By Graham "Buzz" Baker
"HANK SNOW" MEMORIAL SERVICE
Liverpool, N.S. December 23, 1999

Some years ago, the Friends of Hank Snow Society put out a little lapel button which reads "Hank Snow". And I know we all have our thoughts of Hank Snow when we first heard his music, or saw him perform, or perhaps read about him. For some people he became very important in their life. I look down there and I see Frankie Carver; no day passes that Frankie doesn’t pick up his guitar and sing a Hank Snow song. And he is impacted on many, many people. I’d just like to run down a few highlights of my association with him which speaks not of me, but the effect he had on various groups.

I remember back in the late 40’s, the days before television, being camped in front of the radio, listening over CHNS, Hank would come on and do his little songs, "Hank Snow and his guitar".

By 1950 when he had established himself as a star across North America, we’d come home from school and have lunch, and Westernaires would be on, and Hank would be singing "Movin’ On". He really had made his impact all across Canada, and now into the United States.

In ‘53 I was in the Air Force, stationed at Portage La Prairie, in Manitoba, and at that time you would go in the barracks, and you could hear the Hank Snow songs being played. He was so popular, you couldn’t go into a bowling alley or a cafe without the sound of Hank Snow.

When I got out of the Air Force, I went down to the States, and I was living in Southern Connecticut. But there was a great colony of Nova Scotians. People from P.E.I. and Nova Scotia, who had gone down there to work because work was plentiful. And we would all gather, generally Saturday night before we would go out to the dance, and we would start playing Hank Snow songs, a bit of home. There were many nights that we never made the dance because we would just play the records and talk to each other about the Maritimes.

I remember one time driving through Virginia, and you know, you’re listening to the hit parade, and they’re doin’ the number 4 song, and number 3, number 2, and so on; and the announcer says, "and now number 1 all over the world, Hank Snow, Ninety Miles An Hour Down A Dead End Stream". And when you heard he was doing so well, it picked you up, it was like you were doing good; his successes were our successes, cause he was a guy from back home and it was a wonderful thing.
Musicians Jamie Cotter and Chet Brown pause to pay their respects to Hank Snow.

I was living in Coconut Grove, Florida, and on the radio the announcer said, "Here’s Hank Snow’s latest song, it sold more copies than any song he’s ever put out in the first six weeks", and this was "I’ve Been Everywhere". And I looked in the paper and I saw he was coming to Dade County Auditorium in Miami. So we went up to see the show, and I’m telling you, three times around the Auditorium people were lined up to get in to see Hank Snow.

He had really established himself across the continent. But you know, on the back of almost every album, he bragged about being from Nova Scotia. He even entitled two of his albums, My Nova Scotia Home. And wherever he performed, he always had a warm word for the folks back in Canada who supported him early on.

In the early 80’s, I had a chance to meet Hank, and we had a couple of things in common many people don’t know it, but Hank was a hobby painter.

He was on tour in Nova Scotia when I met him, and sometime after that he asked me to do a few errands for him. He was getting ready to write his book, and in the book he wanted to place photographs of the various sailing skippers that he had sailed with out of Lunenburg, and some of the vessels. So I was very pleased to do this assignment for Hank, and he said I’m going to give you a little "thank you" in the book. The book went on for many, many years, before they put it together, but sure enough when the book came out, there was, "thank you for your effort".

Despite the fact, the photographs were never used, and I was told by the publisher that if they had put everything in the book, it would have weighed 30 lbs, and they’d have to sell it for $60. So there’s enough material there for a number of other books.

Sometime after that, Hank got a'hold of me and he said, "You know , I’d like to play the Lunenburg Exhibition, sort of for a sentimental fashion". So I went to the people in Lunenburg, and I said, "Hank’s interested in coming back to Lunenburg". And the people who were running the entertainment section at that time, said to me, "Why, Hank Snow wouldn’t draw flies in Lunenburg". So I unfortunately was not able to set that up, but the next year the Irving's brought Hank Snow to the Maritimes on a tour. And when he reached Bridgewater, he drew 8,000 flies! And when he got to Dartmouth, there was 12,000; and when he got up to Sydney, there was 17,000; and in Kentville, the town was so packed, you couldn’t move for four hours. So he certainly, by this time, had become a country music "Icon".

Some years ago I was asked to write a little piece about Hank and his music. I remember at the end of that, I summed it up by saying, "You know, no country music performer was as versatile as Hank Snow. He could sing, he could write songs. He was an instrumentalist who could play with the best,- Chet Atkins. His recitations are art-forms. If you listen to his recordings of "The Tales of the Yukon",- Robert Service poems, Hank Snow was the whole ‘ball of wax’".

When we think of Hank Snow, you have to think that as a young boy, Hank had a dream, and he made the dream come true and we all benefited from that. Our lives were enriched, so all we can say to Hank is "A JOB WELL DONE!"