Vernon Dalhart & Carson Robison - Oh Dem Golden Slippers (1928)

VERNON DALHART:
Vernon Dalhart was born Marion Try Slaughter in Jefferson, Texas. He took his stage-name from two Texas towns, Vernon and Dalhart in Texas, between which he punched cattle in the 1890s. Dalhart's father, Robert, was killed in a bar room fight with his brother-in-law, Bob Castleberry, when Vernon was age 10. The bar that the murder took place is still open and doing business.
When Vernon was 12 or 13, the family moved from Jefferson to Dallas, Texas. Vernon, who already could play the jew's harp and harmonica, received vocal training at the Dallas Conservatory of Music.
He saw an advertisement in the local paper for singers and was auditioned by Edison Recording Company. From 1916 until 1923, he made numerous records for them, mostly light classical music and early dance band vocals for various bands. He was already an established singer when he made his first country music recordings which cemented his place in music history.
Dalhart's 1924 recording of "The Wreck of the Old 97" about the September 27, 1903 derailment of Southern Railway Fast Mail train No. 97 near Danville, Virginia became a runaway hit for the Victor Company, alerting the national record companies to the existence of a sizable market for country-style vocals. The disc eventually sold more than seven million copies, a colossal amount for the time, and was a mainstay in the Victor Catalog through 1938. Due to the immense popularity of the ballad, Dalhart recorded the song for many other record companies under a huge array of pseudonyms, and with slight variations to the melody each time.
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, into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1981 and into the Gennett Records Walk of Fame in 2007.
Dalhart died of a heart attack September 14, 1948 in Bridgeport, Connecticut at the age of 65. He is interred there in the Mountain Grove Cemetery.

CARSON ROBISON:
Carson Jay Robison was born in Oswego, Kansas on August 4, 1890. The son of a champion fiddler, he became a professional musician in the American Midwest at the age of 15, primarily as a whistler working the music hall circuit. He also worked as a singer and whistler at radio station WDAF in Kansas City, Missouri.
In 1924 he moved to New York City and was signed to his first recording contract with Victor Records. That same year, Robison started a professional collaboration with Vernon Dalhart, one of the era's most notable singers. Through this relationship, Robison realized huge success, mainly as a songwriter but also as a musician, accompanying Dalhart on guitar, harmonica, whistling, and harmony vocals. During this period, Robison also became a successful composer of "event" songs, which recounted current events or tragedies in a predictable fashion, usually concluding in a moral lesson. Some popular examples of his topical compositions include "The Wreck of the Number 9" and "The John T. Scopes Trial", about the famous Scopes Monkey Trial.
In 1928, Dalhart abruptly made a personnel change without consulting Robison, and their relationship ended. Although the breakup did not prove lucrative for either artist, Robison continued to record for two more decades. From 1928 to 1932 he teamed with Frank Luther, recording songs for various labels and appearing on WOR radio in New York City. In 1932, he started his own band, Carson Robison's Pioneers, and continued performing live and recording through the 1930s and 1940s.
In 1942 his recording of the standard "Turkey in the Straw" was one of the year's top selling country recordings. In 1948, he struck another hit with the song, "Life Gets Tee-Jus Don't It", on MGM Records. Throughout the late 1940s and into early 1950s he appeared on the Grand Ole Opry. In 1956, he made his last recording; the novelty rock & roll song "Rockin' and Rollin' With Grandmaw."
Robison died March 24, 1957 in Poughkeepsie, New York at the age of 66.