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Vernon Dalhart (6 April, 1883 - 15 September,
1948) was a popular United States singer and
songwriter of the early decades of the 20th
century.  He is a major influence in the field of
Country Music.

Dalhart was born Marion Try Slaughter in Marion
County, Texas|Marion County, Jefferson, Texas. He
took his stage-name from two towns, Vernon,
Texas|Vernon and Dalhart, Texas|Dalhart in Texas,
between which he punched cattle in the 1890's. 
(Decades later, Conway Twitty would derive his
stage name through the same method.)  Dalhart's
father, Robert Marion Slaughter was killed in a
fight with his brother-in-law, Bob Castleberry,
when Vernon was age 10.

At the age of 12 or 13, the family moved from
Jefferson to Dallas, Texas.  Vernon who already
could play the guitar, jew's harp, and harmonica,
received vocal training at the Dallas Conservatory
of Music.

He married Sadie Lee Moore-Livingston in 1901 and
had two children, a son and a daughter.  Around
1910 the family moved to New York City.  He found
employment in a piano warehouse and took
occasional singing jobs.  One of his first roles
was in Giacomo Puccini's opera La fanciulla del
West|Girl of the Golden West; following this he
played the part of Ralph Rackstraw in a production
of HMS Pinafore.  He also played the part of
Lieutenant Pinkerton in Madame Butterfly.  

He saw an advertisement in the local paper for
singers and applied and was auditioned by Thomas
Alva Edison; he would thereafter make numerous
records for Edison Records.  From 1916 until 1923,
using numerous pseudonyms, he made over 400
recordings of light Classical Music and early
dance band vocals for various record labels. He
was already an established singer when he made his
first country music recordings which cemented his
place in music history. It was his recordings of
"The Prisoner's Song" and "The Wreck of the Old
97" for the Victor Talking Machine Company which
became run away hits, alerting the record
companies to the existence of a sizable market for
country style vocals.  In 1998, "The Prisoner's
Song" was honored with a Grammy Hall of Fame Award
and the Recording Industry Association of America
named it one of the Songs of the Century.
Dalhart's songs often told tragic stories of
mining disasters and train wrecks.He recorded
under a host of pseudonyms 
given to him by recording managers. The pseudonym
Vel Veteran often was used by Arthur Fields
(Fields also used Mr X)

While some country music purists always viewed
Dalhart with some suspicion because of his light
opera background and a vocal style that was closer
to pop than country, he was inducted into the
Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970 and
into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1981.

Dalhart died in Bridgeport, Connecticut in 1948
and is interred there in the Mountain Grove
Cemetery.

== External link ==
*
http://www.countrymusichalloffame.com/inductees/ve
rnon_dalhart.html Biography at the Country Music
Hall of Fame
*
http://www.cmt.com/artists/az/dalhart_vernon/bio.j
html Biography at CMT.com
* http://www.geocities.com/robtmorca/ Robert
Morritt's biography of Dalhart