ROOTS of Country Music

Monte Hale

Actor in 1950s, singer at rodeos and circuses

(1919–2009)

American B-Western star and singing cowboy. Born in 1919 in Ada, Oklahoma to Herod and Helen Ely, Hale learned to sing and play guitar at an early age.

In Houston and later Galveston, Texas, he played for vaudeville shows and local rodeos. During the Second World War, a job as a replacement guitar player.