Many of us grow up listening to country music, which is also known as country and western, and hillbilly music. It is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern United States in the early 1920s. It takes its roots from genres such as American folk music and blues.
Clarence Eugene "Hank" Snow (May 9, 1914 – December 20, 1999) was a Canadian-American country music artist. In a career that spanned more than 50 years, he recorded 140 albums and charted more than 85 singles on the Billboard country charts from 1950 until 1980.
Snow was an accomplished songwriter whose clear, baritone voice expressed a wide range of emotions including the joys of freedom and travel as well as the anguish of tortured love. His music was rooted in his beginnings in small-town Nova Scotia where, as a frail, 80-pound youngster, he endured extreme poverty, beatings and psychological abuse as well as physically punishing labour during the Great Depression. Through it all, his musically talented mother provided the emotional support he needed to pursue his dream of becoming a famous entertainer like his idol, the country star,Jimmy Rodgers.
In 1996, Snow began experiencing respiratory problems which forced him to retire from performing. He died three years later at 12:30am on December 20, 1999, from heart failure at his Rainbow Ranch in Madison, TN and was interred in the Spring Hill Cemetery in Nashville, TN,