Pretty good? A lot more than that I think! Curtis Gates, aka Ken Curtis, aka Festus Hagin was a professional singer before becoming an actor, he was lead singer for the Sons of the Pioneers and replaced Frank Sinatra as the vocalist for the Tommy Dorsey band when Sinatra left the job. Pretty impressive I would say. This https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RQ-wRfhJT4is his performance of “Breathless” with Shep Fields, he looks nothing like Festus in this video. In fact I would say he was better looking than the average guy without a doubt. He may have been one of the most underrated and overlooked entertainers in history. The “Festus Hagin” character was one you either loved or hated, personally I always liked watching the episodes that put Festus out front but even if you hated the character you would have to say Curtis played the part to perfection.
Oh, the Rawhide theme song of course was done by the one and only Frankie Laine who only stopped performing in 2007 at the age of 93 and Eastwood played “Rowdy” Yates, not Yowdy.