Wilf Carter

     As far as I know Wilf Carter didn't play chess, but he was a Grandmaster country singer, so let's take a break from chess and listen to him sing a classic cowboy song!

     Wilfred Arthur Charles Carter (December 18, 1904 – December 5, 1996), professionally known as Wilf Carter in his native Canada and also as Montana Slim in the United States, was a Canadian Country and Western singer, songwriter, guitarist, and yodeler. Widely acknowledged as the father of Canadian country music, Carter was Canada's first country music star, inspiring a generation of young Canadian performers. 

     Born in Port Hilford, Nova Scotia, he was one of nine children. He began working odd jobs by the age of eight and began singing after seeing a traveling Swiss performer named The Yodeling Fool. Carter left home at the age of 15 after a falling out with his father, who was a Baptist minister. 

     In 1923, after working as a lumberjack and singing with hobos in boxcars, Carter moved to Calgary where he found work as a cowboy. He made extra money singing and playing his guitar at dances, performing for tourist parties, and traveling throughout the Canadian Rockies. It was during this time that he developed his own yodeling style, sometimes called an "echo yodel" or a "three-in-one".