Little Hatch (October 25, 1921 – January 14, 2003) was an American electric blues singer, musician, and harmonica player.
Hatch was born Provine Hatch Jr., in Sledge, Mississippi, United States. He learned to play the harmonica from his father. Hearing blues and gospel music, Hatch knew he wanted to make music for a living. When he was 14 years old, his family moved to Helena, Arkansas, and the blues scene there caught his attention.
Hatch joined the Navy in 1943. After his tour of duty, he relocated to Kansas City, Missouri, in 1946. He worked for a cartage company for two years and then founded his own cartage business and married. In the early 1950s, Hatch began jamming in blues clubs in Kansas City. He closed his business in 1954 and took a job with Hallmark Cards. In 1955, he formed and fronted his own band, playing on the weekends and a few nights a week. This group continued to perform for more than 20 years. By the late 1950s, Hatch's harmonica style became influenced by Chicago blues players such as Little Walter, Snooky Pryor and Junior Wells.
Here's "Rock Me Baby" from above album
A performance by Hatch was recorded by German exchange students in 1971, and these recordings were released on the album The Little Hatchet Band, but its distribution was limited to Germany and Belgium. Hatch retired from Hallmark in 1986. His band, Little Hatch and the House Rockers, was hired as the house band of the Grand Emporium Saloon in Kansas City. A cassette tape of his blues performances at the Grand Emporium was released in 1988. Little Hatch and the House Rockers performed a Friday evening matinee from 6-8pm starting in 1987, with bass player Joe Wittfeld, drummer Dennis Spears, and guitarist Kirk Brown.
Various members of the band circulated with personnel changes including Memphis Mike McDaniel on guitar, Woody Davis on drums, Bill Dye on guitar, and Jaisson Taylor on drums. The album Well, All Right! was recorded on May 31, 1992, at the Grand Emporium venue in Kansas City, Missouri. The personnel on that recording was: Little Hatch, Bill Dye, guitar, Joe Wittfeld, bass, and Jaisson Taylor on drums. The subsequent release was in 1993, and the band played in Belgium at the Handazame Blues Festival in 1994. The Little Hatch and the House Rockers band played the Kansas City, Missouri Spirit Festival that same year. Hatch's band played at the first KC Spirit Festival, in 1986, with the lineup of Kirk Brown, guitar, Dennis Spears, drums, and Joe Wittfeld, bass. The band played virtually every KC Spirit Festival from 1986, until Hatch died.
The band also played the Kansas City Kansas Street Festival where, Little Hatch was awarded the title of a "King" during the festival. Congressman Emmanuel Cleaver established a "Little Hatch Day", during his tenure as Kansas City, Missouri's Mayor. Little Hatch's band also played the Garden City, Kansas Blues Festival, with "Memphis Mike" McDaniel, guitar, Howard Bradley, drums and Joe Wittfeld, bass. Except for a couple years between 1988 and 1990, Hatch's sole regular bass player was Joe Wittfeld. A few personnel who filled in for him, were Adam Page, Bryan Hicks, and Paul Hartfield (who was Hatch's bassman from 1988 to 1990, when the job was passed back to Wittfeld).
In 1993, the Modern Blues label released Well, All Right!, his first nationally distributed album. In 1997, Chad Kassem opened Blue Heaven Studios and founded the APO label. Kassem had befriended Hatch in the mid-1980s and asked him to be his first signed recording artist. The album Goin' Back was released in 2000, followed by Rock with Me Baby in 2003. From 1999 to 2001, Hatch occasionally toured other parts of the United States and twice toured Europe. He settled in Kansas City and performed locally, frequently playing at BB's Lawnside Bar-B-Q and other venues.
In 2002, he was diagnosed with cancer. Hatch died in El Dorado Springs, Missouri, in January 2003. Some of the pallbearers at Hatch's funeral were Joe Wittfeld, Bill Dye, and Jaisson Taylor.
Sunshine Ruby (October 24, 1939* -January 26, 2022) was an American singer who in the early 1950s, became a child star in the Texas country music scene.
