Hank Snow

Induction Year: 1978

Birth Name: Clarence Eugene Snow

Birth Date: 05-09-1914

Place of Birth: Brooklyn, Nova Scotia, Canada

Death Date: 12-20-1999

Place of Death: Madison, Tennessee

Country Music Hall of Famer Hank Snow often relied on the pens of others for his 840 commercial recordings, but he wrote several of his biggest hits, including the rollicking "I'm Moving On."

Released in 1950, "I'm Moving On" transformed Snow's career, and afterwards he became one of country's legendary artists. The song spent 21 weeks — more than a third of a year — as the #1 country song in the land. It spawned dozens of covers, including Top 20 hits for Ray Charles, Don Gibson and Emmylou Harris and notable versions by the Rolling Stones, the Everly Brothers and Rosanne Cash.

Born in Nova Scotia, Clarence Eugene Snow would become easily the most successful country star to emerge from Canada until Shania Twain's emergence in the 1990s. His triumphs did not come easily, though. He was raised in poverty and abused by a stepfather who he later wrote treated him "like a dog." The only joys of his childhood came through music. He learned to play on a mail-order guitar that his mother had purchased for her own enjoyment, and he fell under the musical spell of the man who would become his chief influence, Jimmie Rodgers.

Snow escaped his immediate environment as a teenager by taking work on a fishing boat, where he entertained his shipmates with songs. Back ashore, he sang on radio stations, billed as Hank the Yodeling Ranger, and made his first recordings in 1936 for a Canadian arm of RCA Victor. He had several hit records in Canada, but they were not hits in America. He yearned to find a U.S. audience, and Grand Ole Opry star Ernest Tubb helped him to land a spot on the Grand Ole Opry in 1950. His first U.S. single, "Marriage Vow," reached the country Top 10, but it was the second single — "I'm Moving On" — that brought him to popular attention.

From the beginning of his American career in 1949 through 1974, every one of Snow's singles reached the Top 40 of Billboard's country chart. His recording career with RCA lasted an astonishing 45 years from 1936 to 1981. He was a sonorous singer, a highly skilled lead guitarist and a nuanced interpreter of others' songs, but his career was constructed with the guitar and writing utensil with which he composed "I'm Moving On."

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Song Catalog

 

"Bluebird Island"

Hank Snow & Anita Carter1951 #4 country
 

"Brand on My Heart"

Hank Snow1945  
Willie Nelson & Hank Snow1985  
 

"I'm Moving In"

Hank Snow1956 #11 country

"I'm Moving On"

Hank Snow1950 #1 country
Les Paul & Mary Ford1955 
Ray Charles1959 #11 R&B, #40 pop
Don Gibson1960 #14 country
Connie Francis1962 
Al Hirt1963 
Rolling Stones1965 
Everly Brothers1967 
Elvis Presley1969 
Loggins & Messina1975 
Professor Longhair1978 
Emmylou Harris1983 #5 country
George Thorogood & the Destroyers1988 
Jimmie Dale Gilmore2005 
Rosanne Cash2009 
 

"Lonesome Blue Yodel"

Hank Snow1936  

"Music Makin' Mama From Memphis"

Hank Snow1951 #4 country
 

"My Two Timin' Woman"

Hank Snow1947  

"Reindeer Boogie"

(written with Peanut Faircloth)

Hank Snow1953 
Trisha Yearwood1998 #63 country
 

"The Blue Velvet Band"

Hank Snow1937  
 

"The Broken Wedding Ring"

Hank Snow1941  
 

"The Galveston Rose"

Hank Snow1942  

"The Golden Rocket"

Hank Snow1950 #1 country
Johnny Horton1959  
Jim & Jesse1970 # 38 country
Pat Boone1973  

"The Rhumba Boogie"

Hank Snow1951 #1 country
The Browns1963 
 

"Unwanted Sign Upon Your Heart"

Hank Snow1951 #6 country
 

"Who's Been Here Since I've Been Gone"

Hank Snow1976 #87 country

Other Media

Hank Snow

Induction Year: 1978