Radio ... and Me - 4

We listened to a lot of homegrown country music on local radio in the mid-1950s.
Two singers had already reached great international fame:
-- Hank Snow, ‘The Singing Ranger,’ hailed from the South Shore, N.S., and first worked as a fisherman on the Grand Banks. His first musical break came in the 40s, when he had a regular show on CHNS Radio, in Halifax. He later moved to Nashville, but failed to catch on, until 1949, when he found 'overnight' fame with I’m Movin’ On, the first of many train songs. He then accepted a coveted invitation to join the Grand Ole Opry. He recorded for a total of 49 years with R-C-A, worked closely with guitarist / producer, Chet Atkins, and became an early mentor of Elvis Presley. To see how the hometown folks have marked his career, check out the Hank Snow Country Music Centre.

-- Wilf Carter, a.k.a., ‘Montana Slim’, came from the Eastern Shore, N.S. Since he had toured western Canada and the U-S working as a cowboy, he specialized in authentic cowboy songs, such as, There’s a Love Knot in my Larait, and Strawberry Roan, about a young bronc rider trying to ‘break’ a wild horse. He, too, performed well into his seventies.

There were many performers and styles of fiddle music:
-- Don Messer and His Islanders, had a daily national CBC Radio Network show from CFCY, Charlottetown, P.E.I. They later went on to host a national show which consistently earned top ratings on CBC TV for more than a dozen years. They presented a variety of jigs, reels, and waltzes, such as Little Burnt Potato, with a softer country band sound, and featured songs by Marg Osborne and Charlie Chamberlain. There was a revolt all across the land -- and even on the floor of the House of Commons -- when their TV show was suddenly cancelled by the programmers in Toronto. Check out their history in the Canadian Encyclopedia.
-- Winston ‘Scotty’ Fitzgerald, was the champion of Scottish Fiddle music, which was based primarily from kitchen parties and tiny halls in Cape Breton, such as, MacNab’s Hornpipe.
The ‘come-from-away’ fiddlers of note included,
-- Ned Landry, and the New Brunswick Lumberjacks, who made a hit of, Saturday Night Breakdown. He would sometimes play complicated tunes on the fiddle after donning a pair of heavy woolen mittens!
-- Ward Allen, in the style of the Ottawa Valley, who wrote and performed, Maple Sugar.

Local radio stations, along with these and other performers -- many of whom had to work at 'day-jobs' -- continued to play down-home music, and paved the way for today's flourishing Maritime music industry.