Sunshine Ruby was a native of Myrtle Springs, Texas, a town about 50 miles east of Dallas. Her real name was Ruby Bateman. A Cowboy Songs article on "The Younger Generation" in 1953 told readers she started school at the age of five and became a favourite performer at school plays and neighbourhood gatherings. She was invited by Bob and Joe Shelton when she was 11 years old to appear on their barn dance show at the Mayfair Club in Tyler, TX - The Texas Barn Dance. She was a hit with the audiences and stayed with the show for eleven weeks. Then she did a fifteen minute show with Joe Shelton on KTER in Terrell, TX.
One weekend, she was in Dallas and by chance had the opportunity to perform at a Big D Jamboree show . Producer Al Turner didn't think much of the young girl's performance and let her sing one song. However, the audience was so enthusiastic that Sunshine Ruby couldn't leave the stage until after her third song. She was immediately brought on board as a regular member of the show. Her performances soon made her popular throughout Texas and earned her the nickname "Sweetheart of the Big D Jamboree." Talent scouts from the major label RCA Victor saw Ruby at the Jamboree in 1953 and signed her to RCA.
When she was 13 years old, her first single, "Too Young To Tango" b/w " Hearts Weren't Meant To Be Broken ," was released later that same year and became a national hit. Her sessions for RCA took place in Nashville with studio musicians who, however, didn't take their work with the young 13-year-old seriously. Guitarist George Barnes, in particular, frequently veered into jazzy improvisational solos instead of using the standard country licks that would have suited Ruby's voice far better. This significantly degraded the quality of the songs, and her singles achieved only modest success. Even a few duets with teen idol Tommy Sands couldn't remedy the situation.
Along the way, Jim Boyd heard her sing at a personal appearance in Wills Point, TX and invited her to appear on his show during one of his personal appearances. She went over so well, that Jim took her with him to Dallas to appear on his radio show. Country Song Roundup published a list of the Top Ten Male and Female Country Artists of 1953 in its February 1954 issue and it included Sunshine Ruby. By this time she had her own fan club. The president was Blanche Trinajstick of Pueblo, CO.
Blanche would go on to later publish a monthly newsletter / magazine called "K Bar T Roundup." Blanche told readers in her Hoedown magazine Fan Club column that Ruby's fan club had pooled their resources and bought Ruby a "real purty western shirt, blue, with white embroidery and fringe trimming the yoke for her 14th birthday.
The three-day Red River Valley Exposition was held in October 1954. Total attendance was over 13,000 and on Wednesday over 7,000 showed up. But even more were expected on Thursday night when Charline Arthur was to be the headline act and would be backed up by other Big D Jamboree performers including Sunshine Ruby, Riley Crabtree, the Belew Twins, Joe Bill, Johnny Hicks and the Country Gentlemen Band. But the weather did not cooperate. News accounts indicate a chilly wind blew through the area that night but attendance at least matched the previous night. Over 1,200 people took in the Big D Jamboree concert short of the capacity crowd expected.
She was part of the entertainment package that came to the Mayfair Building in Tyler, TX in September 1955. Al Turner, then of KTBB in Tyler and former owner of the Big D Jamboree was the emcee for a show that included stars of the Louisiana Hayride and Big D Jamboree would be on hand. The star studded line-up included Jimmy and Johnny, Billy Walker, Janet Hicks, Hoot and Curley from the KWKH Hayride show. It also included Bob Shelton, Jo Bill, Cornbread, Sunshine Ruby, La Faun Paul and the Texas Sweethearts, Treon and Dwight from the Big D Jamboree. She also sang on the Eddie Arnold Show, Jerry Lewis Telethon, Rockefeller Plaza in New York City, NY, and many other places throughout her brief music career. As a teenager, her father was strictly protective and discouraged her from pursuing Hollywood or moving away to tour full-time.
Sunshine Ruby retired from the music business and married the love of her life Glenn Clower in 1956 and together they raised their 4 children and owned & operated Glenn's Automotive in Grand Saline, Texas where Glenn died in 2009 and where Sunshine Ruby sadly lost her fight with Alzheimer's on January 26, 2022.
