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GenereCountry, Pop
Albums119
Canzoni690
CircaHANK SNOW
A.K.A. Clarence Eugene Snow
Born May 9, 1914 in Liverpool, Nova Scotia, Canada
Died Dec 20, 1999

Canada's greatest contribution to country music, Hank Snow was famous
for his "travelling" songs. It's no wonder. At age 12 he ran away from his
Nova Scotia home and joined the Merchant Marines, working as a cabin boy
and laborer for four years. Once back on shore, he listened to Jimmie
Rodgers records and started playing in public, building up a following in
Halifax. His original nickname, the Yodelling Ranger, was modified to the
Singing Ranger when his high voice changed to the great baritone that
graced his hit records.

In 1950, the year he became an Opry regular, his self-penned "I'm Moving
On" (the first of his many great travelling songs) became a smash hit,
reaching number one and remaining their for 21 weeks. "Golden Rocket"
(also 1950) and "I've Been Everywhere" (1962), two other hits, show his
life-long love for trains and travel. But he was as much at home with two
other styles, the ballad and the rhumba/boogie.

Among his many great ballads are "Bluebird Island" (with Anita Carter, of
the Carter Family), "Fool Such as I," and "Hello, Love" a hit when Snow was
60 years old. Snow appeared regularly on the Opry into the '90s, proving
that his incredible voice suffered no loss of quality over the last half-
century, as well as what a tasteful, understated guitar stylist he is. With
small stature and huge voice, Snow was a country traditionalist who gave
much more to the business than he took.

Born and raised in Nova Scotia, Hank Snow (born Clarence Eugene Snow)
moved in with his grandmother when he was eight years old, following the
divorce of his parents. Four years later, he re-joined his mother when she
re-married, but his stepfather was an abusive, violent man who frequently
beat Hank. Tired of the abuse, Snow ran away from home when he was 12
years old, joining a fishing boat. For the next four years, he served as a
cabin boy, often singing for the sailors onboard. When he was 16, he
returned home, where he began working odd jobs and trying to launch a
performing career. His mother had given him a stack of Jimmie Rodgers
records which inspired him greatly. Within a few weeks of hearing Rodgers,
Snow ordered a cheap, mail-order guitar and tried to learn his idol's
trademark blue yodel. For the next few years, he sang around Nova Scotia
befrore finally mustering the courage to travel to Halifax in 1933.
Snow landed a weekly unpaid appearance on CHNS' Down on the Farm,
where he was billed as both the cowboy Blue Yodeller and Clarence Snow
and His Guitar. The following year, CHNS' chief annoucner Cecil Landry
suggested to Snow that he should change his name to Hank, since it
sounded more Western.

Hank continued to perform in Halifax for the next three years, often
struggling to get by. The severity of the financial situation was compounded
when he married Minnie Aaiders in 1936, but the couple was soon relieved
when he landed a regular paid program on the network Canadian Farm
Hour, billed as Hank the Yodelling Ranger. By the end of the year, Snow
had signed a deal with RCA-Victor's Montreal branch and recorded two
original songs: "The Prisoned Cowboy" and "Lonesome Blue Yodel." The
songs were hits, beginning a string of Canadian-only hit singles that ran for
the next ten years; during that time, he recorded nearly 90 songs.
In the early '40s, he had a regular show on CBC, based in Montreal and
New Brunswick. In 1944, he switched to CKCW in New Brunswick. Around
that time, he switched his stagename to Hank the Singing Ranger, since his
voice had deepened and he could no longer yodel.

Though he had become a star in Canada, the American market remained
untapped. Snow tried to break into the USA several times, playing The
Wheeling Jamboree in West Virginia, briefly moving to Hollywood and
performing concerts with his trick pony Shawnee, but he was having no luck
finding fans. The problem partially lies with the fact that he was trying to
find an audience that wasn't there, since most citizens were concentrating
on World War II. Another stumbling block was RCA Records themselves,
who refused to let Hank release records in America until he was well-known
in the country. By 1948, Snow was singing on The Big D Jamboree in Dallas
Texas, where he befriended the honky tonk legend Ernest Tubb. ET pulled
enough weight at the Grand Ole Opry to get Hank a slot on the in early
1950, and by that time, RCA had agreed to record Snow for the American
audience.

