REMEMBERING THE LATE GREAT SLIM WHITMAN

HE  WAS  MY  MOST  FAVORITE  SINGER  OF  THE  20TH  CENTURY;

SO  I  NEED  TO  TAKE  SPACE  HERE  TO  GIVE  HIM  HONOR  FOR  THE  MANY  HUNDREDS  OF  SONGS  SLIM  WHITMAN  RECORDED  SINCE  1948  AT  AGE  24  TO  HIS  LAST  RECORDING  AT AGE  85.  I  WELL  REMEMBER AS  A  YOUNG  TEENAGER  IN  THE  1950s  AN  ARTICLE  IN  A  BRITISH  PAPER  WAS  HEADED  "YOU'LL  NEVER  SEE  SLIM  WHITMAN  IN  MOVIES."  THE  ARTICLES  WENT  ON  TO  SAY,  SLIM'S  WIFE  DID  NOT  MIND  HIM  BECOMING  FAMOUS  BUT  WANTED  HIM  TO  VOW  HE  WOULD  NOT  GO  TO  HOLLYWOOD  AND  MAKE  MOVIES.  SLIM  HAD  MARRIED  THE  MINISTER'S  DAUGHTER  WHERE  HIS  FAMILY  ATTENDED  CHURCH,  SHE  DID  NOT  LIKE  THE  "GOINGS ON"  IN  HOLLYWOOD.   SLIM  MADE  THE  VOW.  HE  AND  HIS  WIFE  WERE  DEDICATED  CHRISTIANS  AND  REGULARLY  ATTENDED  CHURCH.   SLIM  WAS  A  FANTASTIC  YODELER,  AND  MANY  BELIEVE  HE  HAS  THE  WORLD  RECORD  FOR  THE  LONGEST  SUSTAINED  YODEL - 45  SECONDS  ON  THE  SONG  "CHIMEBELLS"  BUT  MOST  OF  THE  WORLD  LOVED  HIS  LOVE  SONG  SINGING,  OFTEN  FEATURING  HIS  VARIED  FALSETTO,  THAT  MADE  HIM  UNIQUE.  OH  YES,  WHY  WAS  HE  CALLED  "THE  SMILING  STARDUSTER"?  IT  WAS  THE  ANNOUNCER  FROM  THE  LOUISIANA  HAYRIDE  THAT  HUNG  THE  LABEL  ON  HIM,  A  PART  JOKE;  SLIM  NEVER  SMILED  WHEN  HE  SANG [BUT  SMILED  OFTEN  WHEN  NOT  SINGING]  AND  HIS  YODEL/FALSETTO  WOULD  GO  SO  HIGH,  IT  TOUCHED  THE  STARS.  HENCE,  THE  SMILING  STARDUSTER.  I  WILL  ADD  A  FEW  COMMENTS  WHERE  THE  WRITER/S  ARE  SOMEWHAT  MISTAKEN.

Slim Whitman

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Slim Whitman
Slim Whitman (The Smiling Starduster)
Background information
Birth name	Ottis Dewey Whitman, Jr.
Also known as	O. D. Whitman, Slim Whitman
Born	January 20, 1923 Tampa, Florida, US
Died	June 19, 2013 (aged 90) Orange Park, Florida, US
Genres	Country and Western music,folk music, Contemporary Christian music
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, musician
Instruments	Acoustic guitar, vocals
Years active	1948–2010
Labels	RCA/Imperial/United Artists/Epic/Suffolk
Associated acts	Byron Whitman,Virginia Lee,Elvis Presley (toured with).

Ottis Dewey Whitman, Jr. (January 20, 1923 – June 19, 2013), known professionally as Slim Whitman, was an American country music and western music singer, songwriter and instrumentalist known for his yodeling abilities and his smooth high three octave range falsetto. He stated that he had sold in excess of 120 million records. In the 1950s Whitman toured with Elvis Presley.^{[1] (DID  NOT  TOUR  SO  MUCH  AS  RECOMMEND  ELVIS  BE  BROUGHT  ONTO  THE  LOUISIANA  HAYRIDE  PROGRAM,  BECAUSE  AS  SLIM  SAID,  WHEN  THIS  YOUNG  GUY  CAME  ON  STAGE  AT  ONE  STOP  ALONG  A  TOUR,  HE  TOOK  OVER  THE  SHOW,  BEING  SO  POPULAR - SO  ELVIS  GOT  HIS  FIRST  BIG  START  AT  THE  LOUISIANA  HAYRIDE,  WHERE  HE  COPIED  THE  LONG  SIDE-BURNS  FROM  SLIM - Keith Hunt)}