(Edited from Wikipedia & Ancestry)(*some sources wrongly give birthdate as the 19th October)
Archie Fisher MBE (23 October 1939 – 1 November 2025) was a Scottish folk singer and songwriter. Although he was a legendary figure in the Scottish folk music world he remained largely unknown to the greater pop music mainstream. Her hosted his own radio show on BBC Radio Scotland for almost three decades.
Archie Macdonald Fisher was born in Glasgow, into a large family of semi-professional musicians and learned to play the guitar at a young age. After Hyndland senior secondary school, Archie joined the merchant navy. On a New Jersey jukebox he heard the Glaswegian Lonnie Donegan’s skiffle version of Rock Island Line and bought a guitar on his return home. Hearing the 1957 album The Weavers at Carnegie Hall and seeing Pete Seeger and then Josh White in concert in his late teens steered the direction of Archie’s music, making him more politically aware, and conscious of the Scottish song tradition. He sang at the newly opened Glasgow Folksong Club alongside an informal group of singers known as the Broomhill Bums.
Ray & Archie 1960
Archie dropped out of agricultural college and, in 1960, moved to Edinburgh, where he joined the regular performers including Hamish Imlach, Bert Jansch and Billy Connolly at the celebrated folk club the Howff, which became a hive of activity during the Edinburgh fringe. With the encouragement of the future Labour MP Norman Buchan, Archie and Ray recorded an EP, Far Over the Forth, for Topic in 1961, and they sang both solo and together on the albums Edinburgh Folk Festival volumes 1 and 2, for Decca, recorded during the fringe. Following the lead of the BBC TV programme Tonight, which featured the folk singers Robin Hall and Jimmie Macgregor, Scottish Television introduced Here and Now, with songs from Archie and Ray, and they also appeared on the BBC’s Hoot’nanny Show (1963-64).
Here's "Whatever Happened To Me?" from above LP
In the tradition of the Coppers and the Watersons, Archie and Ray joined with their parents and sister Cilla and her husband Artie Tresize to form the Fisher Family. Playing both traditional material and Archie's own compositions, the Fisher Family were fixtures on the British folk circuit through the mid-'60s and released the album The Fisher Family: Traditional & New Songs from Scotland in 1965.
The family group split up in 1966 when Ray married and moved to London and Archie began his solo career. Fisher's first album, Archie Fisher, was released in 1968. Around that time, Fisher also began his decades-long association with the BBC; Fisher wrote original songs for BBC documentaries on subjects like rural island communities in the Hebrides, and also appeared on radio and television music programs with regularity.
At an early-stage Fisher recognised the power of Barbara Dickson's singing and in 1969 invited her to guest on his albums. His live act included 'All Around My Hat', later to become a hit for Steeleye Span. His song "Witch of the Westmorland" was recorded by Dickson in 1971 on her album From the Beggar's Mantle, by Fisher himself on The Man With a Rhyme in 1976, by Stan Rogers in 1979 and by Golden Bough in 1983. Eventually, Fisher began working regularly with the BBC as a producer of radio documentaries and features. In 1983, Fisher inherited the series Traveling Folk, which he produced and hosted, from the previous presenter Robin Hall until April 2010, when he handed over presenting duties to fiddler Bruce MacGregor.
He appeared as the lead guitarist on Tom Paxton's 1986 album, The Very Best of Tom Paxton, and performed with Tommy Makem and Liam Clancy on television, recordings and concert tours. He also produced the Irish duo's first four albums. Fisher's recorded output, for someone with such a long and prolific career, was surprisingly sparse, consisting of a handful of solo albums and a live duo album with Canadian fiddler Garnet Rogers. His style of singing was very gentle, and he generally avoided all electronic instruments, an exception is the recording of 'The last time I saw Esau Shaw' from the album 'Orfeo'. "Dark-Eyed Molly" has been recorded by Fairport Convention (who also recorded "The Wounded Whale"), Eva Cassidy, Stan Rogers and Sheena Wellington. "Lindsay" has been recorded by John Renbourn and has been a highlight at his live shows for years, while "Mountain Rain" has been recorded by Wizz Jones (along with Renbourn on guitar).
