On today’s date in 1950, Canadian country music legend Hank Snow landed his first No. 1 hit with I’m Moving On.
The song, which spent 21 weeks at the top of the Billboard country singles chart, was the first of seven No. 1 singles for the Nova Scotia native who’s also known for the song I’ve Been Everywhere.
Snow grew up poor and worked a number of menial jobs, including cabin boy on a fishing boat as well as a woodcutter, before getting his start on a Halifax radio station. Christened “Clarence Snow” and nicknamed Jack, he adopted the name Hank at the advice of the radio announcer, who said the name went with western music.
In 1945, as Snow began to make inroads into the U.S. market, he moved to Nashville, where he played at the Grand Ole Opry for the first time in 1950.
He has since been inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame and Nova Scotia Music Hall of Fame. A prolific artist, he recorded 140 albums and charted more than 85 singles before retiring from performing in 1996.
Altogether, he sold more than 70 million records in a career that spanned more than half a century.
Snow (top left) was featured alongside Renée Martel (middle left); Shania Twain (bottom left); Tommy Hunter (bottom centre); and k.d. lang (bottom right) on a five-stamp souvenir sheet.
2014 SNOW STAMP
In 2014, to mark the 100th anniversary of Snow’s birth, Canada Post featured the famed Canadian country singer on a Permanent stamp (Scott #2766) as part of its “Canadian Country Artists” series (SC #2766-70).
Each of the series’ five stamps was also featured together on a souvenir sheet (SC #2675).
“Our selection for this stamp series reflects the remarkable variety within Canadian – and international – country music, crossing generations and musical approaches,” said Deepak Chopra, then president and CEO of Canada Post.
The Canadian Country Artists stamps measure 40 millimetres by 32 millimetres (horizontal) and are available in five separate booklets of 10, one featuring each artist. Five separate souvenir sheets measure 140 millimetres by 110 millimetres each. The stamps were printed by Lowe-Martin.
Snow died on Dec. 20, 1999, at his home in Madison, Tennessee. He was 85 years old.