Although once known as Americas Favorite Folk Singer, he was consistently more popular throughout Europe, and in particular the United Kingdom, than in his native America, especially with his covers of pop standards, film songs, love songs, folk tunes and melodic gospel hymns. His 1955 hit single "Rose Marie" held the Guinness World Record for the longest time at number one on the UK Singles Chart for 36 years until Bryan Adams broke the record in 1991 and was listed in British Hit Singles & Albums.  (IT  WAS  ONLY  BROKEN  BY  BRIAN  ADAMS  BECAUSE  THE  MASSES  OF  YOUNG  FOLK  DELIBERATELY  SET  ABOUT  TO  BREAK  IT,  SO  IT  WAS  NOT  A  TRUE  BREAKING  OF  THE  RECORD  HELD  BY  SLIM  AT  ALL  -  Keith Hunt)  In the US his "Indian Love Call" (1952) and "Secret Love" (1953) both reached number two on the Billboard country chart. Whitman had a string of hits from the mid-1960s and into the 1970s and became known to a new generation of fans through television direct marketing in the 1980s. Throughout the 1990s and into the 21st century, he continued to tour extensively around the world and release new material, Whitman garnered a new generation of fans when his music was featured in the 1996 film Mars Attacks!, where everytime an old lady (played by Sylvia Sidney) and her resourceful grandson (Lukas Haas) plays his music, the heads of the invading aliens explode. His last album, Twilight on the Trail, produced by his son Byron Whitman was a cover of western standards including the Gene Autry single Back in the Saddle Again and was released in 2010.

Biography[edit source]

Whitman was born Ottis Dewey Whitman Jr, in Tampa, Florida, on January 20, 1923.^[2][3][4] Growing up, he liked the country music of Jimmie Rodgers and the songs of Gene Autry, but he did not embark on a musical career of his own until the end of World War II, after he had served in the South Pacific with the United States Navy.

Whitman, a self-taught left-handed guitarist was right-handed, but he had lost almost all of the second finger on his left hand in an accident.^[5] He worked at a Tampa shipyard while developing a musical career, eventually performing with a band known as the Variety Rhythm Boys. Whitman's first big break came when talent manager "Colonel" Thomas Parker heard him singing on the radio and offered to represent him.^[5] After signing with RCA Records,^[5] he was billed as "the cowboy singer Slim Whitman" and released his first single in 1948. He toured and sang at a variety of venues, including on the radio show Louisiana Hayride.

At first, he was not able to make a living from music and kept a part-time job. That changed in the early 1950s after he recorded a version of the Bob Nolan hit Love Song of the Waterfall, which made it into the country music top ten.^[2] His next single, "Indian Love Call," was even more successful, reaching number two in the country music charts and appearing in the pop music charts top ten in the US.^[2]

A yodeller, Whitman avoided the "down on yer luck buried in booze" songs, preferring instead to sing laid-back romantic melodies about simple life and love. Critics dubbed his style "countrypolitan," owing to its fusion of country music and a more sophisticated crooning vocal style.^[6] Although he recorded many western tunes, love and romance songs figured prominently in his repertoire.

In 1955 in the United Kingdom, he had a No.1 hit on the pop music charts with "Rose Marie." With nineteen weeks in the charts and eleven weeks at the top of the UK Singles Chart,^[7] the song set a record that lasted for 36 years. In 1956 he became the first ever country music singer to perform at the London Palladium.^[8] Soon after, Whitman was invited to join the Grand Ole Opry, and in 1957, along with other musical stars, he appeared in the film musical Jamboree. Despite this exposure, he never achieved the level of stardom in the United States that he did in Britain, where he had a number of other hits during the 1950s.^[7] Throughout the early 1970s, he continued to record and was a guest on Wolfman Jack's television show The Midnight Special.^[8] At the time, Whitman's recording efforts were yielding only minor hits in the US. The mid 1970s were a successful time for Whitman in the UK Albums Chart. In 1976 a compilation album, "The Very Best of Slim Whitman" was number one for six weeks staying seventeen weeks on the chart. Another number one album followed in 1977 withRed River Valley; four weeks at number one and fourteen weeks on the chart. Later the same year his album "Home on the Range" made number 2 on the chart amassing a chart stay of thirteen weeks only to be kept from the top place by 20 Golden Greats by the Supremes.^[7][9]