Hank Snow's American debut single "Marriage Vow" became a minor hit at
the end of 1949, but it fell off the charts after a week. Similarly, his debut
appearance at the Grand Ole Opry in January was not well-received,
prompting Hank to consider moving back to Canada. However, those ideas
were soon abandoned when his breakthrough arrived in the summer of
1950. That July, "I'm Moving On" began its remarkable ascent up the charts
eventually landing at number one and staying there for a full 21 weeks. In
the year after the release of "I'm Moving On," "The Golden Rocket" and
"The Rhumba Boogie" both hit number one (the latter staying there for
eight weeks), establishing Hank Snow as a genuine star. Between 1951 and
the end of 1955, Snow had a remarkable 24 Top Ten hits, including the
massive hit single "I Don't Hurt Anymore" which spent 20 weeks at number
one in 1954. Snow not only played his trademark travelling songs, but also
country-boogie, Hawaiian music, rhumbas, and cowboys songs. By the
middle of the decade, he was a star not only in the United States and
Canada, but throughout the world, gaining a particularly strong following
over the years in the United Kingdom.

Around 1954, Snow formed a booking agency with Colonel Tom Parker,
who would later become infamous for being Elvis Presley's manager.
Indeed, Hank played a formative role in Presley's early career, convincing
the Grand Ole Opry to give the singer a chance in 1954. Though Elvis'
appearance at the Opry was ill-received, Snow continued to push Presley
to move towards country and Hank was quite upset when Parker took
complete control of Elvis' management around 1955. Still, Hank found a
way to combat rock & roll — he recorded some light rockabilly singles
himself. "Hula Rock" and "Rockin', Rollin' Ocean" were attempts to capture
the beat of rock & roll, but diluted with the rhumbas and boogie that made
his singles hits during the early '50s. Though he was experimenting with the
new genre, he hadn't abandoned country and he continued to regularly
chart in the country Top Ten until 1965 with hits like "Big Wheels" (#7,
1958), "Miller's Cave" (#9, 1960), "Beggar to a King (#5, 1961), "I've
Been Everywhere (#1, 1962), and "Ninety Miles an Hour (Down a Dead End
Street)" (#2, 1963).

During the latter half of the '60s, Snow's career slowed down considerably,
as he wasn't able to make the transition to the new, heavily orchestrated
country-pop sounds, nor was he able to keep pace with the twangy roll of
Bakersfield. Instead, his singles placed in the lower reaches of the charts,
while his concerts and Grand Ole Opry appearances continued to be quite
popular. It wasn't until 1974 that another monster hit arrived in the form of
"Hello Love," which unexpectedly climbed to number one. Instead of
sparking a revival, "Hello Love" proved to be a last gasp; between its
release in 1974 and 1980, Hank had only two other Top 40 hits, which both
arrived the same year as "Hello Love." Despite his declining record sales,
his profile remained high through his concerts and several lifetime
achievement awards, including his induction to the Nashville Songwriters
International Hall of Fame in 1978 and the Country Music Hall of Fame in
1979.

In 1981, Hank Snow's recording career ended when RCA dropped him after
a 45-year relationship. Snow was very upset with the label's treatment of
him, as well as the direction that country music was taking, claiming that
"80% of today's country music is a joke and not fit to listen to." He was
equally angry that country's roots were being diluted by pop and rock
production values. Though he never recorded again, Snow remained active
in the Grand Ole Opry into the '90s, and he spent a lot of time working for
his Foundation for Child Abuse. In the late '80s, Bear Family began a
lengthy retrospective of several multi-disc box sets that chronicled his
entire recording career. In 1994, Snow published his autobiography, The
Hank Snow Story. Late the following year, he was stricken with a
respiratory illness, yet he recovered in 1996, returing to the Grand Ole
Opry in August of that year. Snow died December 20, 1999 at the age of
85.

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