Tex McGuire

Tex McGuire (February 29, 1909 – August 2, 1992) was an old-time music and hillbilly musician who played the guitar, banjo and dobro. He was born Marshall Everette McGuire in Monroe County, West Virginia and died in Low Moor, Virginia at the age of 83.

Biography

Tex McGuire left his home in Gap Mills, West Virginia at age 14 and went on the road for 51 years, traveling the vaudeville circuit. When he was 14, he worked at the Jordan Taxi Stand in Charleston, West Virginia, carrying suitcases for tips. The manager of a local radio station heard him playing guitar in the hotel lobby and asked him to audition. Tex got the job of playing and singing 15 minutes each day for three dollars. He went to Texas at age 15 and played on Station XERA for Doc Brinkley, a patent medicine man. and played duets with Charles "Rex" Parker. Tex also worked with country singer Buddy Starcher at a Harrisonburg, Virginia radio station with Starcher's wife Mary Ann Estes. Buddy Starcher starred on his own show on WCHS-TV from 1960 to 1966. When folk musician Bob Martin moved to West Virginia in the 1970s he became good friends with Tex and worked on a documentary film on Tex's life directed by Boston filmmaker Bo Zabierek, which premiered at the 1990 Virginia Festival of American Film where the theme of the festival was "Music in the Movies." Singer-songwriter Sarah White had also become familiar with Tex's music when her family moved to Monroe County, West Virginia when she was a child.