Photo courtesy Texas Music Museum and Leon Carter (1905-1974) Birthplace: Murvaul, Panola County Genre: Singing cowboy Influenced: Generations of movie-goers, for whom he became the Texas singing cowboy Other Sites: Tex Ritter Page

Tex Ritter, as he became known in New York City in the early thirties, caught the public's imagination as a true Texas-born, white-hat cowboy singer. Although Tex Ritter's musical roots were East Texas Southern, he had credentials better than any of the other cowboy movie stars. In the twenties, Ritter had studied with folklorist J. Frank Dobie and John A. Lomax, the great collector of Texas Cowboy songs at the University of Texas, and he sang more authentic traditional Texas songs in his dozens of films than all the other singing cowboys combined.

Born Woodard Maurice Ritter near Carthage in northeast Texas, he attended the University of Texas from 1922 to 1927, where he was president of the Men's Glee Club. More interested in music than law, Ritter left Austin without a degree and for a couple of years joined touring musical shows, visiting New York and Chicago. By 1929, however, he had broken into radio, and had found a steady gig singing the newly popular western songs over KPRC radio in Houston.

Like many other musicians of the era, however, Ritter realized that New York City was the place to fashion a career, so in 1930 he set out to try his luck at getting into a Broadway production. In 1931 he landed a supporting singing role in the very successful show Green Grow the Lilacs, the predecessor of Oklahoma, and became the Big Apple's favorite cowboy. By 1932 Tex Ritter, as he was now billed, was the featured singer at the Madison Square Garden Rodeo and soon had a starring role on one of the city's first Western radio programs, "The Lone Star Rangers," where, drawing on his folklore training, he sang authentic cowboy songs and retold campfire tales. He also began recording, finding moderate success with the likes of the traditional "Rye Whiskey" and "Get Along Little Dogie."

Hollywood came calling in 1936 when Grand National Pictures offered $2400 a movie for a series of B-Westerns. Made in as little as five days, films with titles like Song of the Gringo and Trouble in Texas led to a string of other singing cowboy movie contracts with various studios that continued through World War II. Over a nine-year period Tex Ritter appeared in more than 70 westerns and was one of the top money makers in Hollywood.

Toward the end of his movie career, Tex signed with the new Columbia Records in 1942, and had several country and pop crossover hits, including the memorable "Deck of Cards," "Hillbilly Heaven," and "You Two Timed Me One Time Too Often," but it was his 1952 Oscar-winning soundtrack song for High Noon which assured his lasting fame. Other theme songs followed for faded television shows with a western theme, but Tex's rendering of the Gunsmoke theme song is engraved in a whole generation's memory. In 1964 he became the fifth person inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, and in 1965, when The Grand Ole Opry granted him life membership, he moved to Nashville.

Tex Ritter's national and international tours continued into the seventies, and he was preparing for another tour when struck down by a heart attackd to Nashville.

Tex Ritter's national and international tours continued into the seventies, and he was preparing for another tour when struck down by a heart attack in Nashville in 1974. His body was returned to Texas for burial near a childhood home in Port Neches.