Tex Morton

aka Robert Lane, The Yodelling Boundary Rider


Over six decades in entertainment Nelson-born Tex Morton defined country music in New Zealand and Australia with his songs and guitar. He was the hobo who became an international star as a musician, stage hypnotist, showman and actor.

Mention Tex Morton and once upon a time the name was known from Darwin to Bluff, California to Montreal, Uranium City to Hong Kong, Waihi to London. Until Ed Hillary climbed Mount Everest in May 1953 Morton was regarded as the most widely known New Zealander in the world.

Tex in the late 1960s
Tex Morton in the 1940s
Tex Morton's Wild West Comic, circa 1949 with an advert for Tex's guitar on the back
Tex Morton in the 1970s
Photo credit: Chris Bourke collection
Tex Morton, likely in the late 1930s
Photo credit: Gordon Spittle Collection
Tex Morton - The Great MORTON. City unknown.
Photo credit: Gordon Spittle Collection
Tex lighting a cigarette for an unidentified man before shooting it from his mouth, 1960
Photo credit: Gordon Spittle Collection
Tex Morton with Otago's The Tumbleweeds, 4ZB Dunedin, October 1949: Bill Ditchfield, Tex Morton Cole Wilson, Dorrie Morton, Nola Hewitt and Colin McCrorie
Photo credit: Gordon Spittle Collection
An Evening Post photo of Tex Morton shooting a cigarette from a man's mouth, 1960
Photo credit: Evening Post Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library
Watch: Tex Morton sharp shooting on Auckland TV, 1967
A Tex Morton picture disc
Wyoming Willie (1936)
A bust of Tex Morton, Bicentennial Park, Tamworth, NSW
Tex Morton hosting The Country Touch, 1969
Tex Morton, probably in the 1940s
Tex Morton and an unknown friend, early 1950s
You'll Never Be Missed (1982 - his final performance)
Tex Morton in the 1960s
A 1960 Australian EP
Cast of the TV show The Country Touch, late 1960s. Left to right, Paddy and Chris Lydon, Gray Bartlett, Tex Morton, Big Mike Durney, Val Proctor, Rusty Greaves.
Tex on The Country Touch (1968)
Tex Morton in the early 1960s
You'll Never Be Missed (Monologue) - (1940)
A 1962 Tex Morton single on the Australian Festival label
You Only Have One Mother (1937)
Harry Tootell, Tex Morton, and Blenheim photographer Graham Brooks. Tootell is the 'Bang On Harry' character in the Fourmyula's concept album Green B Holiday (HMV, 1968).
Photo credit: Graham Brooks
A poster for Tex Morton's early 1950s NZ hypnotism show
Tex Morton and the cast of Country Touch in the late 1960s
Photo credit: NZBC archives
Labels:

EMI


Regal Zonophone


Columbia


Festival

Trivia:

All his life he remained a ham-radio enthusiast, often staying up all night.

As a child he was an expert in morse code.

In 1977 Tex was awarded the Raw Prawn award for Australia's worst TV commercial.

Tex toured the USA in a fleet of customised Cadillacs in the late 1940s.

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