Artist: Slim Whitman
Genre(s):
Country
Other
Folk
Discography:
Rose Marie CD 6
Year: 1996
Tracks: 18
Rose Marie CD 5
Year: 1996
Tracks: 30
Rose Marie CD 4
Year: 1996
Tracks: 31
Rose Marie CD 3
Year: 1996
Tracks: 28
Rose Marie CD 2
Year: 1996
Tracks: 28
Rose Marie CD 1
Year: 1996
Tracks: 27
The Legendary Fertig
Year:
Tracks: 1
Tennessee waltz
Year:
Tracks: 16
Though he was once known as "America's Favorite Folksinger," Slim Whitman was, for the bulk of his life history, more noted in Europe than in the United States. Best remembered for his early-'50s hit singles like "Love Song of the Waterfall," "Indian Love Call," and "Vocalizing Hills," Whitman was an splendid yodeler known for singing mellow, amatory and clear songs.
As a youngster, Slim Whitman (born Ottis Dewey Whitman, Jr.) became in love with music and well-educated to yodel hearing to Montana Slim and Jimmie Rodgers records. At old age 17, he married 15-year-old Geraldine Crist, a preacher's girl. The newlyweds touched to a 40-acre raise south of Jacksonville, FL, where Whitman worked as a meat packer. While working in the implant, he suffered an accident and lost two fingers on his left hand. After the accident, he began on the job in a Tampa shipyard. During World War II, Whitman served in the US Navy, where he learned to play guitar. Following the warfare, he returned to the shipyard and also coupled a local minor league baseball squad, the Plant City Berries. Whitman remained with the squad through 1948, just and so began building a tattle vocation at several Tampa radio stations of the Cross, finally creating a backup band, the Variety Rhythm Boys.
Svelte Whitman got his number one grownup break after Colonel Tom Parker -- wHO was managing Eddy Arnold at the time -- heard him singing on radio station WFLA. Parker landed a contract with RCA for Whitman by the end of 1948. After reluctantly complying with the label's request to change his first base identify to "Slender," he released his first single, "I'm Casting My Lasso Towards the Sky" -- eventually to suit his composition birdsong. He made his national debut on the Mutual Network's Smokey Mountain Hayride in the summertime of 1949, and the following year coupled the Louisiana Hayride. Despite his national exposure, Whitman's career wasn't making much of an impact and he was forced to take a job as a parttime letter carrier.
In the early '50s, he released a cover of Bob Nolan's "Love Song of the Waterfall," which became his breakthrough hit, peaking at number ten on the res publica charts; the follow-up single, "Indian Love Call," made him a headliner, peaking at number two on the res publica charts and crossroad over into the pop Top Ten. Both sides of his next single -- "Sustain It a Secret" / "My Heart Is Broken in Three" -- were as well major hits and he continued to have a twine of Top Ten hits into the mid-'50s. In 1955, his title birdcall for the film Rose-Marie became a smash on both sides of the Atlantic; following its success, Whitman joined the Grand Ole Opry, and then went to Britain in 1956 as the number one country singer to play the London Palladium. Throughout the late '50s and early '60s, he had a string of British hits, including "Acrobatics Tumbleweeds," "Unchain My Heart," and "I'll Take You Home Again Kathleen."
Although he was experiencing great success in the UK, Whitman's career was in inert in the US. After 1954's "Singing Hills," he had only deuce Top 40 hits in the course of a tenner. In 1965, he bounced back into the country Top Ten with "More Than Yesterday." For the next few days, he had a serial of minor commonwealth hits, including "Rainbows Are Back in Style" (1968), "Happy Street" (1968) and "Tomorrow Never Comes" (1970). Throughout the early '70s, he continued to accept minor hits, simply in 1974, he retired from active recording.
In 1979, Whitman filmed a television commercial to reinforcement Suffolk Marketing's release of a collection of his greatest hits. On the strength of the commercials, All My Best sold four-spot million records and became the best-selling television-marketed record album in history. After its achiever, the tag released Just for You in 1980 and The Best in 1982. Between 1980 and 1984, Whitman had a pocket-size run of minor hits, highlighted by 1980's telephone number 15 hit, "When." In the late '80s, he returned to television-marketed albums, cathartic Slim Whitman -- Best Loved Favorites in 1989 and 20 Precious Memories in 1991. During the '90s, Whitman recorded infrequently but continued to circuit successfully, particularly in Europe and Australia.
