TEX MORTON

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27212, 15 October 1949, Page 8

TEX MORTON

BALLAD SINGER ARRIVAL IN DUNEDIN VALUE OF FOLK MUSIC Yesterday, Mr 'Robert Lane, better known as Tex Morton, the New Zea-land-born cowboy entertainer, arrived in Dunedin and appeared at afternoon and evening sessions at the Empire Theatre with Sister Bruce Carroll —who is also famous in the recorded music world,

Now 33 years old, married, and the father of eight-year-old twin boys, Tex Morton left New Zealand during the depression years and worked in the Australian backblocks as a drover, horse-breaker, and free-lance journalist, collecting at the same time folk songs and ballads. Since then, he has composed more than 200 songs and his recordings have achieved remarkable popularity.

Besides composing and singing, the New Zealander is an accomplished trick rider, guitarist and poet, while his trick-shooting act includes splitting a card held edgeways with a bullet from his .22 automatic rifle, shooting sticks of chalk from Sister Dorrie’s fingers, and shooting the ash off her lighted cigarette.

In an interview last night, Mr Morton assured the Daily Times that folk music was an integral part of Australiana. The Australian outdoor worker was a deep thinker, he said, and added: “The music of Australia

is its poetry.” Asked if he composed folk music, he said that folk music was discovered, not composed. Elderlypeople had given him many gold-dig-ging and convict ballads similar to those made famous by Banjo Patterson and Henry Lawson, masters of Australian poetry and prose, which he had revived and presented to a generation ignorant of its country s musical heritage.

Mr Morton does not believe there are many New Zealand folk songs. He had, however, heard of one, the refrain of which ran: “ Put my axe behind the whare door, for the Rimu and the Matai are getting far too tough.” If he could obtain the complete words, he said, he would like to record the song.

In Mr Morton’s opinion, a ballad will be successful, first, if it is plaintive and, secondly, if it makes people think that they have heard it before. When he sang to his friends one of his compositions, “ Circus Boy,” described by Mr Ralph Peer, of the Southern Music Publishing Company, Hollywood, as a future world hit, they thought that they knew the song well. Musically, however, the song was completely original. Folk songs, which also provided a source of inspiration for serious composers, were very popular in Australia, he said, because the average Australian knew very little about his own country.

After leaving Nelson College during the depression, Mr Morton sold radios, sang in the streets, bought gold and worked in vaudeville shows and with carnivals. Later he stowed away on an Australian-bound ship at Bluff and “ hobo-ed ” his way throughout Australia.

Before leaving for Hollywood, where he is to take up. a three-year contract for screen, radio and television work with the Southern Music Publishing Company, Mr Morton will introduce van Loewe, a prominent hypnotist, to New Zealand audiences. Mr Morton will give a concert for patients at the Wakari Hospital next week. ■