Вернон Далхарт: Пионер кантри-музыки и автор хита «Крушение старого 97-го»

American singer songwriter

Marion Try Slaughter (April 6, 1883 – September 14, 1948), better known by his stage name Vernon Dalhart, was an American country music singer and songwriter. His recording of the classic ballad "Wreck of the Old 97" was the first country song reputed to have sold one million copies, although sales figures for pre World War Two recordings are difficult to verify.

Dalhart was born in Jefferson, Texas, on April 6, 1883. He took his stage name from two towns, Vernon and Dalhart in Texas, between which he punched cattle as a teenager in the 1890s. Dalhart's father, Robert Marion Slaughter, was killed by his brother in law, Bob Castleberry, when Vernon was age 10. He married Sadie Lee Moore Livingston in 1901 and had two children, a son and a daughter. In 1910, he moved the family to New York City, where he worked in a piano warehouse and took occasional singing jobs.

Dalhart's education was rooted in classical music. He wanted to be an opera singer, and in 1913 he got parts in Madame Butterfly and H. M. S. Pinafore. In the 1920s and 1930s, he sang on more than 5000 singles (78s) for many labels, employing more than 100 pseudonyms, such as Al Craver, Vernon Dale, Frank Evans, Hugh Lattimer, Sid Turner, George White (with original Memphis Five) and Bob White.

Dalhart had a hit single with his 1924 recording of "The Wreck of the Old 97", a classic American ballad about the derailment of Fast Mail train No. 97 near Danville, Virginia, in 1903. Recorded for the Victor Talking Machine Company, the song alerted the national record companies to the existence of a sizable market for country music vocals. It became the first Southern song to become a national success. With "The Prisoner's Song" as the b side, the single eventually sold as many as seven million copies, a huge number for recording in the 1920s. It was awarded a gold disc by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and was the biggest selling, non holiday record in the first 70 years of recorded music. Joel Whitburn, a statistician for Billboard magazine, determined that "The Prisoner's Song" was No. 1 hit for twelve weeks in 1925–26. One of the recordings most associated with Vernon Dalhart, especially in the United Kingdom, is his 1925 track "The Runaway Train" (Talking Machine Co., Camden, New Jersey, Victor 19685 A, Shellac). This was played on BBC Radio's 'Children's Favourites' between 1954 and 1982, and even now almost every compilation of children's records in the UK includes this timeless favourite. Wanting to repeat the success of the single, the Victor Company sent Ralph Peer to the southern mountains in 1927 to facilitate the Bristol Sessions. These sessions led to the discovery of singer Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family, after which Peer's royalty model would become the standard of the music industry.

By the late 1930s, Dalhart's popularity declined and he had lost much of his income in the Great Depression. Dalhart eventually retired and relocated to Bridgeport, Connecticut in 1940 where he worked as a night clerk for the Hotel Barnum. He died on September 14, 1948 of a coronary occlusion at the age of 65. He is buried in Mountain Grove Cemetery in Bridgeport.