Omar Blondahl born 2 February 1923

Omar Blondahl, (6 February 1923 – 11 December 1993), also known as "Sagebrush Sam", was a musician who became fascinated with the largely unrecorded folk songs of Newfoundland, Canada, and became famous for popularizing them. 

Blondahl was born in Wynyard, Saskatchewan of Icelandic parents. Like many children of immigrants, Omar , who grew up in Winnipeg, did not start speaking English until he began school. By the time he reached high school he had studied piano, violin, voice, and music theory, and had performed in local Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. 

By his late teens he was working in radio dramas. In 1943, following several years of Army service, he returned to radio, working for the next eight years at radio stations in western Canada as a DJ, announcer, and performer and taking the nane “Sagebrush Sam “. As a performer he was involved in drama and music. He played some fiddle but mainly rhythm guitar in old-time music orchestras, and sang folksongs to his own guitar accompaniment as a soloist. 

                                    

In 1947 he joined the staff of CFRN in Edmonton, Alberta. During his years in Edmonton he also appeared on CBC shows with the bands of old-time fiddler Ameen "King" Ganam and polka accordionist Gaby Haas. Following a successful stint in organizing a radio March of Dimes campaign at CFRN that drew the largest contributions in Canada for 1951, he took the advice of well-wishers and went off to seek his fortune in Hollywood. 

Following two interesting but not particularly productive years, during which he made his first commercial recordings, he ended up in Portland, Oregon. There he joined Smiling Ernie Lindell and his New England Barn Dance Jamboree. For the next two years he toured with this band as fiddler and solo vocalist with, in his words, "a ballad singing act." 

Late in 1955 he left that band and, deciding to visit Iceland, he got a job on a boat and came to Newfoundland, where he stopped to work for a while in order to earn the rest of his passage. Walking into a local radio station with his guitar, he applied for what he expected to be a temporary announcer’s job. Soon he was a hit on local airwaves, singing traditional Newfoundland songs. Within a few years, he was a star of regional radio and television, had produced more than a dozen record albums in the 60’s and 70’s and was a household name throughout Atlantic Canada. 

Modern folklorists credit him with establishing the modern Newfoundland folksong “canon” and preserving ballads that might otherwise have been lost as the new province’s culture was swamped by a blander Canadiana. Then at the peak of his career, he suddenly disappeared. Most Newfoundlanders (including his family) had no idea where he went. Apparently he moved to the Arctic and in 1979 settled in Vancouver where he was tracked down, living in an apartment. 

He died in Vancouver, British Columbia,11 December 1993 at the age of 70. 

(Edited from the Canadian Journal for Traditional Music, Canadian Encyclopedia & AllMusic )