Tex Ritter

American country singer, guitarist, and songwriter

• Born: January 12, 1905
• Birthplace: Murvaul, Texas
• Died: January 2, 1974
• Place of death: Nashville, Tennessee

Ritter was instrumental in transforming hillbilly music to country and western. In addition, with his trademark white clothes and white horse, Ritter helped establish the stereotyped Western hero.

The Life

Maurice Woodward “Tex” Ritter, the son of James Everett Ritter and Martha Elizabeth Matthews, grew up on the family ranch in Panola County, Texas. He attended grade school in Carthage, Texas, and he graduated with honors from South Park High School in Beaumont. In high school, Ritter played for the basketball, baseball, and football teams, and he was on the debate team, he starred in the junior-class play, and he was elected president of the senior class. After graduation he majored in prelaw, taking courses in government, political science, and economics at the University of Texas in Austin, where he also sang in the Glee Club and the Oratorio Society. His interests, however, changed from law (although he needed just one more course to finish his law degree) to entertainment, and in 1928 he sang cowboy songs on the KPRC radio station in Houston. After attending several performances, he joined the male chorus of the Schuberts’ traveling entertainment company, and he left with the troupe when it went back to New York City. When the show closed, he returned to Texas, and he got a job as the choir director for the Third Presbyterian Church in Houston, where he also had a radio program. He then went back to New York, where he appeared in the Broadway show The New Moon (1928). Not having lost sight of his legal ambitions, he went to Chicago, where he enrolled in Northwestern University’s School of Law, although he did not finish his law degree. He returned to New York, where he got parts in stage productions and made some recordings and appearances on radio. In 1936 he moved to Los Angeles to star in Western films for Grand National Pictures. Five years later, on June 14, 1941, he married Dorothy Fay, with whom he had appeared in so-called B Westerns. The couple had two sons, John, who went on to be a television and film star, and Thomas, who had cerebral palsy but went on to become a successful producer of television shows and of documentaries. After Ritter discovered that Thomas was affected by cerebral palsy, he helped found the United Cerebral Palsy Association, and he campaigned on its behalf. Since Ritter was too old to be drafted for World War II, he served his country by entertaining at military bases throughout the war.

Ritter moved to Nashville, Tennessee, the home of country music, in 1965, where he worked with the Grand Ole Opry. The rest of his family stayed in California until John finished high school, at which time they joined him in Nashville. A staunch conservative, he was persuaded by friends to enter politics. He ran against William Brock in the primary for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in 1970. Despite his name recognition, Ritter was soundly defeated.

Ritter had his last recording session for Capitol Records in 1973, and in 1974, while he was in Nashville trying to arrange bail for one of his band members, he died of a heart attack.

The Music

The Singing Cowboy. Ritter’s musical career began with his appearances singing cowboy songs on radio station KPRC in Houston, but when he moved to New York City in 1928, his career developed quickly. After singing in the men’s chorus in the Broadway show The New Moon, he was cast as the cowboy in another Broadway show, Green Grow the Lilacs (1931), the forerunner of the smash hit Oklahoma! (1943), and in it he sang four songs and he served as the understudy for the lead, Franchot Tone. His cowboy persona was enhanced when he played Sagebrush Charlie in The Round Up (1932) and in Mother Lode (1934). In addition to his dramatic roles, he played cowboys on radio shows. He was the star, singing cowboy songs and telling tales of the Old West, of WOR’s The Lone Star Rangers, and he wrote and starred in WINS’s Cowboy Tom’s Roundup, a show that was carried on three East Coast radio stations from 1933 to 1936. Other radio appearances were on WHN’s Barndance and on NBC radio, both of which involved singing. In Bobby Benson’s Adventures and Death Valley Days he was cast in dramatic roles on the radio.

Recording Career. In 1933 his career took another turn: He signed with the America Record Company (Columbia Records), and he made his first recordings: “Goodbye Ole Paint” and “Rye Whiskey.” Two years later he switched studios, joining Decca Records, where he made his first original recordings, among them “Get Along Little Dogie.” (He recorded twenty-nine songs for Decca Records, the last one in 1939.) Film Appearances. In 1936 Ritter moved to Los Angeles, where he signed a contract with Grand National Pictures, and he made twelve films with the company. Among the B Western films he starred in were Headin’ for the Rio Grande (1937) and Trouble in Texas (1937), a film in which his costar was Rita Cansino, who later changed her name to Rita Hayworth. When Grand National Pictures had financial problems, Ritter moved to Monogram Pictures, where he made an additional twenty singing-cowboy films, many costarring Fay, whom he later married. In 1941 he switched from Monogram Pictures to Columbia Pictures, and then he moved to Universal Studios and PRC Studios. His character in Western films was dressed in white and riding a white horse, the white symbolizing his innocence and goodness. White Flash was Ritter’s horse. By 1945, with the film Flaming Bullets, his film career was effectively over, although he made a few Westerns during the 1950’s. After that he made some cameo appearances, and he narrated some documentaries, notably the nostalgic The Cowboy (1954).