The TV albums briefly made Whitman a household name in America for the first time in his career, resulting in everything from a first-time appearance on The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson to Whitman being parodied in a comic skit on SCTV with him (played by Joe Flaherty) starring in the Che-like male lead in an Evita-like Broadway musical on the life of Indira Gandhi. More importantly, the TV albums gave him a brief resurgence in mainstream country music with new album releases on major labels and a few new singles making the country charts. During this time he toured Europe and Australia with moderate success. (THE  IDEA  THAT  SLIM  WAS  HARDLY  KNOWN  BEFORE  1980  IS  ALSO  FALSE.  MAYBE  HE  BECAME  A  HOUSEHOLD  NAME  THEN  IN  AMERICA,  BUT SLIM  WHITMAN  WAS  VERY  WELL  KNOWN,  AT  LEAST  IN  THE  COUNTRY/WESTERN  WORLD  WAY  BACK  IN  THE  1950s  AND  THE  1960s.  I  KNOW  BECAUSE  I  WAS  IN  CANADA  BY  1961.  HIS  LPs  WERE  IN  THE  RECORD  STORES,  THE  COUNTRY/WESTERN  STATION  PLAYED  HIS  SONGS  REGULARLY,  AND  ALL  THE  JUKE-BOXES  CONTAINED AT  LEAST  ONE  SONG  BY  SLIM  WHITMAN.  SLIM  WAS  VERY  POPULAR  DURING  THOSE  TWO  DECADES  RIGHT  UP  TO  1972.  THEN  HE  CAME  BACK  WITH  A  HUGE  BANG  IN  1980  WHEN  A  RECORD  PROMOTING  COMPANY  WAS  WILLING  TO  GO  NORTH  AMERICAN  WIDE  ON  TV,  WITH  ADS  FOR  SLIM  WHITMAN.  THEN  IT  WAS  MORE  THAN  JUST  COUNTRY  MUSIC  PEOPLE,  BUT  ALL  PEOPLE   GOT  TO  KNOW  SLIM'S  LOVE  SONG  SINGING,  AND  YOUNG  AND  OLD  WERE  SMITTEN,  PROVING  THE  NORTH  AMERICAN  PEOPLE  WERE  NO  DIFFERENT  THAN  THE  BRITISH  IF  THEY  GOT  TO  KNOW  SLIM'S  FULL  RANGE  OF  SONGS.  FROM  1980-83  HE  SOLD  MILLIONS  OF  LPs.  IN  NORTH  AMERICA.  -  Keith Hunt)

In late January 2008, a false rumor of his death spread through the internet, believed to have been started by an erroneous report posted on the web site of the Nashville Tennessean newspaper.^[10]

In 2010, after more than 8 years in production at the age of 85, Whitman released the album, Twilight on the Trail, his first new studio LP in 26 years, produced by his son Byron Whitman and featuring many well known session musicians.^[8]

Personal life[edit source]

After 1957 Whitman lived at Woodpecker Paradise, in Middleburg, a city located south of Orange Park, Florida, in Clay County.^[11][12]

Whitman's wife of 67 years, Alma Geraldine "Jerry" Crist Whitman, born in Kansas passed away aged 84, she was a songwriter and embroiderer as well as the daughter of a church minister Mr A.D Crist, founder of the church of the brethren She died in 2009 as a result of kidney failure. They had a daughter, Sharron Beagle; and a son, Byron K. Whitman, who is also a performer and who toured and recorded with his father on numerous occasions. They have two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren^[13]

Slim Whitman died of heart failure^[14] on June 19, 2013 at age ninety, surrounded by family at Orange Park Medical Center in Orange Park, Florida.^[15][16]

Legacy[edit source]

Narcissus ('Slim Whitman' cultivar), Real Jardín Botánico de Madrid

For his contribution to the recording industry, Slim Whitman was given the accolade of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1709 Vine Street.^[17] He was inducted into theCountry Music Hall of Fame and Museum's Walkway of Stars in 1968.^[17]

The late pop singer Michael Jackson cited Whitman as one of his ten favorite vocalists.^[18] Beatle George Harrison cited Whitman as an early influence: "The first person I ever saw playing a guitar was Slim Whitman, either a photo of him in a magazine or live on television. Guitars were definitely coming in."^[19] When a young Paul McCartney purchased his first guitar, the left-handed musician was unsure how to play an instrument that was manufactured and strung for a right-handed player. It wasn't until McCartney saw a picture of Whitman playing left-handed that he re-strung his guitar so that he too could play left-handed.^[20][21]

The 1996 film Mars Attacks! features Whitman's rendition of "Indian Love Call" as a weapon against alien invaders.^[8][22] In 2003, Rob Zombie used Whitman's song "I Remember You" in his movie directorial debut in House of 1000 Corpses.^[8]

YES  THERE  IS  A  TULIP  NAMED  AFTER  SLIM.