Fisher was much more active both as a live performer at festivals and concerts around the world (he directed the much-respected Edinburgh Folk Festival from 1988 to 1992) and as a producer for other artists, including several albums by the duo of Tommy Makem and Liam Clancy and the phenomenal group Silly Wizard. After Barbara Dickson achieved fame as an easy listening singer, it was many years before she sang folk songs again. When she did, Fisher was invited back to join her.
For many years, Archie lived in the Scottish Borders, where he kept horses and was a keen rider; he also pursued his deep interest in horse riding in Canada. Many of his songs reflected his love of the landscape and riding and their imagery, including Ride Through the Rainbow, The Black Horse and Ontario Dust. Recognized for his contributions to Scottish folk music, Archie was inducted into the Scots Traditional Music Hall of Fame. He was also appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2007 New Year Honours, for services to Traditional Scottish Music. Archie’s 2008 album, Windward Away, his first for 20 years, included long-lost recordings from the 70s. His final album, The Best Times After All (2019), was with his long-time collaborator the Canadian Garnet Rogers.
Archie Fisher died on November 1, 2025 at the age of 86.
Bruce Belland (born October 22nd, 1936) is best known for being the lead singer and co-founder of the Four Preps who accumulated record sales in excess of 100 million, including 29 hit singles, 15 gold albums, and 13 Grammies.
Bruce Gerald Belland was born in Chicago, Illinois on October 22nd, 1936, the second son of Rev. Stanley G. Belland, a Fundamentalist minister and his wife Hertha, a Gospel radio singer. He sang his first solo in church at age four. It was greeted with enthusiastic “Amens” from the congregation and his proud parent’s praise. And with that, his dream was born. He wanted to be a singer. His dream drew closer when his father became minister of the West Hollywood Community Church just off the Sunset Strip and immediately adjacent to up-scale Beverly Hills. During his adolescent years, he developed his vocal skills singing at the countless funerals conducted by his father. As a starstruck 15-year-old, he delivered newspapers “across the tracks” in Beverly Hills and had one-on-one encounters with Oscar-winning stars and the A-list of old Hollywood’s entertainment community. He attended Emerson Junior High in West L.A. with a student body drawn from affluent Bel Air and Brentwood.
While he developed and refined his harmonic instincts inspired by another group he idolized – The Four Freshmen—his father had him composing personalized songs for church events. In 1952, Bruce enrolled at Hollywood High. It was here in 1954 that Bruce convinced Glen Larson, a friend since grammar school, to co-found a vocal group for that year’s student talent show. Bruce, Glen and two pals from the school choir, stole the show with the Crew Cuts’ “Sh-Boom.” Convinced they were on to something special, Bruce and Glen enlisted two classmates—Bruce’s friend 6’4” bass and high school football star Ed Cobb, and high tenor and former boy soprano in the famed Mitchell Boys Choir, Marv Ingram—to permanently fill the other two slots. And The Four Preps were born.
Bruce Belland sang lead tenor, Glen Larson, baritone, Marvin Inabnett (later changed to Ingram), high tenor, and Ed Cobb, bass. Their friend, Lincoln Mayorga, was an unofficial fifth Prep. The four original members were signed to a recording contract by Capitol Records, after one of Capitol's executives saw them at a talent show at the Hollywood High school in 1956. They had a minor chart hit that year with "Dreamy Eyes". Between 1956 and 1964, the Preps reached the Billboard pop charts with 13 different songs. In 1957 they appeared with Lindsay Crosby, Bing Crosby's son, in the television special The Edsel Show. Their biggest hit was "26 Miles (Santa Catalina)," which was written by Belland and Larson in 1957 and reached number two early the following year. The record sold over one million copies, earning a gold disc. Around this time, Ricky Nelson appeared with them at a Hamilton High School lunch hour assembly singing "Blue Moon of Kentucky".
Belland and Larson also wrote "Big Man", which reached number three in 1958. In the United Kingdom, it peaked at number two on the UK Singles Chart, thus becoming the group's biggest hit there. The pair also composed new lyrics for the older tune "Down by the Station", which peaked at number 13 in 1960. Cobb wrote a handful of songs for the group, though not any of their chart hits; Cobb later became a noted writer and/or producer of hit material for other artists, especially The Standells' "Dirty Water", Brenda Holloway's "Every Little Bit Hurts" and Gloria Jones' "Tainted Love," later recorded by Soft Cell. Many Four Preps records were arranged by their high school friend and collaborative pianist Lincoln Mayorga who became known as the fifth Prep.
