TRAILBLAZERS
PEOPLE WHO SHAPED THE WEST
Hank Snow The Singing Ranger By FRED HAUCK
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hen we think of singing cowboys, we think Gene Autry and Roy Rogers, and here in Canada, we add Wilf Carter (also known as Montana Slim) and Clarence Eugene Snow. If the name C.E. Snow doesn’t ring a bell, maybe his stage name of Hank Snow might.
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Hank Snow, Canada’s Singing Ranger
attracted Hank. He learned Jimmie’s songs but dressed the part in a 10-gallon hat and chaps. His first radio job was at CHNS in Halifax. He was hired to do a daily radio show, and his theme song was Jimmie Rodgers’ “Yodelling Cowboy.” A superb self-taught guitarist, Hank also taught lessons. While in Nova Scotia, he married his wife, Minnie, and they would remain married for 55 years. They soon had their only child, Jimmie Rodgers Snow, named after Hank’s idol. In 1936, Hank made his first recording for Victor on the Bluebird label (later RCA Victor) in Montreal. The first two songs were “Lonesome Blue Yodel” and “The Prisoned Cowboy.” The name on the record was Hank, The Yodeling Ranger.
Canadian Cowboy Country April/May 2020
PHOTOS COURTESY FRED HAUCK COLLECTION
Hank Snow was born May 9, 1914, in Brooklyn, Nova Scotia. When he was eight, his parents separated, and the local Overseer of the Poor removed the children from her home because of her inability to support them. One sister moved in with an aunt, the other two were sent to separate foster homes, and Snow himself went to live with his paternal grandmother, a cruel woman who ordered him never to mention his mother’s name and subjected him to severe beatings as well as psychological abuse. Snow would sneak away to visit his mother in nearby Liverpool and eventually, after his grandmother failed to get him sent to reform school, he was allowed to rejoin his mother. At age 12 he went to sea as a cabin boy. Four years later, during a gale, the schooner was almost shipwrecked on Sable Island and that was the end of his fishing career. Having no home to go to, he spent many nights sleeping in the Liverpool train station. One of his waterfront jobs was unloading salt. Hank purchased his first guitar — a $5.95 T. Eaton Special with his earnings. While in Nova Scotia he heard recordings of the “Old Blue Yodeler,” Jimmie Rodgers. Hank took an instant liking to the singer. Jimmie sang about trains, dressed as an engineer and the fact that he worked on railroads, got him the name The Singing Brakeman. Jimmie also did western songs and dressed as a cowboy. The cowboy image
