Canada's 1st Country Star Snow Dies At 85

NASHVILLE-Hank Snow, the first country superstar from Canada, was remembered Dec. 23 at a country star-studded funeral service at the Grand Ole Opry House here.
Snow, 85, died Dec. 20 at his Madison home, known as Rainbow Ranch, from natural causes. Failing health had caused his retirement. He had last played the Opry-where he had been a member since 1950-in September 1996.
Snow, a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and of the Songwriters International Hall of Fame, was the last of the country music legends who had been directly influenced by the "Father of Country Music," the late Jimmie Rodgers.
Clarence Eugene Snow was born on May 9, 1914, in Brooklyn, Nova Scotia, Canada. His mother, a silent-movies pianist, taught him rudimentary music. After his parents divorced when he was 8, he ended up with abusive grandparents. He ran away to rejoin his mother, only to be frequently beaten by his new stepfather.
Snow carried physical scars with him all his life, and he later formed a foundation to help neglected and abused children.
At age 12, he ran away to join the merchant marine and spent four years aboard fishing boats in the Atlantic.
At 16, he worked at a series of menial jobs. He started becoming seriously interested in music after hearing some of Rodgers' recordings. In Halifax, Nova Scotia, he sold Fuller Brush products and sang a song with each purchase. He began radio appearances there, changed his name from Clarence, and became billed as "Hank, the Yodeling Ranger." Later, as his baritone deepened, he became "the Singing Ranger."
Snow landed a contract with Canadian Bluebird and recorded 98 sides for the label before turning his attention to the U.S. market. In the early '40s, he and his performing horse, Shawnee, took to the road in the U.S. and got on barn dance programs in Dallas and Wheeling, W.Va.
Fellow Rodgers devotee Ernest Tubb got Snow his coveted slot on the Grand Ole Opry in 1950, and Hank Williams introduced him at his debut.
Snow later commissioned a statue of Rodgers, and he and Tubb organized the dedication ceremony for the statue. The ceremony turned into the first Jimmie Rodgers Celebration in Rodgers' hometown of Meridian, Miss., in 1953.
In the early 1950s, Snow and his manager, Col. Tom Parker, formed Hank Snow Enterprises-Jamboree Productions, a Nashville firm that booked Snow, Elvis Presley, Bill Haley & His Comets, and others. Snow got Presley his only appearance on the Grand Ole Opry, but Parker signed Presley to an exclusive management contract, and the firm dissolved.
Following his Opry debut, Snow signed with RCA and soon notched his first No. 1 hit with "I'm Moving On," followed by such hits as "I Don't Hurt Anymore" and "I've Been Everywhere." He stayed with RCA until the label, then paring down its roster of older artists, did not renew his contract in 1981. Bitter about the decision, he did not record again save for a 1985 duet album, "Brand On My Heart," with Willie Nelson on Columbia. Nelson asked him to record it.
During his career, Snow made 840 commercial recordings.
Snow's autobiography, "The Hank Snow Story," was published by the University of Illinois Press in 1994.
Snow is survived by his wife of 63 years, Minnie Blanch Aaiders Snow; his son, Jimmy Snow; and his sister, Marion Peach of Nova Scotia.