Country Hits. Capitol Records lured Ritter away from Decca Records, and he recorded his first session on June 11, 1942. With its first Western singer, Capitol had a string of hits during the 1940’s. “Jingle, Jangle, Jingle” was one of Ritter’s most popular songs. “I’m Wastin’ My Tears on You” was number one on the country charts and number eleven on the pop charts. On the Billboard Most Played Jukebox Folk Records Poll in 1945, his records ranked one, two, and three; in 1945 and 1946, he had seven consecutive Top 5 hits, including “Blood on the Saddle” and “You Two Timed Me One Time Too Often,” which held the number-one spot. When he redid “Rye Whiskey” in 1948, it made the Top 10. Many of his songs were associated with Texas, which remained his lifelong focus, and other songs were religious and patriotic.

To add to his laurels, he recorded the song that won the award for Best Song at the first televised Academy Awards in 1952. At the ceremony he sang “High Noon: Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darlin’” from the award-winning Western High Noon (1952), which featured a sheriff’s conflict between love and duty. After touring Europe in 1952, he appeared on Town Hall Party on radio and on television in Los Angeles.

Music Publishing and Production. In 1955, with Johnny Bond, Ritter established Vidor Publications, a company specializing in publishing music. Two years later, he produced his first album, Songs from the Western Screen, and he starred in Ranch Party, a television series featuring Western music, which ran until 1959. In 1961 he recorded “Hillbilly Heaven,” which he had revised and updated, and it reached the Top 5 on the country charts and the Top 20 on the pop charts. One of the founding members of the Country Music Association in Nashville and its president in 1963, Ritter was the fifth person and the first singing cowboy to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1964. He moved to Nashville, which had become the center for Western and country music, and he worked for WSM radio and the Grand Ole Opry, of which he became a lifetime member.

Musical Legacy

Ritter defined cowboy music for a generation enchanted with the Old West as depicted in film and dime novels. His ballads displayed the gentler side of the cowboy icon, expressing an ideal image of honesty, honor, endurance, and love of the American frontier. After Ritter’s death, a number of his albums were rereleased, and his “Blood on the Saddle” emanated from an animated grizzly bear at Disney World and Disneyland. Many of his old films are available on video. His life and career are memorialized at the Country Music Association Hall of Fame, at the Tex Ritter Museum in Carthage, Texas, near his hometown, and at the Grand Ole Opry. He has also received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and he was inducted into the Western Performance Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Principal Recordings

albums:Songs from the Western Screen, 1957; Psalms, 1958; Blood on the Saddle, 1960; Hillbilly Heaven, 1961; The Lincoln Hymns, 1961; Stan Kenton and Tex Ritter, 1962; Border Affair, 1963; The Friendly Voice of Tex Ritter, 1964; Sweet Land of Liberty, 1966; Just Beyond the Moon, 1967; Bump Tiddle Dee Bum Bum!, 1968; Tennessee Blues, 1968; Tex Ritter’s Wild West, 1968; Chuck Wagon Days, 1969; Love You Big as Texas, 1969; Green, Green Valley, 1970; Jamboree, Nashville Style, 1970; Tex, 1971; Fall Away, 1975; Comin’ After Jinny, 1976.

singles: “Goodbye Ole Paint,” 1933; “Rye Whiskey,” 1933; “Get Along Little Dogie,” 1935; “Sam Hall,” 1935; “Jingle, Jangle, Jingle,” 1942; “I’m Wastin’ My Tears on You,” 1944; “There’s a New Moon over My Shoulder,” 1944; “You Two Timed Me One Time Too Often,” 1945; “Deck of Cards,” 1948; “Pecos Bill,” 1948; “Rye Whiskey,” 1948; “Daddy’s Last Letter (Private First Class John H. McCormick),” 1950; “High Noon: Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darlin’,” 1952.

Bibliography

Bond, Johnny. The Tex Ritter Story. New York: Chappell, 1976. This early biography written by a friend contains many anecdotes about Ritter from his associates and his family members. Includes family photographs, a filmography of Ritter’s films (and his wife’s), a list with credits of his Broadway plays, a discography (including the names of the songs in his record albums), a chronology, and the lyrics from his most popular recordings.

Cooper, Texas Jim. Tex Ritter, the Inside Story. Carrollton, Tex.: Longhorn Productions, 1979. By a fan, this biography is highly complimentary to Ritter.

O’Neal, Bill. Tex Ritter: America’s Most Beloved Cowboy. Austin, Tex.: Eakin Press, 1998. Well-researched and thorough biography of Ritter. It contains many photographs, a filmography, a discography, and a comprehensive bibliography (including magazine and newspaper articles).