Slim Whitman

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Ottis Dewey Whitman Jr. (January 20, 1923 – June 19, 2013), professionally known by the stage name Slim Whitman, was an American country music, western music and folk music artist singer-songwriter and instrumentalist those known for his yodeling abilities and his smooth, high, three-octave-range falsetto in a style christened as "countrypolitan".

He personally stated that he had sold in excess of 120 million records, although the recorded sales figures give 70 million, during a career that spanned over seven decades, and consisted of a prolific output of over 100 albums and around 500 recorded songs, that not only consisted of country music, but also of contemporary gospel, Broadway show tunes, love songs and standards.

In the 1950s, Whitman toured with Elvis Presley as the opening act.

In the 1990s a new generation was exposed to Whitman through his songs featured in the film Mars Attacks!; his iconic "Indian Love Call" would kill the invading Martians every time the record was played.

Personal life

Whitman was married to Alma Geraldine "Jerry" Crist Whitman for 67 years. Jerry was born in Kansas, the daughter of church minister, A.D. Crist. She was a songwriter and embroiderer. Together Whitman and his wife had a daughter, Sharron Beagle (b. 1942), and a son, Byron Keith Whitman (b. 1957). They also had two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Byron is a performer and music producer, has released a number of recordings, and toured and recorded with his father on numerous occasions.

From 1957 until his death, Whitman lived at his estate, Woodpecker Paradise, in Middleburg, a city located south of Orange Park, Florida, in Clay County. The biography Mr. Songman: The Slim Whitman Story by Kenneth L. Gibble was published in 1982.

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Career

Whitman was a left-handed guitarist who was self-taught, but he was right-handed. He had almost all of his left hand lost while working at a meat packing plant when he was injured. When starting a musical career, he spent time in odd jobs at a Tampa shipyard, eventually performing with bands such as the Variety Rhythm Boys and the Light Crust Doughboys. After a brief stint with a company called The Stardusters, he was briefly named The Smiling Starduster. "Colonel" Tom Parker, Whitman's first big break, appeared on the radio and invited him to represent him. After signing with RCA Records, he was dubbed "the cowboy singer Slim Whitman," after Canadian singer Wilf Carter, who was known in the United States as Montana Slim. In 1948, Whitman's first single, "I'm Casting My Lasso Towards The Sky," was released, complete with yodel. He performed and appeared in a number of places, including the radio show Louisiana Hayride.

He was unable to make a living off music and worked part-time at a post office at first. After he recorded a version of the Bob Nolan hit "Love Song of the Waterfall," which made it to the country music top ten, it changed in the early 1950s. His next album, "Indian Love Call," taken from light operetta Rose-Marie's light opera, was even more popular, debuting in the country music charts and debuting in the top ten and the top ten.

Whitman, a country music enthusiast, was buried in booze" songs, instead of singing laid-back romantic melodies about basic life and love. Critics referred to his style as "countrypolitan" in the fusion of country music and a more modern crooning vocal style. Despite recording several country and western tunes, including hits "Tumbling Tumbleweeds," "Singing Hills," and "The Cattle Call," he performed well, love and romance songs such as "Serenade," "Everything Beautiful (to remember)" and "Keep It a Secret" featured prominently in his set list.

With the theme song to the opera "Rose Marie," he will have a No.1 hit on the pop music charts in the United Kingdom in 1955. With nineteen weeks on the charts and eleven weeks at the top of the UK Singles Chart, the band set a record that lasted for 36 years. He was the first-ever country music performer to perform at the London Palladium in 1956. Whitman was invited to join the Grand Ole Opry in 1957, and along with other musical stars, he appeared in the film musical Jamboree. Despite this exposure, he never achieved the same fame in the United States as he did in the United Kingdom, where he had a number of other hits during the 1950s. He continued to record and appeared on Wolfman Jack's television show The Midnight Special in the early 1970s. Whitman's recording efforts in the United States were only producing modest success. Whitman's mid-1970s were a fruitful time for him in the UK Albums Chart. Slim Whitman's compilation album, The Very Best of Slim Whitman, debuted for six weeks in 1976, and stayed for seventeen weeks on the charts. Red River Valley, 1977, is the first album to follow. The chart also has a number one: four weeks at number one and fourteen weeks. Home on the Range's album debuted on the charts at number two on the charts last year and had a 13-week average.

With almost 1.5 million units sold in 1979, Whitman created a TV commercial to promote Suffolk Marketing's unveiling of a greatest hits compilation called All My Best, which went on to be the second best-selling TV-marketed album in music history (behind Peter Lemongello's "Love "76" album three years ago). Just For You, which was also under the Suffolk banner, followed Whitman in 1980 with a commercial that said Whitman "was the highest in England longer than Elvis and The Beatles." In 1982, the Best followed, with Whitman completing his television advertising with Best Loved Favorites in 1989 and in 1991. Twilight on the Trail, his last film, appeared in 2010, 55 years since his first appearance.

Slim was voted Best International Male Vocalist at The International Country Music Awards in 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979.

For the first time in his career, the TV series made Whitman a household name in America for the first time in his lifetime, with Johnny Carson playing in a comedy skit on SCTV starring him and Whitman being parodied in a Jericho-like male lead in an Evita-like Broadway musical based on Indira Gandhi's life. With new album launches on major labels and a few new singles on the country charts, we can say for a brief revival in mainstream country music. He toured Europe and Australia with modest success during this period.

Despite being known as "America's Favorite Folk Singer" on some European continents, in particular the United Kingdom, was more popular in Europe, particularly in the United Kingdom, than in his native America, particularly with his covers of pop standards, film songs, love songs, folk tunes, and melodic gospel hymns. "Rose Marie," his 1955 hit song, spent 11 weeks on the UK Singles Chart and held the Guinness World Record for the longest number of weeks on the UK Singles Chart for 36 weeks before Bryan Adams broken the record in 1991 and was published in British Hit Singles & Albums. His "Indian Love Call" (1952) and a reworking of the Doris Day "Secret Love" (1953) reached No. 1 in the United States. 2 on the Billboard world map. Whitman had a string of top ten hits from the mid- to late 1970s, and he was introduced to a new generation of followers in the 1980s through television direct marketing. He toured extensively around the world throughout the 1990s and into the 21st century, and after several years of non-studio recording, he released a new album (his last work) Twilight on the Trail in 2010.

Whitman's last album under contract Angeline was released in 1984, after which he went on tour and with his last U.K. appearance at Norwich in October 2002 & in the United States in Oct. 2003. In 1988 'Magic Moments,' 1989' Best Loved Favourites,' the first-selling t.v. at the time, he released additional albums. The Legendary Slim Whitman Traditional Country, the first album to be released, 1993.'20 Precious Memories,' Whitman released the album Twilight on the Trail in 2010, after eight years of continuous production; he was 87 years old at the time of its release. Gene Autry's hit "Back in the Saddle Again" and Roy Rogers and Dale Evans' television theme song were included on the album. It was produced by his son Byron Whitman and featured many well-known session players, including long-time band member Harold Bradley.

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