COMING TO ARIZONA…

Dolan is not a native Arizonan.  He was born and raised in Kansas, but he somehow always knew that he would one day make Arizona his home.  Even as a small child, he was attracted to the deserts of Arizona.  When that day finally came in 1959, it seemed like a homecoming to the young man who had fantasized living here for so long.  Dolan was born on his parent’s family farm and as a small child he spent endless hours alone in nature, exploring along the creekbanks of a small creek that ran through the farm, and allowing his imagination to run free while playing alone in the dense woods along the creek.  Living several miles from the closest town, the domestic farm animals were his friends and playmates.  Dolan believes that it was during those formative years that he bonded with all things of the earth, and there was something about the Sonoran Desert that seemed to hold the answers to, “the origin of the earth”.  It was as if he was driven to be on some sort of quest.  With that thought in mind, it is rather interesting to note that Dolan wrote a song very early in his career, called “Son of the Desert”.  As one listens to its words, they seem to be a bit autobiographical, with a bit of a twist. The young boy in this song clearly discovers himself, as he becomes an adult in the desert.  There is definitely a mysterious connection there.… 

THE TRANSITION…
After arriving in Phoenix, Dolan went to work as a cameraman at a local television station, KOOL-TV.  At the same time, he began playing and singing in a charming little coffee house in Scottsdale called” Portofino ’s”. The gig became very successful, and Dolan drew full houses each weekend.  As a result, he soon quit his job at the TV station and became a fulltime entertainer/folk singer/songwriter.   Portofino’s began booking national folk acts into the venue, with different nationally famous entertainers appearing there every week.   Dolan became the opening act for these groups, and as a result, he learned his performance skills from some of the most talented folk artists in the nation.  Dolan’s talents were soon to be noticed by their booking agents, which gave him the opportunity to start traveling and singing nationally.  Then, when Randy Sparks was recruiting folk musicians for “The New Christy Minstrels”, he invited Dolan to come on board.  Dolan was a natural fit, with his rich baritone voice, his12-string guitar, and his clean-cut midwestern good looks.  The Christies literally exploded onto the national folk music scene and within a year and a half, they were at the top of the show business mountain, earning a Grammy for “Best Folk Group”, a gold record album, 39 consecutive weeks on the  Andy Williams show, and were featured in Time Magazine, and in the centerfold of Life Magazine.   By then, they were also appearing at the most prestigious venues in the nation, including Carnegie Hall, New York’s Latin Quarter, and the famous  “Coconut Grove”.  It was at that time that Dolan decided that he needed to leave the group and move back home to Arizona and begin once again exploring its back roads and secret canyons and writing songs about it.  Once again, Dolan’s music was reflecting his personal life, as he wrote another autobiographical song, “Goin’ Home to Springerville.” Springerville is a small town in the White Mountains of Eastern Arizona, and Dolan used it as a metaphor for his home in Phoenix, which still had a small town feel at that time.  He wrote the song on the airplane coming back home to Phoenix.  Dolan had just made a huge career decision, and the song lyrics and its bluesy sound seem to echo his feelings.

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THE ARIZONA FOLKLORE PRESERVE:

In 1996, Dolan founded the, “Arizona Folklore Preserve”, in beautiful Ramsey Canyon, in the Huachuca Mountains, just south of Sierra Vista.  The AFP is a 501c2 non-profit center for presenting, housing, and preserving the myths, legends, songs, and stories of the state of Arizona.  (www.arizonafolklore.com.)   The AFP is now under the ownership of the “University of Arizona South” and is administered by its Board of Directors. The Balladeer remains Artist-in-Residence and appears there one weekend each month, presenting different shows based on the seasons of the year, the different holidays, and such.  Open only on the weekends, the AFP presents the finest of cultural entertainment and acoustic folk music in the Southwest, on its  one-of-a-kind “cowboy line shack”  stage, that Dolan designed himself, specifically for the presentation of Arizona songs and stories. This facility, with its cozy state of the art and airconditioned theater, has earned a reputation as being the “best listening room in the state of Arizona”.

NCM REUNION:

Dolan’s appearances with “The New Christy Minstrels” had been quite rare, since leaving them in 1963.  However, that all changed after a major NCM reunion in Queen Creek, Arizona, in 2005.  Amazingly, many of the original members were still performing, and once again they reunited and became a touring act.  They did a couple of national tours each year, for over ten years.  Then, at 80 years of age, Dolan decided that it was time to stop his part time touring with the group, and to devote 100% of his professional efforts to his own Arizona music career, and his work as “Arizona’s Balladeer”.

CURRENTLY:

Today, Dolan spends most of his time archiving his life’s creations and writing new Arizona ballads.  The internet has become a major vehicle for presenting his music, however he still occasionally takes his one-man multimedia Arizona show on the road throughout the state of Arizona, and occasionally appears with old friends in the L.A area.   His shows consist mostly of his original songs and photography of Arizona. Dolan’s fans agree that his baritone voice is better than ever, with an almost unbelievable resonance, and his 12-string guitar playing reflects the polish of six decades of stage performance.  Today, his music has become synonymous with the State of Arizona and Dolan connects with his audiences like few performers can do.