Don Clarke replaced Ingram in 1958 with the Album “The Things we did last summer,” and continued with them for over a year. In 1959, the group appeared as themselves in the film Gidget. Don was in a car accident on July 22, 1959 and was not able to continue with the Four Preps. Ingram finished college at UCLA, and rejoined the group in 1960. The group was known for its family-friendly comedic humour in live performances. In 1960, they recorded a parody single, "More Money for You and Me," which included single parody verses of several popular songs by The Fleetwoods, The Hollywood Argyles, The Platters, The Four Freshmen, The Kingston Trio and Dion and the Belmonts. In 1962, they released "The Big Draft", another novelty record in which they mockingly suggested that several American music groups be drafted into the military, parodying their songs to make the point.
The group last appeared on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in 1964, when "A Letter to The Beatles" charted for a total of three weeks beginning March 21, peaking at number 85 before being pulled from sale. The arrival of The Beatles, along with the rest of the British Invasion, coincided with the decline of popularity of the Four Preps and most other folk revival groups. In 1966, David Somerville, formerly of The Diamonds, joined the group, replacing Cobb. In 1969, the group disbanded, as their type of music had become less popular. Belland and Somerville occasionally performed as a duo after the breakup.
Belland continued writing songs for other singers, as well as writing television show scripts, eventually becoming a network executive. He was also a producer on several game shows in the 1970s for Ralph Edwards Productions. Cobb became a record producer and sound engineer. Somerville went into television acting and providing voice-overs. Larson became a television producer/writer/director, creating Battlestar Galactica, Knight Rider and variety television series.Clarke became a music teacher. In the 1980s, Belland, Cobb, Somerville, and Jim Pike (formerly of the Lettermen) eventually formed a new "Four Preps" group and went on to perform. Jim Yester, formerly of The Association, replaced Pike in 1993, and the group became the "New Four Preps".
In March 1999, Ingram died of a heart attack and Cobb died of leukemia in Honolulu, Hawaii later the same year. Yester, Belland and Somerville then recorded and toured for a short time as “Triple Gold – The Three Tenors of Pop” and then moved on to pursue individual opportunities. In 2004 PBS asked Bruce to put together a one shot version of the Four Preps for “Magic Moments”, a PBS Special saluting the hit makers of the 1950s. Bruce, Glen Larson, Jim Yester and David Somerville performed on that show as The Four Preps and the program has become one of public television's biggest fund raisers. That appearance resulted in a groundswell of demand for a Preps’ tour and in 2007 the group were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame. Bruce, the last original member still performing, formed a new version of the group and averaged 35 concerts a year until 2020 when the global health crisis put a halt to their touring. Sadly Somerville died on July 14, 2015.
Beyond his music career, Bruce has worked as a screenwriter, television executive, and author, releasing his memoir Icons, Idols and Idiots of Hollywood in 2023. He also continues to publish regular updates and newsletters for fans. Bruce, his wife Simone Alexander, a prominent fashion designer now on the faculty of Fashion Institute of Design in Los Angeles live in Woodland Hills, California.
(Edited from Wikipedia & Bruce Beland.com web site)
Isaiah Ross (October 21, 1925 – May 28, 1993), known as Doctor Ross, was an American blues musician who usually performed as a one-man band, simultaneously singing and playing guitar, harmonica, and drums. Ross's primal style has been compared to John Lee Hooker, Blind Boy Fuller and Sonny Boy Williamson I.
Charles Isaiah Ross was born on October 21, 1925, in the Mississippi Delta town of Tunica, Mississippi, one of eleven children in a farming family of mixed African-American and Native American heritage. His first instrument was the harmonica, which he learned to play at age nine, then later drums. Ross served in the United States Army from 1943 to 1948 in the Pacific Theater, and again from 1950 to 1951. He married shortly after leaving the army. During his service, he was posted in the military hospital where he accrued a collection of army medical books which, along with his habit of carrying his harmonicas in a doctor's bag, earned him the nickname "Doctor Ross."
