Records and Roots: The country legend Hank Snow topped charts with acoustic flair

When the train left the station while attached to the steaming words "That big eight-wheeler rollin' down the track means your true-lovin' daddy ain't comin' back," Canada gifted the world its greatest country singer.Clarence Eugene Snow was born 110 years ago today. Call him Hank Snow.Longtime country and Grand Ole Opry legend Stonewall Jackson told me one time, "Son, ain't no two roads to Nashville the same."That certainly applies to Hank Snow. Born in Brooklyn, Nova Scotia, Canada, Snow took quite the roundabout way to Nashville — i.e. country music stardom.Snow, a purveyor of foundational traditional country music, did not simply apply his planks in that realm alone. Mostly acoustic instrumentation, particularly during the 1940s and '50s, during his 50-plus years as a professional country musician he incorporated styles to include Hawaiian music, Latin rhythms particularly rumba sounds, jazz, deep Southern American blues, the mambo, gospel, and recitations.Snow recorded 840 songs for commercial consumption between 1936 and 1985. Each of those songs are available in a string of pricey box sets issued by Germany's Bear Family Records. For country music aficionados, they're akin to owning a Leonardo da Vinci painting. They're priceless.A whopping 85 singles charted on Billboard from 1949 and 1980. His first, 1949's "Marriage Vow," was the last of eight sides recorded in Chicago in March 1949. Mostly weepers, neither of the songs stamped Snow's ticket to stardom.Invited to appear at the Grand Ole Opry by Ernest Tubb, Snow pressed hard to make an impression on Opry management. Up from Dallas' Big "D" Jamboree, Snow cherished the opportunity for the big prize of Opry membership. Alas, he was not going over with Opry audiences.Until one year later. Snow recorded three more country weeping ballads in Nashville on March 28, 1950 for the RCA Victor label. Joe Talbot played steel guitar, Ernie Newton upright bass, and Tommy Vaden the fiddle. Snow accompanied himself on guitar. Their fourth tune made that day, "I'm Movin' On," struck gold.Vaden's fiddle saws the intro. Talbot's steel wails freight train-like. Precise enunciation, which became among Snow's signature traits, was intact from the start of "I'm Movin' On." The song about a man who's left his wife ("I've told you baby from time to time but you just wouldn't listen or pay me no mind, now I'm movin' on"), hopped a train enroute to "a pretty mama in Tennessee."Snow's "I'm Movin' On" debuted on Billboard's country chart on July 1, 1950. A month later, it sped its way to No. 1 on Aug. 19. Well into the fall, Snow's smash spent an astounding 21 weeks at No. 1, which held the record for Billboard's all-time greatest country record for about six decades.Avalanches of hits followed. Snow's catalog bulges with classics including 1954's resolute ballad "I Don't Hurt Anymore" and 1962's tongue-twisting travelogue "I've Been Everywhere."Consequently, Snow earned inductions into such halls of fame as the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1978 and the big kahuna, the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1979.But first came Snow's Dickensian childhood. Snow's parents divorced when he was eight years old. Incredible hardships befell Snow when his mother remarried. In his book from 1994, "The Hank Snow Story," Snow recalled his abusive stepfather: "I took many beatings from him and still carry scars across my body that were left by his ham-like hands."Barely into his teen years, Snow ran away from home. He went to sea aboard a fishing vessel, by which time he had become enamored with the music of Jimmie Rodgers. Snow idolized Rodgers. Most noticeably on record, Snow's guitar style bears strong imprints of Rodgers' impeccable country blues. Snow even named his only child, Jimmie Rodgers Snow, after his hero.Paired with influences from Rodgers and Canada's singing cowboy Wilf Carter, Snow began a long series of hurdles in search of music stardom. Frankly, he was in search of his own sound.Snow made his first records in the fall of 1936 in Montreal, Canada. Recorded for Canada's Bluebird Records, which was RCA's budget line, Snow recorded such songs as "Lonesome Blue Yodel" and "Galveston Rose." Known in those days as The Yodeling Ranger, he made nearly 100 sides from 1936 to 1949.Meanwhile, Snow longed for America. His goal was to become a country smash in the states and to become a member of the Grand Ole Opry alongside his contemporaries — particularly Ernest Tubb.Like a rhythmic poem by Langston Hughes, Hank Snow's dream was realized.Snow's engrossing voice and pinpoint enunciation jibed well with his impeccably clean guitar rhythms and leads. Add lyrically stout songs. By the time of his death on Dec. 20, 1999, Snow had long since become a legendary figure in the storied annals of country music.Unforgotten nearly 25 years after his death, one of country music's most distinctive voices holds up today. With a nod to his signature song, "I'm Movin' On," as imprinted on his coal black tombstone, Hank Snow is "still movin' on."