Tex Ritter was born in Murvaul Texas on January 12th, 1905. He was born Woodward Maurice Ritter but went by the name “Tex” when he went on to form his career. He grew up on his family farm in Panola Country Texas. He studied music as a teenager including voice and guitar. In 1922 he went to college at the University of Texas to study pre-law and major in government, political science, and economics. He was always interested and liked to learn about western music and while at school he met J. Frank Dobie, Oscar J. Fox, and John Lomax, who were three popular cowboy songwriters which helped him expand his interest in music. When he graduated from the University of Texas, he attended law school and while he was there he had his own weekly radio program where he sung and played cowboy songs. The radio station was based in Houston Texas and then in the same year, he moved to New York City and started acting on Broadway. As he started to get involved in show business he still worked in radio all over the east coast. He sang old western tales and continued to share cowboy music with the city.
His musical career started with his involvement with radio but he soon moved to New York City to start in a broadway show “Green Grow the Lilacs” where he gained the nickname “Tex” because of his accent. He eventually moved to Los Angeles in 1936 to act in movies. With the popularity of cowboy movies like Gene Autry’s other studios looked for singing cowboys that they could also put on screen. The producer Edward Finney eventually found Tex and he starred in his first film “Song of the Gringo”. Although he was a singing cowboy he worked for studios that were considered “Poverty Row” studios, Grand National and Monogram. Although the studios were smaller and had to work with limited budgets, Tex was able to attract a decent enough crowd to the theatres having some success with the box office. He was never popular in films like Gene Autry but throughout his entire career, he acted in 70 movies and was featured in 76 movie soundtracks. His recorded music career started with the popularity of his version of the song “High Noon” which played over the opening credits to a movie. This song won best original song at the Academy Awards in 1952. His recorded music was a huge part of his career and he signed to Capitol Records and would end up recording with them for the rest of his life. In 1970 he tapped into politics and wanted to run for the United States Senate. He lost the election and died a few years later in 1974.
The song that started to create a name for Tex Ritter was High Noon. This song has a simple melody of drums and a guitar with Tex singing. This song gained popularity because it was played over the opening credits to a cowboy movie titled High Noon. This song has a meaning about trust and dependence that he wants from a woman because he does not know what he would do without her.
“Rye Whiskey” is another popular song by Tex Ritter that is more upbeat and has a yodeling that is similar to what other cowboy musicians were doing in their music. He includes a lot of this hiccuping sound to incorporate the hiccups from drinking. The song is about the love-hate relationship with alcohol in this case Rye Whiskey. We still see this today in country music where artists will mention alcohol often.
This song is about a cowboy who is single and thinks about possibly settling down with a woman but the life of a cowboy is not about settling down so he just keeps moving along away from the possibilities of dating. It is a catchy song that includes the sounds of spurs making the noise he is referring to jingling on his boots.
All of these songs are about the life of a cowboy and some of the issues or situations they might be in with their lifestyle. He uses the typical western cowboy song sound with the acoustic guitar, fiddle, and standup bass. All of his songs relate to cowboys especially because of his background growing up on a farm and playing cowboys in movies and singing cowboy songs on the radio. Tex Ritter has a number of contributions to the music industry and country music. He was a founding member of the Country Music Association in Nashville Tennessee which led to the creation of the Country Music Hall of Fame where he was inducted in 1964. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of fame and has been inducted into many different hall of fame museums and has won a Golden Boot Award. The Texas Country Music Hall of Fame was formerly named the Tex Ritter Museum because he was one of the first inductees into the museum for his film and music career.
Sources:
Cleghorn, Reese. “From Grand Ole Opry to U.S. Senate? High Noon for Tex Ritter.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 12 July 1970, https://www.nytimes.com/1970/07/12/archives/from-grand-ole-opry-to-us-senate-high-noon-for-tex-ritter-high-noon.html#:~:text=Ritter%20is%20running%20for%20the,beat%20conservative%20Representative%20William%20E.
“Tex Ritter Biography.” Alan Cackett, https://alancackett.com/tex-ritter-biography.
“The Tex Ritter Museum.” Texas Country Music Hall of Fame, https://www.tcmhof.com/museum.
“Tex Ritter: Artist Bio.” Country Music Hall of Fame, https://countrymusichalloffame.org/artist/tex-ritter/.