Ross made his professional debut in 1942 at the age of seventeen, broadcasting on the radio station KFFA in Helena, Arkansas. Ross regularly played parties and appeared on WROX and WDIA after his army service. In late 1951, Ross recorded his first 78 RPM record, "Country Clown," produced by Sam Phillips in Memphis and issued on the nascent Chess label. Ross would issue two more singles recorded with Phillips, both on Phillips' own Sun Records label, in 1953 and 1954.
In October 1954, Ross moved his family to Flint, Michigan, and began working at a General Motors factory. This employment, which Ross held for the rest of his life, afforded him a comfortable middle-class lifestyle. In 1958, Ross recorded "Industrial Boogie," a Flint-centric take on "Boogie Chillen'" by John Lee Hooker, released on his own DIR imprint.
From 1960 to 1963, Detroit-based Fortune Records released four singles by Ross, including 1961's "Cat Squirrel," which later brought Ross to the attention of rock audiences when the song was covered on the debut albums of both Cream and Jethro Tull. Following his Fortune singles, which were recorded with accompanists, Ross began recording most of his songs solo, providing vocals, guitar, hi-hat and bass drum played with foot pedals, and harmonica with a neck rack. The left-handed Ross added to his colorful presentation by playing a right-handed guitar upside down, with the bass strings on the bottom.
Ross's first album, Call the Doctor, was recorded as a one-man band and issued in August 1965. The same year, he toured Europe with the American Folk Blues Festival. In 1971, Fourtune issued his second album, Doctor Ross the Harmonica Boss, recorded with the Disciples. The same year, the Flamin' Groovies covered Ross's "Boogie Disease"—albeit uncredited—under the title "Doctor Boogie" on their album Teenage Head. Ross recorded live albums in Germany and Switzerland in 1972. Two years later, Ross played on the Big Bear Records package tour and album American Blues Legends '74.
In 1981, Ross won a Grammy Award for Best Ethnic or Traditional Recording for his appearance on Rare Blues, a 1980 compilation album of blues artists recorded in Chicago from 1963 to 1965. In the latter part of his career, Ross was a frequent fixture at blues festivals in both the United States and Europe. His last album was recorded live in 1991 at the Burnley Blues Festival in England.
Ross died at the age of 67 on May 28, 1993, while working at a Chevrolet plant in Flint, Michigan. After his death, a music scholarship in his name was established at Mott Community College in Flint.
Stuart Hamblen (October 20, 1908 – March 8, 1989) was an American entertainer who in 1926 became one of radio's first singing cowboys, going on to become a singer, actor, radio show host and songwriter.
Carl Stuart Hamblen was born in Kellyville, Texas, four miles west of Jefferson, the son of itinerant Methodist preacher Dr. J.H. Hamblen. As a boy, he spent much of his time traveling with his father on his evangelical pursuits, eventually taking the young Stuart to Hamlin, Texas, out Abilene way. There he encountered the lore of the western cowboy, and his songs, as well as that of black field hands. He attended McMurry College with intentions to become a teacher, but instead was drawn to music. In 1926, Stuart Hamblen began singing on KFYO in Abilene, by some accounts making him radio’s first singing cowboy. Three years later, he won a talent contest in Dallas, and used the cash prize to secure passage northward to Camden, New Jersey, home of the Victor Talking Machine Company, where he aimed to make some records, following much in the footsteps of his antecedent Carl T. Sprague.
On June 6, 1929, Hamblen made his recording debut with four sides for Victor, singing and strumming his guitar to “The Boy in Blue”, “Drifting Back to Dixie”, “When the Moon Shines Down Upon the Mountain”, and “The Big Rock Candy Mountains, No. 2”. Thereafter, the young man went west, to California, where he became “Cowboy Joe” on Los Angeles’ KFI. Meanwhile, he made a further ten sides for Victor through 1931, culminating with his own popular compositions “My Brown-Eyed Texas Rose” and “My Mary”, both later popularly covered by the the Light Crust Doughboys and Milton Brown.
