Tex Ritter rode out of East Texas with a big baritone and a saddle full of cowboy songs. Born in Murvaul, he became one of Hollywood’s go-to singing cowboys in the nineteen thirties and forties, starring in a long run of B-westerns that mixed dust, drawl, and frontier romance. His signature moment came in nineteen fifty-two with “High Noon (Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin’),” the lone voice that opened the film and earned an Academy Award nomination. Ritter later helped shape the business side o