Nominated for 6 JUNO Awards
The Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences has chosen this year to honour the legendary Wilf Carter with the Juno Hall of Fame award. Wilf Carter – singer, songwriter, yodeler, was born December 18, 1904, in Port Hilford, Nova Scotia.
Inspired at an early age by a yodeler who was passing through town, Wilf began to practice and developed his own unique “three-in-one” or “echo” yodel.
Wilf worked a short stint in the lumber woods in West Leichester, Nova Scotia and then drifted on to the Alberta grain fields. Eventually he began singing at the local dances and in 1929 he went to a Calgary radio station for an audition. Management doubted his ability and told him to return in another year. Determined to become a professional singer, Wilf did return the following year. He auditioned for another Calgary radio station and was hired to sing on their Friday night hoedowns, The Old Timers.Mail began to pour into the radio stations from all over the Prairies. Then, one night, Wilf was approached by an official of the Brewster Transport Company and accepted his invitation to be part of the entertainment for the Canadian Pacific Railway’s trail rides through the Rockies. For several years Wilf accompanied the trail riders on their summer packing trips. At night, they would sit around the campfire and listen to Wilf tell stories, sing, and yodel.Wilf soon decided to drop by Montreal and audition for RCA. He sang two original compositions, “Swiss Moonlight Lullaby”, a yodeling tune, and a song about the capture of Albert Johnson, the mad trapper. Wilf later contacted RCA and discovered they had produced his first 78 recording and were anxious to release it.
While on another trail ride Wilf met a man who introduced him to New York executives at NBC and CBS where, after 15 minutes of singing and yodeling, he was offered a contract to broadcast The Wilf Carter Show. Shortly afterwards, a New York secretary who was typing the lyrics to his song “A Cowboy’s High-Toned Dance” asked him – “What name do I put on it?” “Anyone’ll do”, replied Wilf. The young woman thought for a moment and typed MONTANA SLIM. The name stuck and that’s how he is still known to millions of Americans today.
In 1937 Wilf left New York and bought a ranch near Calgary. He appeared regularly on both American and Canadian network radio, but in 1940 he sustained a severe back injury in an automobile accident. Though he continued to record, he did not tour again until 1949. He sold the ranch in Calgary at that time, bought a 180 acre farm in New Jersey, resumed his CBS show and went back on the trail.In 1952, Wilf moved his family to Orlando, Florida where he opened the Wilf Carter Motor Lodge, closing it two years later. Also in the early 1950′s Wilf incorporated his growing daughters in to “The Family Show With The Folks You Know” to sing and dance, and in 1953, Wilf toured Australia.
He remained one of the nation’s most popular country entertainers through the 60′s but as the years went by, he began limiting his appearances to about 20 a year.Wilf continues to record an album a year for RCA. He’s been made Honourary Chief of the Stony Indian Tribe, Honourary Citizen of both Winnipeg and Tennessee.
Both Hank Snow and Johnny Cash have interrupted performances to salute Wilf as “a legend in his own time” – a man who’s done more for Country and Western music than any other singer alive.
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