Wilf Carter (musician)
| Wilf Carter | |
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Wilfred Arthur Charles Carter |
| Also known as | Montana Slim, The Yodelling Cowboy |
| Born | December 18, 1904 Port Hilford, Nova Scotia, Canada |
| Origin | Calgary, Alberta, Canada |
| Died | December 5, 1996 (aged 91) Scottsdale, Arizona, U.S. |
| Genres | Country, western |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, songwriter |
| Years active | 1930–1992 |
| Labels | RCA Victor |
Wilfred Arthur Charles Carter (December 18, 1904 – December 5, 1996), professionally known as Wilf Carter in his native Canada and also as Montana Slim in the United States, was a Canadian Country and Western singer, songwriter, guitarist, and yodeller. Widely acknowledged as the father of Canadian country music, Carter was Canada's first country music star, inspiring a generation of young Canadian performers.
Carter was born in Port Hilford, Nova Scotia, Canada. One of nine children, he began working odd jobs by the age of eight in Canning, Nova Scotia. He began singing after seeing a traveling Swiss performer named "The Yodelling Fool" in Canning. Carter left home at the age of 15 after a falling out with his father, who was a Baptist minister.
In 1923, after working as a lumberjack and singing with hobos in boxcars, Carter moved west to Calgary, Alberta, where he found work as a cowboy. He made extra money singing and playing his guitar at dances, performing for tourist parties, and traveling throughout the Canadian Rockies. It was during this time that he developed his own yodelling style, sometimes called an "echo yodel" or a "three-in-one".
Carter performed his first radio broadcast on CFCN in 1930. Soon after, he was heard locally on CFAC and nationally on the CRBC. Two years later, he was entertaining tourists as a trail rider for the Canadian Pacific Railway, who promoted horseback excursions into the Canadian Rockies. Carter soon became very popular in the region.
In 1933, he was hired as an entertainer on the maiden voyage of the British ship S.S. Empress. Later that year, he stopped off in Montreal and recorded two songs he had just written: "My Swiss Moonlight Lullaby" and "The Capture of Albert Johnson". After signing with RCA Victor, the record became a best-seller within a year. That same year, Carter also wrote and recorded "Pete Knight, The King of the Cowboys," which also became a hit.
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