Wilf Carter

Inducted in 1985

Singer, songwriter and yodeller Wilf Carter – also known as Montana Slim or the Yodelling Cowboy – is recognized as “the father of Canadian country music.” He was Canada’s first country-music star and an enormous influence on generations of musicians.

Carter was born on December 18, 1904, in Port Hilford, Nova Scotia. Inspired at an early age by a yodeller who was passing through town, Carter began to practice and develop his own unique “three-in-one” or “echo” yodel. He worked a short stint in the lumber woods in West Leicester, Nova Scotia, and then drifted to the Alberta grain fields.

Career Highlights

1991

Tours “The Last Round-up” at age 86.

1971

Inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame

1964

Performs at the Calgary Stampede

1953

Tours with his daughters as “The Family Show with the Folks You Know”

Quick Fact

Carter is considered “the father of Canadian country music.”

1937

Begins hosting The Wilf Carter Show on CBS country radio.

1935

Moves to New York City in 1935, where he’s nicknamed Montana Slim.

1932

Hired to sing aboard CP trail rides through the Rockies.

1929

Begins singing at Nova Scotia dances