By the middle of the 1930s, Hamblen had formed a western band called his “Covered Wagon Jubilee” (or simply his “Gang”), which at one point included guitarist Wesley Tuttle, and with whom he recorded again, first making a pair of unreleased sides for the American Record Corporation in 1934, before signing with Decca for another nine that year and the next, of which all but one were released. He became a top Western singer- songwriter with "My Brown-Eyed Texas Rose", "Out On The Texas Plains", "Golden River", "My Mary", etc. His Decca sides proved to be his last records for nearly a decade, none of which ever seemed to sell very well, and he focused primarily on his radio work.
In his early career as a singing cowboy Hamblen composed the song "Texas Plains". It was this song that Patsy Montana reworked into her million-seller hit "I Want to Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart" (1935).
From the late 1930s through the ’40s, Hamblen also appeared in several motion pictures, several of which starred Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, and John Wayne. In 1938, he ran for Congress in California, as a Democrat. During World War II, he wrote and sang some patriotic songs, and recorded again for Russian spy Boris Morros’ American Recording Artists (ARA) label in 1944.
At the height of his singing cowboy fame, Stuart Hamblen built up quite a reputation as a hard drinker, gambler, and all-around hellraiser. He’d get drunk, shoot out streetlights, and get sent to jail, only to have his sponsors bail him out so he could be on the radio the next day. But that changed when Billy Graham came to Los Angeles on his first Crusade in 1949. Hamblen’s wife persuaded him to attend the revival, and the reverend turned his life around. Hamblen experienced a religious awakening, and announced the very next day on his radio program that he was “hitting the sawdust trail.”
Hamblen's recording career began anew in 1949, this time on Columbia Records. During 1949-54 he scored four self- penned Top 10 country hits: - I Won't Go Huntin' With You Jake (But I'll Go Chasin' Women). (Remember Me) I'm The One Who Loves You. A # 2 hit in 1950. It Is No Secret (What God Can Do). This was a pop hit for both Jo Stafford (# 15) and Bill Kenny and the Song Spinners (# 18) in 1951. This Ole House. Hamblen's own version (on RCA) went to # 2 on the country charts and # 26 on the pop charts, but in the version of Rosemary Clooney it topped the hit parade in both the USA and the UK (1954).
From then on out, Hamblen dedicated his work to sacred music and recording far more prolifically—and successfully—than ever before, with sessions for Columbia, RCA Victor, and Coral. "This Ole House" was inspired during a hunting trip in the High Sierras with John Wayne and guide Monte Wolfe. The two men came upon what looked like an abandoned shack, wherein they found the body of an elderly man, apparently dead of natural causes. Hamblen came up with the lyrics to the song while riding horseback down the mountain, and composed the melody within a week. In addition to being a No. 1 hit for Clooney, it was later recorded by Roberta Sherwood and The Statler Brothers, among many others.
He also prominently supported the temperance movement, and, after his radio show was cancelled because he refused to do advertise beer, he renewed his political ambitions in 1952 with a presidential run on the Prohibition Party ticket, garnering 72,949 votes. He also remained associated with Billy Graham, who credited much of his success to Hamblen’s timely conversion. In 1955, Hamblen had a hit single with "Open Up Your Heart (And Let the Sunshine In)" (B-side "The Lord is Counting on You"), performed along with his family under the name "The Cowboy Church Sunday School." Hamblen was accompanied by wife Suzy, daughters Veeva Suzanne and Obee Jane (Lisa), and two of the girls' friends. The song was recorded at the phonograph speed of 33 RPM so that, played back at the normal 7-inch–single speed of 45 RPM, it sounds like children singing. The tune hit No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 pop charts in 1955.
Hamblen was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970. Received the ACM Pioneer Award (1972) and was honoured with “Stuart Hamblen Day” Los Angeles on February 13, 1976 and was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Radio at 6419 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on February 19, 1976. He also received the Gene Autry Golden Boot Award (1988). Following a battle with brain cancer, Stuart Hamblen died at the age of eighty on March 8, 1989 in Santa Monica, California. He was posthumously Inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame (1994),the Western Music Hall of Fame (1999), and the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame (2001).
(Edited from Old Time Blues, Wikipedia & This Is My Story)
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