Vernon Dalhart

Vernon Dalhart

• Given Name: Marion Try Slaughter
  
• Date of Birth: April 6, 1883 Place of Birth: Marion County, Texas
  
• Married: Unknown
  
• Children: One daughter
  
• Date of Death: September 14, 1948

Although he sang in a stiff, formal manner that belied his training as a light-opera singer, wrote very few songs, seldom toured or did radio, Vernon Dalhart qualifies as the first big Country star to win a national following. Recording in both cylinder and disc formats, he spent most of his career in the studio, recording some 5,000 releases on every major label in the 1920’s and 1930’s, released under one of the approximately 135 pseudonyms Dalhart used. He derived his name from two towns in his home county in Texas: Vernon and Dalhart. He was almost certainly the first Country singer to sell a million copies of a record, with The Wreck of the Old 97. b/w The Prisoner's Song for the Victor Talking Machine Company in 1924 (it went on to sell a total of six-million copies). With his singing partner Carson Robison, Dalhart recorded many more popular proto-country releases.

Recordings include:

• The Prisoner’s Song
• The Death of Floyd Collins
• The John T. Scopes Trial
• My Blue Ridge Mountain Home
• The Letter Edged in Black
• Golden Slippers
• Maple on the Hill
• The Dream of the Miner’s Child