Honky Tonk
About the Book Honky Tonk Exhibits Biography Contact Home
 
  Foreword Introduction Portfolios Afterword Photographer's Notes    
   
People Like You    
Mother Church    
Honky Tonkin'    
Tootsies Orchid Lounge    
Pickin' and Singing Introduction Photographs
   
 
  Pickin' and Singing
   
   
 
Tex Ritter
Hillbilly Ranch, Boston, Massachusetts, 1973

In the 1930s and 1940s, Ritter was a successful "singing cowboy" in the same tradition as rivals Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. Like other singing cowboys, he had a multilayered career—as a film star (he made many dozens of B-Westerns), recording artist, and touring musician. Father of actor John Ritter, Tex sang "Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling," the theme song of High Noon, Gary Cooper's Academy Award–winning movie of 1953. Tex also charted with the maudlin "Deck of Cards" (1948) and oddly less maudlin "I Dreamed of a Hillbilly Heaven" (1961).
 
   
Photographs > | Introduction >    

 
Copyright © 2003 Henry Horenstein | email: info@honkytonkbook.com