fellow Rider in the Sky Douglas B. Green's satellite radio show "Ranger Doug's Classic Cowboy Corral" in the role of Ranger Doug's sidekick, the crusty old trail cook called Sidemeat. The show currently airs Sundays at 7pm ET, and Saturdays at 6am ET, on Sirius-XM's Willie's RoadHouse SiriusXM Channel 56.