MARION COUNTY BIOGRAPHIES
"D"
DALHART, Vernon - (Extracted
from BBCi Online)A seminal figure in the development of
commercial country music, Vernon Dalhart was one of the first
country performers to gain national recognition, thanks to an
ability to make his music palatable to a wider audience. Tackling
operatic arias, popular songs and patriotic World War I ditties,
he became a well-loved vaudeville entertainer, but it was
his 1924 recording of mountain musician Henry Whitter's The Wreck
Of The Old '97, backed up with The Prisoner's Song, that provided
him with lasting success. Released on Victor, it became a massive
hit, reputedly selling more than six million copies, making it
the biggest-seller of the pre-electric period. From that moment
on, Dalhart recorded more hillbilly material, taking that music
to a very large audience. His stiff, rather formal approach to
the music, though not to everyone's taste, brought dozens of
hillbilly and folk ballads such as The Little Edged In Black, The
Dream Of the Miner's Child, The Little Rosewood Casket and Maple
On the Hill, to a mass record buying public. He recorded
prolifically, with some 5,000 releases in a twelve-year period on
virtually every major label. Often he recorded the same songs for
different companies, issuing them under different guises,
including the Lone Star Ranger, Bob Massey, Frank Evans, Wolfe
Ballard, Bill Vernon and Jeff Calhoun. All told he used more than
130 different aliases.
He was born Marion Try Slaughter on 6th
April, 1883 in Marion County, Texas, the son of a ranch owner.
His grandfather had been a Confederate soldier who became a
deputy sheriff and was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Dalhart's
father was killed in a knife fight when he was still a young boy.
He helped his mother on the ranch, herding cows and joining
in the campfire entertainment. While a teenager, he and his
mother moved to Dallas where he began attending the Dallas
Conservatory of Music. Married and with his own family he moved
to New York City in 1910 to find work in the music and
entertainment business. Initially he worked in a music store
while studying light opera and singing at funerals and weddings.
In 1912 he obtained a part in Puccini's Girl Of the Golden West,
and later appeared in HMS Pinafore and Madame Butterfly. He made
his recording debut for Edison Diamond Discs, with a 'coon' song,
(a black dialect song sung by a white performer putting on a
black stage accent) Can't Yo' Heah Me Callin' Caroline released
in 1915. Following this came a deluge of Dalhart recordings on
various labels, the most popular being as a pop singer on Just a
Word of Sympathy, in 1918. Six years later he was asked to record
The Wreck Of The Old '97 for Victor,a mountain ballad that had
previously been recorded unsuccessfully by Henry Whitter. Dalhart's
smoother, more citified approach to the song captured the public's
attention and became the biggest-seller of the 1920s. Almost as
successful was the record's other side, The Prisoner's Song. Both
songs generated court cases over copyright and ownership, but
unperturbed by all of this, Dalhart went on to record for
whichever label would pay him. In 1925, he recorded a series of
topical event songs for the fledgling Columbia Records. These
included Little Marion Parker (a murder ballad), Kinnie Wagner (about
an outlaw), The Santa Barbara Earthquake and The John T. Scopes
Trial (about the evolution trial in Tennessee), all which became
big-sellers, many selling more than 100,000 copies and helping to
establish the Columbia label. He continued to record throughout
the 1930s under so many different names it became a nightmare
trying to work out whether the records were by him or not. He was
never really a true hillbilly performer, but possessed the talent
to adapt hillbilly music to suit the taste of non-hillbilly music
lovers. In many respects, he was the forerunner of a pop-country
crossover artist. As authentic hillbilly artists started to make
records, Dalhart's popularity plummeted. By the early 1940s he
was finding it more difficult to find work as both a recording
artist and a live performer. He found work as a night clerk at
the Barnum Hotel in Bridgeport, Connecticut, earning extra money
as a voice coach. He died of heart failure 14th September 1948,
in relative obscurity. In the 1960s, when record collecting
became a serious pastime, he was rediscovered, and reissues of
his recordings were made available on LPs . Diehard fans
successfully lobbied for his election to the Country Music Hall
of Fame in 1981,though there are still many who doubt his
credibility as a genuine country singer.
If you would like to add any information, or suggest any corrections, you may contact Angela Hartman county coordinator.
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